Easily Amused

First: today sucked. And I mean, it SUCKED. I went in, but I was hurting in a way that I haven't since, oh, giving birth. I did manage to sleep for a few hours, at least--a definite step up from the night before--but I was flat on my back (shut up, bitches)--and if my neck shifted at ALL in the middle of the night, I immediately woke right up (usually swearing). In the morning, I popped a couple of my muscle relaxers (FYI: I am NOT impressed. They don't seem to be doing shit for me) and a prescripion Motrin and went to work. I mean, let's face it, staying home wouldn't have done much good in this case. I was gonna hurt either way. I did, however, turn my lights off and cry in my room for a few minutes at lunchtime. And my lessons sounded something like this (in the examples below, guess the part at which I would forget about my neck and suddenly move or turn it):

"A prime number is a number that only has 2 factors. In other words, the only way you can get that number is to multiply--owowowowowow!!!--that number and itself."

Or

"Remember, the Patriots were fighting for freedom from Britain. The Loyalists--owwwwwwwwwwwww!!--wanted the colonies to stay under British control."

Or

"In a chemical change, a whole new--motherfucker!! Son of a bitch!! Jesus, that one hurt!! Holy fuck!--substance is formed."

Okay, so that last one didn't happen. But I totally had to bite my tongue.

Yeah, I was pretty miserable.

Anyway, within minutes of coming into the room this morning, my kids noticed that something was wrong, from the way I was turning my body to talk to them rather than just my head. Once everyone was in, I gave them the short version ("I hurt my neck this weekend and it's really stiff, so I can't move it very well") and we started our day.

After about 20 minutes, a boy raised his hand.

"Miss K, I don't mean to be rude," he started. "But your perfume REALLY stinks."

I grinned.

"Oh, you guys can smell that, huh? That's not perfume," I told him. "It's Ben Gay."

Oh. My. God. The entire room was immediately in an uproar.

"WHAT is Ben?" one kid asked.

"Wait, who's Ben?" wondered another.

"Guys," I said calmly. "You've heard of Icy Hot, right? It's just like that. But it's called Ben Gay."

"Why is it called THAT?" someone asked.

"Because," I started. Then I stopped. "Huh. You know, I'm not exactly sure. But that's what it's called, and it makes my neck feel better. Let's move on."

A little while later, I noticed a group whispering and giggling. "Hey," I said. "Work on your assignment, please."

"Miss K?" one of them innocently asked. "What's that stuff on your neck called again?"

I, of course, fell for it. "Ben Gay."

They all cracked up again.

Heh.

ps--I go back to the chiro tomorrow. He could only do a few minor things to me on Tuesday because the injury was so new and I was still pretty stiff and sore. But you know how some people absolutely hate the dentist? That's how I feel about chiropractors--and it's why I've never been to one. Hell, just the sound of KNUCKLES cracking is like nails on a chalkboard for me. The idea of my neck and back sounding like that totally skeeves me out. I'm just so squeamish about the whole thing--even if it doesn't hurt, it's the SOUND. And even though people say that a chiro visit makes you feel SOOOOOO good--how does it not HURT? He's jerking your NECK and SPINE around!! Ugh.