I was feeling a little grumpy and sorry for myself yesterday so I popped into the pub on the way home. I knew mixing painkillers with booze is a bad idea, but I wanted a beer. A frothy pint can clear away a days worth of grumpiness in less then fifteen minutes. They had a new beer there on tap that I had heard of but never tried 'Speckled Hen'. It was pretty good, if different. It had a thick foamy head on it like guinness, but it was not a dark beer. In my mind I kept calling it ‘white’ guinness. It was very smooth and creamy and not too bitter. I still like harps better, but it was a nice change.
So I had one pint. Hmm. Did not feel much. So I had another. And that’s when my brain started rolling about. thrum thrum thrum thrum. I decided to call it quits after that. I told the bartender I had fallen off a roof, and she cheerfully told me that another one of her customers had fallen off the roof just last week. See? Us roof-fallers are fairly common.
I got home with my head lolling about. Once the sun started to go down for a bit I decided to go for a walk to get the circulation going in my legs. I could not find my MP3 player. I had not seen it in months. It’s starting to annoy me that I cannot find it. I looked around for a radio. All I had was some cheap Chinese mass-manufactured fm radio that my sister had gotten free with a bottle of shampoo. It has a knob for a volume, and a button to scan to the next station. That was it. It worked and sounded like crap, but it was something to listen to.
I got down to the lake right when the sun was setting. It was huge on the horizon, a big red bloated ball. I bet it’s what superman’s sun looked like before it blew up. It was nice and breezy down there and there was not any bugs about. A few old timers were fishing with cane poles. Off in the distance some little kids were shrieking at the fact they are little kids.
Walked about halfway down riverwalk and then walked home. It seemed to my injuries a lot of good. My legs no longer hurt, its just my chest and back. My back pain forced me to take a strange rolling gait, like I was a sailor fresh form the seas back on land. But I was moving and not a cripple, so that’s a plus.
Some strange mass has developed in-between my buttock and hip where I landed. When I pull on a pair of pants it feels like there is something in my back pocket. It’s junk in my trunk, and no one is going to get love drunk off that hump. I read up on it and apparently its normal. If I keep my circulation going it will eventually fade away.
I took a bath. It felt heavenly. Between the walk and the bath and some stretching, I thought that perhaps tonight would be the night I could sleep in my bed again. No such luck. My bed is just too soft. If I lay on my one side I lay on my injury and the mystery lump. If I lay on the other side I can feel it pressing down from above. If I lay on my back that little pulled muscle in my back starts to spasm. If I lay on my stomach I feel all three. Finally I sighed and went out into the living room and spent another night sitting upright on the couch. It’s unnatural, but at least I can sleep.
I wonder where I can get a giant granola bar. I want something the size of a VCR tape. Mmm.
2026 Update
Dialing the machine to May 25, 2006, where Ed is one part beer, two parts painkillers, zero parts sensible.
Ah, 2006, when a man could mix painkillers and beer, visit the pub, and keep the whole disaster to himself. Now every questionable decision is a photo op, a livestream, or a sponsored post. Your missing MP3 player is extinct; today it would be a phone you’d also lose, except it could track itself—if you hadn’t turned off location, which you did. The free-with-shampoo FM radio is a relic of a world where shampoo gave you hardware; now it gives you a QR code and a data breach. Even the VCR-tape-sized granola bar is impossible, because VCR tapes are as dead as my patience. But the most striking shift? The lakeside scene with cane poles and shrieking kids would now be filmed, geotagged, and captioned as “vibes.” You simply lived it. Rookie.
“2006 Ed, was the bartender’s cheerful roof-falling story meant to comfort you, and did you ever find that MP3 player, or is it still sitting in some alternate timeline’s couch cushion?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that bartender... I think she was just being cheerful in the way bartenders are, trying to make conversation, you know? 'Oh, you fell off a roof? Bob over there did too!' It wasn't exactly a comforting hug, but it did make me feel less like a freak. Us roof-fallers, we're a club. Nobody wants to join, but the members are friendly enough. I'll take it.
As for the MP3 player... hmm. I still have no clue where that thing went. I tore the couch apart, checked the cushions, under the couch, everywhere. I'm starting to think it fell into some kind of time warp, or maybe a cat ate it. Moxie's been looking suspiciously plump. Either way, I'm stuck with that crappy shampoo radio for now. Maybe I'll find it someday. Maybe it's in the same place as my motivation to clean the garage. Take that, mystery lump.
