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The Best Medicine

7/30/03


Muscle relaxers don't work well on me. Had a bunch when my neck was recovering from surgery, finally quit taking them. Made me sick at my stomach and goofy, without relaxing any muscles. Sort of like Vicodin and other synthetic codeines.

Now real codeine. That works like a charm. Usually puts me right to sleep.

The thing is, it's a helluva way to start a trip.

I just had the best medicine of all - a good belly laugh. I came back from washing clothes about 3pm, and lay back on the couch, just to rest my back. Apparently 3 hours of light activity is about max for me right now.

I woke up to some scrabbling noises. It was 5:30. I'd left the door open.

Round the corner on his hind legs comes a tiny chipmunk, apparently entirely unconcerned about the big lunk on the couch. No doubt he'd been prancing all over me, doing the can-can, while I lay helpless the last couple of hours. He came right up to about 2 feet away, a little swagger in his rodent walk. A swashbuckling chipmunk, if you can picture that.

"GETOUTAHERE, ya little rat!"

Then Chip, or Dale, or whoever he was, did something I have only seen before in cartoons. I'd always attributed it to imagination, but perhaps those old cartoonists were really just excellent observers.

He jumped straight up to maybe twice his height, turned completely around in the air, and hit the ground running, but he slipped and slid on the vinyl, making no progress at all. His little legs actually made, to my sleepy eyes, a circular blur.

I heard six complete scrabbling clicking jumps before he slowed down enough to get traction, and around the corner and out the door he went.

Go ahead, Varmint. Make my day.


Bob, who's feeling a little better after a nap and a laugh



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