Cripple (From the 2008 Archives)

While moving some shit around in my garage tonight, I managed to completely blow out my left knee.  It collapsed while I had all my weight (and the weight of the stuff I was carrying) on it.  It popped out of socket and bent kind of sideways/inward.  It hurt like hell!  I’m pretty sure I strained or slightly tore my MCL.  After several hours of icing and elevating, I determined at about 10pm that I couldn’t walk for more than a few feet without hanging onto something.  Here begins the quest for some crutches and an ice pack.  First stop Walgreens.  I hobble into the store, get an ice pack and go over to where the crutches are.  There’s hangers and tags for crutches…  no crutches.  I manage to flag down one of the incredibly motivated stock people and ask where the hell the crutches are; assuming there must be another place in the store that they are sold.  5 minutes later, the stock person determines that they are out of crutches.  Of course!  I grab some survival gear (Licorice and Mt. Dew) and head back to the truck.  Next stop Meijer.

Upon arriving at Meijer I’m blessed with a full parking lot of shopping carts to lean on to get me into the store.  I seize my first legitimate opportunity to drive an Amigo motorized cart and blaze over to the medical supply section.  I was delighted to see a full stock of at least 4 pairs of crutches.  I grab a pair of the sturdy aluminum ones to support my tubby ass.  No dice.  I can’t get the damn things out of the rack.  Whomever stocked this section must have put the crutches in the rack before the top shelf was attached, because there’s no way to get them out of the hanger with it in place.  The hanger only allows the crutches to be removed by lifting them out, and the hanger is about 2? from the top shelf.  I struggle with the hanger and try to angle it upward so I can remove it from the shelving unit.  There’s too many crutches in the hanger to tilt it up enough to remove the hanger.  I flag down one of Meijer’s finest and ask them the proper way to remove the crutches from the display.  She walks over as if I am an imbecile and tries to lift them out of the rack herself.  30 seconds later she comes to the same conclusion I did.  She calls her supervisor over to assess the situation.  Another attempt is made… the crutches remain.  By now I am surrounded by a crowd of no less than 5 Meijer employees all eager to see the birthing.  The supervisor makes an executive decision to remove all of the items from the top shelf and disassemble it.  (At this point I’m looking around for a hidden camera).  I ask the supervisor to try to get the hanger out of the rack while I hold the rack in place, with hopes that we don’t have to unload the rack.  A minute or so later we are left with a 12? hole in the peg board, and an avalanche of condoms, ace bandages and thermometers.  But alas, the crutches have been freed from the rack.  I slap those babies onto the Amigo and head for the sunset.  Feeling extra agile with my fresh new wheels, I decide to pick up some other miscellaneous things like cereal, milk and more paper towel.  Hop-along Harry is homeward bound.

I get home and park by the side door so I can unload all of this crap onto the landing.  I notice that the milk jug seems curiously lighter than it was when I picked it up at the store.  Sure as shit, half the damn thing leaked out all over the floor behind the driver seat.  So here I am, hopping around on one leg with a pile of shit from my shopping spree and half a jug of milk dumped out in the back of my truck.  I invent some new vocabulary words and then go inside to get the paper towel that I already unloaded.  15 minutes of sopping, hopping and rinsing later, I give up for the night.  I fully expect that I’ll have a science experiment going on back there in the morning.  Joy.

So it’s now past midnight and I’ve finally returned to my couch.  I had to take the time to share this…

And people wonder why I’m so cranky all the time.