I walked to a shop to get some shaving cream on my lunch break. A bakery had sandwiches. I bought a ciabatta with mozzarella, tomatoes and lettuce. You get a bottle of Emotion free with it, the lady said. Emotion is this drink they sell here. It is like water, only with some sugar and a choice of essential oils or flavors, I think. They have, maybe, lemon grass or pear or guarana and so on. But the lady was out of most of these. All she had left was either frustration or ass-consciousness. I have enough frustration already, I joked. I'll take the ass-consciousness.
Today it's hot so I'd better eat this salmon-cheese spread sandwich I made early before it can spoil.
My physical therapist told me one half of my ass was significantly bigger than the other half. Your wife has probably told you this already, she said. Nah, I said.
So ever since then, everything I do, I feel how my ass is lopsided.
I can barely sit on a bike. It's a miracle I don't walk in circles.
It ties in with my back pain. I have a bad knee from a fall I took skiing a long time ago. That might have set everything else into motion, affecting other joints, giving me bad posture and a crooked pelvis and so on. And the back pain.
She said the a(s)symmetry might be because the pelvis was crooked and go away when it was straight.
She straightened my pelvis last time, but I forgot to ask about my ass.
I should never have drunk that Emotion.
Brilliant!
On a serious note, I stopped putting my wallet in my back pocket, and my back issues are a lot less now.
Posted by: Bauke at June 21, 2007 08:42 AMlet me guess, you were on a trip to southern italy?
again, seriously, you might have a point, my doctor also told me wallets cause back problems. maybe i should try that. when i think about it, my ass is symmetrical when i have the wallet in my pants...
Posted by: mig at June 21, 2007 08:51 AM"Wallet-ass" is a nearly universal complaint among middle-aged men. You need one of those ultra-slim mini-wallet things that hold one or two plastic cards and some cash and go in your front pocket without looking like a leg tumor. Or a man-purse.
Posted by: Brian at June 21, 2007 01:26 PMI am sorry that I didn't notice your ass the last time I saw you. To be fair, I was distracted by your hands. I will definitely give your ass a good long look next time and tell you how it looks in those pants. This is what friends do for each other, no?
Posted by: anne at June 21, 2007 08:21 PMAt least your story explains why a colleague gave me a bottle of Emotion yesterday and claimed it was a gift from her to me (which seemed rather strange and unmotivated in the first place, especially since I'm not too fond of sugared and pear-flavoured mineral water). Anyway, thanks for clearing this up, she had me seriously confused with this.
Posted by: Horst at June 22, 2007 08:37 AMYou write about this in a very funny way, mig, although the situation itself, 1.e., back pain, body out of alignment, is not so funny. It's true though that a fairly minor injury such as a sprained ankle can cause gait changes which can lead to hip pain, and on up the line.
I'm curious about another thing: is this Emotion drink merely sweetened and flavored water, or does it contain herbal ingredients such as ginseng, gingko biloba, ma huang, etc.?
Posted by: Jann at June 22, 2007 02:09 PMThere are different flavors. Pear, for example, contains a little pear flavor. Guarana... pfff... has a picture of a guarana on the label. I have the impression that the Emotion products are more about image than contents, and have no real health benefits, but I could be wrong. They contain less sugar than Coke, but are not as miraculous as some bottled water health products I've seen in the States.
Posted by: mig at June 22, 2007 02:20 PM