The Exertion

Apparently everyone thinks I am dying. Or at least they are treating me that way.

 

Ever since I wrote my little story last week about being poked mercilessly in the hospital, I have had what feels like several hundred people ask me if I was ‘okay.’

 

No, I’m not okay.

 

My knee hurts. My back hurts. My hips hurt. And I have an ingrown toenail.

 

But I’m not dying. I don’t think.

 

My doctor told me to go home and ‘try not to exert myself too much.’

 

My wife doesn’t understand that statement. She thinks that ‘try not’ means don’t do anything. She also thinks ‘exert’ applies to anything that weighs more than air.

 

I looked up the word exert. It means to make a physical effort.

Well, it takes a ‘physical effort’ to put on my pants in the morning and I’m allowed to do that.

 

It got especially bad when my youngest son and his new wife arrived to help us with Elevate this weekend. Apparently my wife had told them that any ‘exertion’ would cause me to have a stroke and be paralyzed from my eyeballs down.

 

They were worse than she was.

 

I tried going to get something to eat in the kitchen and my son almost tackled me to the floor to keep me from serving myself.

 

“Let me get that for you, Dad.”

 

“It just need a plastic fork.”

 

“The doctor said not to exert yourself.”

 

“It’s just a plastic fork. I think I can carry that to the table without having a myocardial infarction.”

 

And I could. A plastic fork weighs 0.212 ounces. I looked it up.

 

Either a lot of people read my column last week or my wife went around and told all the artists at Elevate not to allow me to pick up anything, not to help them move anything, and not to feed me anything.

 

Basically not do anything because when I stopped to speak to someone, the first words out of their mouths was always, “Are you alright?”

 

For the first couple of hours, I laughed and told them I was just fine. But after a while of hearing it, I started to answer their questions a little more creatively.

 

“Are you alright?”

 

“Nope. I’ll be dead by Monday.”

 

Or… “I’m having a heart attack right now. Do you think you could give me mouth to mouth?”

 

I found that if you don’t smile when you say it, that makes people very uncomfortable.

 

They also give you things.

 

One artist gave me a cup of chicken pilau. Another gave me some herbal tea.

 

They said it would make me feel better.

 

It tasted like feet.

 

I guess people thinking you’re terminally has its perks.

 

None of the comments or sad looks, however, came close to the scrutiny of my lovely wife.

 

I made the mistake of telling her on set-up day (Friday) that I was a little short of breath from moving some heavy stuff (a box of plastic forks). Big mistake.

 

She made me go inside and lie down and told me not to come back outside until she said I could.

 

I thought of several snappy comebacks as I walked towards the back door.

 

See what you think about these.

 

“You can’t tell me what to do, I’m a grown man.”

 

“Worry about your own self, woman!”

 

And my personal favorite…

 

“You ain’t my mama!”

 

I did not say any of those. Do you think I have a death wish?

 

I’m apparently already dying but I’m pretty sure that having a myocardial infarction would be a lot less painful that what may have happened if I would have said, “You’re not my mama.”

 

The inside was nice. We have air conditioning in there. And TV.

 

But, I wasn’t allowed to stay very long.

 

About an hour into my afternoon siesta, my wife’s sweet voice comes over the walkie-talkie.

 

“How are you feeling?”

 

“Fine.”

 

“No realty. Tell the truth. How are you really feeling?”

 

“Like I’m glad I am not forced to watch TV in the middle of the afternoon.

 

Did you know that Jerry Stringer is still on the air?”

 

There was silence on the walkie. No laugh at my joke. No sigh of disgust.

She apparently was not in a very jocular mood.

 

“If you promise not to do anything that is going to cause you to exert yourself, you can come back out here.”

 

“Thanks, mom.”

 

She didn’t think that was funny either because my reply was met with a thunderous silence.

 

So, I went back out there.

 

On the way, an old friend I know stopped me and asked me how I was feeling.

 

“Pretty bad. I’m quite sure I’m going to die before I get out to our booth.”

She has known me for decades and had the perfect response.

 

“Shut up!”

 

I laughed.

 

“I’m okay. I’m on my to go exert myself. Don’t tell anyone.”

 

She laughed, too, and said it was nice knowing me and that she would wear something nice to my funeral.

 

Now, that is a true friend.