The third week of this infernal goddamned Joint Pain is closing, and despite my efforts at relaxing, stretching, and generally being crippled I actually feel worse overall. It is disgusting and I'm starting to wonder if they've perfected bionic arm replacements. I would gladly trade these useless skinny broken apendages for something that works.
It is 3:40 PM on a Friday, I am twenty minutes away from leaving work and my cube neighbor has finally started the Music War. We displayed remarkable restraint through this rotten day, even after the awful fat ape who works in the corner yelled out "I guess no one likes... THIS SONG." and cranked some two-minute honkey tonk number that I instantly forgot. But I guess it was too much to expect, in the end, for this man to restrain his remarkable compulsion to share Lite Jazz Hits with the entire office. It is - in his mind - a Sacred Right and Duty, and it is sanctified in the eyes of Jesus and also the President, who this man places on the same weird altar.
Well I'm not the type to tolerate that hoodoo garbage, so I crank up the classic Pumpkins and swamp the endless covers of 90s adult contemporary hits. There is not much else to do on a gray day in Pittsburgh, after all, except to lay ice on every joint on my arms and hands when I get home. The Shock Treatment - who knows? Maybe that's what I really need, just screw it on until everything goes numb. What I really want is to spend a week in the Rehab wing of a hospital, professional massage and hot tub therapies, no work and no distractions. With my luck I would end up assigned to the Large German Nurse, who would take some measure of twisted pleasure every time I squeaked in agony at her ministrations, but I would not care. Any movement is better than being stuck and helpless.
Allright, that's all for now. The hour has come and I will leave this place with a heart full of malice, which feels good in small doses. Shit, it also feels good to write, except when you have the arthritis of a 100 year-old man. Ah well.
