Bogus Gold

So I threw my back out last night. I know what you're thinking: "Doug, what did you throw out a perfectly good back for?" And given an entire night of agony to think about it, I must reluctantly agree it probably wasn't a terrific idea.

See, Santa Claus comes tonight, and he normally expects the wife and I to give him a little hand setting up all eight-hundred eleventy-two loud, breakable, or multi-piece toys for the little ones Christmas morning. Plus, we have all the non-Santa gifts - the ones from relatives - to open Christmas Eve. Due to the super-inquisitive nature of our children we can’t put those presents under the tree until roughly five seconds before they’re allowed to open them. So there is some present hauling from secret storage to under the tree beforehand. That didn’t seem like a lot of work until last evening when I discovered the amazing amount of effort it took to walk and breathe at the same time.

I’m working on medication to make things a little more bearable. I’ve got these AsperCream patches on both sides of my back at the moment. Can’t tell if they’re doing anything positive, but they do make me smell like a giant walking Vicks, so I have that going for me.

If anyone would like to donate emergency rations of pain-killing extra-strength eggnog, let me know ASAP.