Spanning The Globe

Perhaps you recall the immortal words of Jim McKay's "Wide World of Sports" opening sequence. "The thrill of victory..." Cue Winter Olympic ski jumper falling off the side of the launch hill. "...and the agony of defeat."

Inspired by the Summer Olympics, there was a challenge issued at Monday night's poker game. Our dealer Broc would race against anyone at the table. My ego spoke up, even willing to wager a c-note on the event. The deal was struck and the race was on. The venue: GucciRick's ever so slightly declining, very well paved front driveway. Broc is 6'5" (a fact I didn't consider) and about 250 lbs (a fact I did consider). How could I lose? PS: I ha' full house!

On came the floodlights. Someone got in their car to shine headlights on the course. Seventy-five yards were marked off as two combatants stretched by the starting line. After one false start by Broc, we had a clean start.

I fell behind early. But not so much that I didn't feel I could make it up at the later stages. If only I got there.

As I tried to boost my speed, I felt my upper body get ahead of me. If you've ever seen any video of idiots (like myself) running downhill, you know that once a certain state of imbalance is achieved, there's simply no recovery.

I did not recover.

And down I went, kind of hard. I broke my fall with my hands and rolled over once into the grass on the side of the driveway. My pride hurt more than anything. I'd soon find a nice patch of road rash on my right elbow, but other than that I thought I came away unscathed.

We went back to the poker table, I paid my debt and we continued to play. Thankfully I won a decent amount to both help recoup from last week's horrible showing and compensate for my idiot athletic lack of prowess.

Gradually, however, my hands and wrists began to swell and hurt. As the night wore on, the swelling and pain kept increasing. It got to the point where it was difficult to drive home. I popped some Aleve and went to bed, hoping to wake up the next day to some minor soreness.

That did not happen.

I knew based on how difficult it was to simply put on a pair of pants that morning that I'd need to get X-rays. Long story short: One sprain (right wrist), one fracture (left wrist). I knew I was old, but had no idea how fragile I'd become. This injury does not make for a happy BadBlood. Lifting weights is simply out of the question right now. I'm not sure how long I'll be sidelined from that activity. I suppose I can still do cardio, legs and abs; but that's about it.

My right wrist feels worse even though it's only sprained. This poses several problems. Here are some things made more difficult with a painful wrist sprain.

Opening doors
Turning keys, door or car
Twisting bottle caps off sodas
Cutting food with a knife
Wiping my ass
Waving bye to the kids after I drop them off at school
Typing
Moving a mouse, although I can still click pretty well
Using a steering wheel
Lifting a drink and tilting it towards my mouth (What drinking problem?)
An obvious one I don't need to detail right here but one which everyone is probably thinking

I told my wife that if she wants any kind of action, she's going to have to do ALL the work. But she's used to it.

I have to go to a hand specialist tomorrow to see if the fracture requires a cast or anything. I'm hoping it doesn't. Perhaps I'll be back at the weights in no time. If no time means six weeks, I may end up killing someone. With my feet.

So let's turn this negative into a positive somehow. The prop bet is open for you dear readers who will be attending the bash. This morning, I weighed in at 170.5 lbs on my bathroom digital scale. Your task is to guess what my weight will be the Friday morning I leave for Philly. I'm not sure how much working out I can do between now and then, but it's safe to say I'm not going to be lifting weights for a minimum of two weeks. Will I lose weight? Will I gain weight? Your call. Closest guess gets their bar tab taken care of Friday night in Philly. And a lap dance if you Procedure it up with me.

It took four hours to type this.