Award Tour Vol. 21: Do People Really Not Know?

Before I begin, allow me to go back. I was once on a quest to bench 315... that's bench press and that's 315 lbs (for those of you who are somewhat familiar with a gym... probably not a lot of you... but for those that are... that's 3 plates on each side of the barbell which also weighs 45 lbs - and that's a whole lotta liftin'). But with training (sporadic though it was) I was well on my way to hefting that great mass of metal. I was until one day I moved funny.

Yeah I know that doesn't make any sense... but that's the best description I can give - I moved funny and my shoulder didn't like it. It wasn't any large swinging motion, no quick jerk to a halt, in retrospect, I wasn't even lifting weights when it happened. I just moved wrong, the shoulder said, "no way - I'm outta here" and next thing I know I'm doing shoulder circles trying to get the gristle back in the right place (I'm sorry were you eating... too bad, walk it off). These shoulder circles (executed both in large looping arcs and teeny tiny orbits) were successful only in inflaming my shoulder so that it ballooned with fluid, and reduced my mobility by about a factor of 100 or so. There was also some sort of physiological chain reaction, that allowed my injury to migrate from my shoulder to my back. I spent an entire weekend hunched over with my arms pinned to my sides like some melanin fortified Tyrannasaurus Rex struggling to grasp small items in front of him with those ridiculously immobile chicken scratch arms.

The back got better, the shoulder... the shoulder is still injured. Apparently what it was was an AC injury. The AC standing for Acromial Clavicular. Click here and learn something. Never heard of that joint before? Neither had I. If the reading material is going over your head, let me just summarize by saying... this is an important part of your body... don't mess it up... you need it. It makes reaching for things... possible.

I went to go see an orthopedic surgeon (emphasis on surgeon) and he wanted to operate... he didn't say it... but I could kind of discern it by the way he described the options that were available. I could wait it out and take some Ibuprofen and see if it cleared up on it's own, he could send me for an MRI (which he did... and you remember how that turned out don't you?) or he could operate. And while I know the operation wasn't trivial, he made it sound like repairing my shoulder (by eliminating my AC joint altogether) would be as matter of-factly, as scraping the the last little bit of Jiffy out of the Jar to make a peanut butter sandwhich - a bit anti-climatic. Can it be that it was all so simple?

Anyway, that was then, now is now. The back has come back 100%, the shoulder is still out on leave - but I'll live. So I'm tooling around the house, and I do it again. Nothing conspicuous, nothing grandiose, nothing spectacular... I just moved funny and bam that's it... the right shoulder has now joined the Myseriously Induced AC injury party. Again, I thought I had just popped something out of place... but no... it's the exact same M.O. as last time. I'll pass on the shoulder inflaming circles I performed in the past... this time I'll just take it easy.

With my mobility curtailed once again (and lucky me, this happens 4th of July weekend - so rather than get off of work due to an injury... I have my vacation time to lurch about the premesis... who could ask for anything more?) I decide a movie might not be such a bad idea - War of the Worlds just came out, and I think it'll be interesting, so I gather up my stuff to run my errands so I can go see it later. As I'm about to pull out the driveway, a young girl (who lives in the same complex as me... I know this because several times she and her boyfriend have tried to flag me down to come to their car wash - which I ignored as often as they did it) walks over and asks if I have a lighter.

She asks this question because in her words, she's in some trouble and she needs to smoke... let me repeat that for effect. She's in trouble... and therefore, she doesn't need help, she doesn't need the authorities, she doesn't even need a ride... she needs a smoke. Is this NOT the beginnings of a porn movie? No? Perhaps not - maybe that's me projecting. Either way - this conversation is surreal.

I look at her like she's crazy, and finally after what had to be an awkward silence for her I explained that I don't smoke and put the car in gear... she then says that she and her boyfriend were hungry... ***Wait a minute... I thought they were in trouble... a second ago that's what she said... that they were in trouble... now they're hungry..? Where'd that come from. Is this from the Beginners Guidebook to the Art of Flim Flam?***So now, this girl, who couldn't be any older than 15, steps closer to the car... and then I noticed that she was waif-like all over her body, I mean skinny to the point where bones are poking through skin - yuck - everywhere except in her chest.

Top heavy barely describes it... these things were like ballasts, they were barely held captive by her shirt. And now she's trying to put them all up in my face (which ordinarily would be a great thing, but like I said... 15 at best... no R. Kelly DVDs starring me thank you very much). If you are street smart, if you know Flim Flam when you see it, or even if you just saw Jurassic park... you're like me thinking this is a set up... send the bait one direction to distract you from the attack coming from the other. So I begin looking to the right, and I see her boyfriend, walking up (he's a good ways off - I mean way off - so if it was a setup it was quite possibly the worst timed and poorly coordinated scam ever executed this side of the Missisippi). So I say to the girl, let's call her Ms. Chesty, that I don't have any cigarettes, but if she's hungry I'll buy her and her boy a cheeseburger... which seemed to genuinely surprise her. She asked how would we meet up, and I said, I was going to the post office, and I'd be back in 15 minutes. She smiled and skipped off towards her boyfriend (which I imagine probably hurt a little bit to do... don't blame me, blame physics)

As I drove to the post office, I thought I will be really hot, if I go and buy these cheeseburgers, and come back and they not be there. So of course... what happens? I buy two double quarter pounders, drive back... and they are not there. I drive up and down the neighborhood, through cross streets, and cross roads (I even found a back entrance to my apartment complex in the process). I found everything but the two kids. So what does the man who is on a breadless diet do? He eats the double quarter pounders himself... yes... both of them. Anger fueled my hunger.

So now it's time to go see War of the Worlds. After much searching I finally find a parking space, go inside, get my ticket and get in the theatre early so I could get the seat that I wanted. Right smack dab in the middle. I am bracketed by one friendly chick with a distinctly Bohemian flair, who was a self-professed scaredy cat, and on my right a couple, destined to be the next Star Jones and Al Reynolds or Terry McMillan and Johnathan Plummer. The dude was so obviously gay she couldn't have missed it - but apparently she had. I thought his repeated claims of seeing Shemar Moore being flashed on the screen were probably sufficient evidence (it was actually a picture of Chad Michael Murray ...how do these two dudes look anything alike? They're not even the same color - maybe he just WANTED to see Shemar Moore). Compound this with the fact that ol' boy came in wearing ripped jeans (what straight dude you know that does that anymore?) Those are dead giveaways I would think. But maybe not. Maybe she just doesn't see it. (I guess if he gets to see Shemar when he looks at a young white guy, she has the right to see a straight man while looking at him - gotta have balance).

Anyway... the movie begins, and I won't give any of it away (not that there's much to give away... but I'll get back to that too), but I did notice that Spielberg put his finger print on this movie in an interesting way. I was a bit annoyed by each of the characters taking turns "wigging out" during the scenes, but it was an entertaining movie despite the fact that the AC - (the air conditioner not my shoulder) went out. I will say this about the movie, since it was based on a classic by H.G. Wells, which has already been redone more than once... you wonder what Spielberg could have up his sleeve and what he could possibly do to make the movie intersting (pay attention now... this is the pinnacle of this blog installment) At the end of the movie, when the alien machines begin to topple and fall... the girl next to me (who indicated that she was 25 years old) says, "I don't get it... what happened... why are they falling"?

Maybe it's me - but failing to understand why the machines are failing in "War of the Worlds" is like wondering out loud, "hey why is that Green Stuff making Superman weak"? As many times at it's been remade, do people really not know how the story ends?