I am writing this column standing up for the same reason I am doing everything standing up this week: I can’t sit down.
No, I didn’t get quilled in the backside by an angry porcupine. Nor did I fall asleep on a nude beach while lying on my stomach or squat on a red ant’s nest. In fact my butt isn’t bothering me at all. It’s my left leg.
The trouble began three weeks ago with a sneeze that sent my lower back into a spasm. For the next week I watched pro basketball players, World Cup soccer players and Broadway hoofers at the Tony Awards contort their bodies into preposterous positions while I could barely pull on my socks.
The week after that I spent roughly half of a five-hour flight to California standing by a bulkhead reading a magazine like a rush-hour subway rider because it felt better to stand than to sit.
This week, the pain migrated from my back to my leg. You would think, if your leg was bothering you, that the obvious solution would be to take a load off. But for reasons a doctor might be able to explain if I could bear to sit in a car long enough to get to a doctor’s office, the leg hurts worse when I sit.
Or lie down. As you might imagine, the inability to lie down has made sleeping rather problematical. The first night I may actually have dozed off horsy-style, while standing in the middle of the room. And I’m pretty sure I slept for 20 minutes or so while kneeling on the floor with my head on the bed, like a child who nods off during his nightly prayers.
Last night, after taking the PM version of an over-the-counter painkiller, I was able so sleep on my stomach for an hour or two.
But now it’s daytime and my mother raised me to believe that it is important to do something productive every day so I’m trying to think of useful things I can do while standing around, apart from writing this column, that is. Some possibilities:
In the garden: Stand me up in the vegetable patch and you wouldn’t see crows brazenly sitting on my shoulders and feigning fear of an obviously faux foe. Unlike the traditional straw-filled scarecrow, I could wave my arms and raise a ruckus. You could even have me double as a tomato stake or beanpole, though I don’t exactly have a beanpole body (which is why I’m not proposing to rent myself out as an artist’s model).
In the front yard: Dress me in jockey’s silks and put a lantern in my hand and I could be your lawn jockey. Stick me in a sunny corner and I could serve as a sundial.
At a checkpoint: Looking to fill a sentry-level position at a border crossing or the entrance to a secure installation like a government building, gated community, bridge or tunnel? I could be your Beefeater, credential checker or toll taker.
In a museum: As a guard I wouldn’t even need to take a break because I wouldn’t sit down anyway.
On the highway: If your tax dollars are going to be used to pay road construction crews to stand around, you may as well hire a guy who isn’t good for anything else.
On the street: I could perform a number of marketing tasks, including handing out flyers, hawking papers and wearing a sandwich board.
On the movie set: Need extras to mill around in the background? I’d need very little rehearsing. These days, all I do is mill around.
In the home: Too tired to hang up your sport coat but afraid it’ll get wrinkled if you toss it onto a chair? Just toss it to me and I’ll put it on and wear it until the next time you want to wear it. I could also serve as a tie rack, towel rack or laundry-drying rack. Not sure whether to hang the masterpiece over the sofa or the fireplace? I can spend half the day holding the painting in one location and the other half holding it in the other while you make up your mind. Just don’t ask me to housesit.
At the ballpark: During football games I can be the guy who holds the sticks that tell what down it is. In baseball I can be a first base coach (my injury does not prevent me from patting rumps).
In the classroom: Need a sub to stand in front of the room and babble at students who are not paying the slightest attention? Believe me, I have tons of experience.
Hire me and I promise you this: You’ll never catch me lying down on the job or participating in any sit-down strikes.
