2/26

I try to earn my keep at my parents' house by cleaning every Saturday. It all starts off with the best intentions: I'll vacuum a little, reorganize, wipe down the counters. I'm very rigid in my lackidasical cleaning routine. By Saturday night, I'm laying on the couch with a heating pad on my back and walking to the bathroom and back with a definate limp. I have what I like to call retroactive pain. My back remembers what I did to it hours, sometimes even days beforehand and then charges me accordingly. Some women have a "monthly bill", but I have a nightly debt to my lower extremities. The fifteen pounds of weight that would stick out over my belt, if I still wore a belt, doesn't make it any easier.

Now, a rational woman would probably stop doing the activities that hurt her. Luckily, I've never been accused of being rational. I hate not being able to do things. I want to lift boxes, bench press my bed and pick up the table to vacuum underneath it the way the maid Rosy used to on the Jetson's. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, yes.