BURKARD'S BLOG
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24 JUL 03: THE KING OF PAIN
I missed a great opportunity Wednesday afternoon to do a good deed. As I waited for the light to change at 11th and Veterans Parkway, a man in a car two lanes over got my attention: "Do you have a spare lighter on you?" I forgot I had one, attached to the car dashboard - one I've never even used to warm a cinnamon roll.
"I don't carry a lighter with me because I don't smoke," I told the man two lanes over. "I need to quit myself," the man replied -- if only to avoid starting fires, from people throwing lighters in the middle of a street.
The request was a curious diversion on a challenging day. An online survey company has asked me to keep a one-week diary of all the times I experience pain. For the next week, I'm staying away from all my school yearbooks -- and all those pictures of good-looking women.
But seriously: beginning Wednesday, I was asked to jot down all my incidents of pain - then report them online in detail. How long do they last? Do I take anything to treat them? What was I doing? Oooo, there's the challenging part - not getting hurt doing anything that might get me reported to police.
Why should I save my pain information for the survey company? Thanks to blogging, you can be in on this week -- and maybe feel my pain:
1. Wednesday morning - I turn the car ignition on, and my right thumb hurts for a moment. Yet on the survey, this will be scored as pain for "an hour or less." Am I taking this survey too seriously?
2. While sitting at my home computer, my neck aches for a few seconds. I suppose this is "pain." But I'm reminded of where my Mom worked in the 1940's - the place she called "Aches and Pains," A&P.
3. Around noon, a mild hurt flares up for a moment in my right arm. I'm at the computer again - so maybe the answer is not to play so much "FreeCell."
4. Walking around the apartment, I feel a slight hurt in my left leg. And I wasn't even jumping around in anger at an Al Fleming commentary.
5. I reach up with my left hand to check some documents, and my right hand aches for a moment. I start to feel guilty for being left-handed.
6. Walking into a library, my left leg aches a bit again. Maybe this is why I'm getting all sorts of e-mail offers for motorized wheelchairs.
7. Inside the library, I'm working on documents at a computer when my right wrist hurts for a few seconds. I think the name for this is "Repetitive Stress" - and reporting all these aches online will only make things worse.
8. My right shoulder hurts for a few seconds as I drive. Now THIS can be explained - there's no woman in the passenger seat to hug.
9. I get home from my errands, and record all these things at the home computer - when the right wrist aches for a moment again. Maybe I'm a more sensitive guy than I realized.
10. As I write all this for the blog, my right shoulder aches a little more - yet I refuse to solve the problem, by adjusting the bag of tortilla chips on my desk.
(That ache came and went for more than an hour. Does that make it continuous? Shouldn't there be an option on the form for "rheumatism?")
11. As I stand in front of the TV, my left foot starts to hurt a little. So much for the healing power of radiation from those sets.
12. I go back to the computer, sit down - and my right toes hurt for a few seconds when I cross them. Oh boy! These survey people are going to think I work for Michael Moore or something....
Wow - 12 different pain reports, in less than 19 hours! Maybe I should give up on this survey, and apply with Social Security for disability checks.
Remarkably, I went running shortly before sunset - and didn't feel any pain at all! If the shortness of breath had turned into burning lungs leaving me keeled over on the Riverwalk, that might be a little different....
(NOTE: We'll keep you updated on how this "pain-o-rama" survey is going.)
Now for some odds and ends we discovered on Wednesday:
+ A group was formed to challenge the proposed Muscogee County school sales tax - the "Committee for Good Government." We're now waiting for Republicans to form their own group: the "Committee for Small, Mediocre Government."
+ Arrest warrants were issued for seven people accused of stealing thousands of dollars in Girl Scout cookie money. The lesson here is obvious -- the secret to successful cookie sales isn't always in the "dough." (Ahem....)
+ Memo to Eckerd Drugs on Wynnton Road: Why are you having a "Spring giftware" sale in late-July? Have you forgotten what season it is - or are you selling things like spring-loaded shock absorbers and clicking ink pens?
+ The ticket manager of the South Georgia Waves announced he will live in Golden Park until the team draws 1,500 fans for a home game. The fact that he's been doing this for a week, and it only now has become public knowledge, explains the
problem in a nutshell.
(By the way, we searched on "Google News" again for missing General Manager Dan Madden - and all we could find was a postal hauler on a bicycle in Philadelphia. Is the Waves job THAT bad?!?!)
+ The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor for a federal appeals' court seat - after several Democrats denied they're anti-Catholic. If more Alabama Baptists had known Pryor was Catholic, they might have voted for someone else in the first place.
+ The winner of the "Alabama Deep-Sea Fishing Rodeo" was disqualified, because he failed to pass a polygraph test. [True/Troy State Public Radio] If they're going to give lie detector tests to fishermen, before long hardly anyone will qualify for a license.
(Lie detector tests for fishermen? Hey, there's an idea - let's have one waiting for pro basketball stars after games.)