Of bus rides and pains in the neck…
I woke up on Saturday determined to get some shopping done. Have I mentioned how much I hate shopping? Well, I hate shopping. But okay, I lie. I hate shopping for clothes for myself.
I get the distinct feeling that I may be repeating myself, so I won’t go into and extended spiel as to why I hate it so much. Just know that I hate it. But, due to my big…erm (what’s the polite way of putting this?) bosom, I have no shirts left in my wardrobe. Everything is tight and the buttons have been straining at the seams. It all came to a head last week when I had to ask Krys to zip me into my dress. The zipper is one of those hidden affairs that go along your side and turn “invisible” once you’re all zippered up. So anyway, there I was huffing and puffing trying to get this bloody zipper to go up and thinking,
Now I know why it was on the sale rack, when will I ever learn!
But come on, reduces from eighty-one to twenty-five euros, and in my size, who could resist?
The zip kept getting stuck right under my boobs. You know the point, right where the curve starts? So you have to kinda stretch over and under your boobs then yank upwards to get the zipper to go up? The sweat was pouring off me after five minutes.
And since my fingers can only go so far, I went into the living room and asked Krys if he could pull it up for me. He yanked once then said,
“Can you breathe in a lot more?”
O-kay.
I let that one go.
Coz I was in a relatively good mood, I informed the dead-man-walking that I did not need to breathe in. The zip was just sticky. He yanked again.
“Muuka, this dress is just way too small. Maybe you should take it back?”
And you see, this is why we don’t argue, instead of me clobbering him around the head, I got such a fit of giggles that I couldn’t stand still. When Krys finally got a chance to try and pull the zip up again, he pulled so hard (he still maintains that he merely ‘tugged’, but the jury’s still out) that the zip just ripped straight off the dress.
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| my favourite Joan holloway sweater |
So that, as they say, was that. A perfectly new dress destroyed by too much bosom. That was the motivation for this weekend’s shopping. Two work shirts, one sweater knitted thing á la Joan Halloway from mad men to complement my lovely skirts. One dress to take to the tailor and I’d be back before lunch.
I woke up Saturday with a slight crick in the neck but decided that wasn’t going to stop me. On the bus, I decided to stretch out the tight muscles by placing my head against the windowpane and rotating my shoulder while reading my book, all the way into the city. When we got to Grafton Street, I moved my head and nearly screamed!
The pain!
I almost cried. I couldn’t move my whole head to right at all. I couldn’t turn even a little bit. But I only had two shops to go into, so I decided I could probably get away with walking slowly and taking my time.
Yeah, take my time. In Grafton street. On a Saturday.
I’m sure all who know Dublin are probably falling around on the floor pissing themselves laughing. Pardon my French.
After the tenth person had bumped into me in as many steps, I decided to seek refuge in the nearest health shop and also get my dried mango while I was at it. First, I couldn’t bend to get to the packets of mango and had to do a kind of igoresque lurch to the floor, before giving up and just squatting down to get them. Then at the counter, I lifted my right hand to get my bag off my shoulder and actually winced in pain. I mean, winced!! Who’d ever have thought I’d do that in my life? Or use it in a sentence? Not me anyway. But there was no getting away from the fact that I definitely winced because the woman behind the till said,
“Oh god love you, you okay? That didn’t sound like a nice wince”
And yes, she really did say wince. Are there nice winces? I wanted to ask, but bit my lip (the pain and whatnot, you understand)
So I told her about my shoulder and neck.
“I’d go home if I were you. The city’s going to be mental. Last weekend before Halloween”, she said
So, less than ten minutes after I’d gotten off the bus, I was on my way to the bus stop to get the next bus home. It was the longest journey of my life. People kept bumping into me at the stop, which of course, never happens when I’m perfectly okay. Then I had to lift my bag to get my ticket out, and then lift my arm to scan the ticket. I was nearly in tears walking to my seat. When I changed to the bus in P. Street, I think the driver had hopes of driving for formula one once upon a time because he was really racing against some invisible clock. I mean, it was Saturday for crying out loud! The streets were busy!
He kept revving up, and then coming to an abrupt halt at each traffic light and bus stop. And I was one of the new buses with the new, slippery seats so poor me kept sliding and getting jolted all over the place for the full twenty minutes it took to get home.
When I entered the apartment I felt like weeping with relief. It was straight on the couch and flat on my back, which isn’t easy with a ten month old getting all excited cos her milk slave has arrived.
But, fair play to Krys, he really came through for me again. He got me a hot water bottle and covered me up in blankets and put up with my crying through the pain and minded Roz all day. I couldn’t even turn my head any way to the right at this point. All the muscles in my right shoulder were tensed up and I could just barely lift my arm. Feeding Roz brought me to the brink of tears and I could see her huge eyes staring up at me, probably wondering why her silly mom couldn’t look down and play blinkies as usual. All I could manage was a kind of squint out of the corner of my eye.
It was all very, very sad.
My sister came by later in the day to give my neck and shoulder a hot towel massage and rubbed some ointment into it. She’s a life saver. She really is one of the most selfless people I know. And no matter how many times she drives me up the wall, (and these days it’s not many, to be honest) it’s moments like that when I like the fact that she lives a minute’s walk away.
So anyway, Sunday, it was a little easier. Monday was fun, as I couldn’t turn all the way to the right and had to turn my whole body during meetings. They must have just thought I was nuttier than usual or something…but today, I’m more or less cured.
I’ve been racking my head trying to figure out whether something I did brought this on. Was there a draft in the room, did I sleep too long on my right side, was my neck positioned okay on my pillow, but I can’t find anything that I did any differently. I guess it’s just one of those random things that happen once in a while.
Well, they do say if you’re over thirty and nothing hurts, then you must be dead.
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