Lift With Your Knees

A buddy of mine’s father once told him not to lift with his back or he’s end up with “low hanging nuts.”  I don’t study the human body, anymore than every other red blooded American does on the internet, but this can’t possibly be accurate.

Every year at Christmastime, we move an antique sewing machine from its normal resting place to the other side of the house under a window.  This allows our Christmas tree to go where the sewing machine lives the rest of the year. 

Though Julie offers to help, I always do it myself.  “One man job, one man job…” That was a catchphrase of my father’s growing up that I have, probably NOT so rightly, adopted as a philosophy in life.  My brother’s & I never knew why my Dad insisted on doing everything himself, but we made fun of the saying when we were older. 

I made the traditional sewing machine transition this year with no incident allowing us to embark on our Yuletide journey.  It was glorious.  Thanks for asking.

But a problem arose when I went to put it back.  I decided to go low while lifting this heavy decoration (I’m fairly certain the thing doesn’t work, nor did it when it sat in my parent’s shed for over 10 years – thus making it nothing more than a heavy decoration).  My strategy, in going low, was that it would give me more leverage once I had it up.

BONER JOKES…GO!

The way I had lifted it over the years, including a mere month earlier, was to just get my fingers under the lip of the unit.

LABIA JOKES…You guys are better than that>

After lifting it, I’d waddle the length of the two rooms with the thing, because it was only about an inch or two off the ground.  I’d have no real “leg swinging room” to run a marathon, or even, you know, walk. 

This year I thought that completely picking it up to put it back would be quick & easy.  It turned out to be neither.

I reached low and lifted with my back.  Something I have been told not to do since I was a child, not unlike, “don’t take candy from a stranger.”  I heard three quick POPS. 

POP!  POP!!  POP!!! (BONER JOKES AGAIN?)

So quick were these three POPS, that they might have even been one continuous TEAR.

TEEEEEEEEAAAR!!! (Ladies, there’s nothing funny about a torn labia)

I immediately stood straight up and looked at Julie who had neither seen what I did, nor heard the deafening sound my back produced in my head.  I’d like to take a moment to back my self on the back (gently) for not screaming like a little girl.

“Our little boy’s all grows up.”

After dropping the machine, I immediately reverted to the way I have moved it for the past 7 Christmases in that house.  Really?  We’ve been there that long?

The house has since been deChristmased for another year, and now my back is killing me.  Sitting in a chair at work or home, or anywhere is an absolute nightmare.  At this point I’d gladly take candy from a stranger of that candy was a potent drug that would numb all the nerve endings in my body.

My back hurts so much I even find my self walking slightly bent over.  It occurs to me this makes the proximity of the ground and my nuts closer than normal. 

Dave, your Dad was right.