What a pain in the arse

Faithful readers of the Chords, Arnica greets you with a hardy, 'Hello.' Today is a great day—great because it is not the day after doing a long bike ride. No, it is two days after doing a long bike ride. What a difference a day makes. Arnica is very old and suffers from two old-person conditions (well, three, if you count Long Ear Hair-itis)—Sciatica and Gout. Both of which made themselves on-display last Sunday.

Arnica fears his ramble may have rambled past a few Chordies. So, let's back up. On Sunday, Arnica and 3500 other plastic wearing fools, paid good money for the chance to ride our motorless motorcycles around the too-hilly roads of Bainbridge Island. The ride was hilly but not too hilly. Arnica has ridden this ride about 124 times, so he is always ready for those hills. But this time, Arnica was joined by two old friends, soar toe and shooting nerve pain down the left leg. These two friends are always around but are often quite. Last Sunday, they weren't so quite. They were like two screaming kids in the back of the car that you want to smack, but instead just idly threaten with offering timeouts. On this ride, timeouts did not work. Arnica wanted to reach back and smack the taste out of the mouths of these two kids.

Gout was a semi-quite passenger. He only bothered Arnica once or twice during the ride and again that night as Arinca took-in his nightly sleep regiment of 5 beers, 1 sleeping pill, 3 puffs from the "puffer" and 4 hours of watching not-the-Oscars. Ol' pal Sciatica, on the other hand, was a much more vocal passenger on the ride. Sciatica let himself be heard starting at about the first 30 minutes in, and only quieted down during times of not pedaling.

But the day was saved by a nice man who goes by the letter, "H." H found Arnica 3 pink pills of happiness that eventually stopped the pain, and allowed Arnica to ride on.

There is joy in curmudgeon land.