On My Neck, My Back, Etc.

There are a lot of things about getting older that kick ass. When it comes right down to it, I can do basically anything I want. Sure, I’ll have to deal with the consequences but if I wanted to I could spend the next week eating nothing but ice cream and then spend the week after that perpetually stuck in the bathroom. I could rent the shittiest car Hertz has to offer and return it without filling up the tank and nobody could stop me (sure it would cost me $100,000 but I could do it!) I could even get a liberal arts degree and then spend the next decade trying to break into an industry where even the people who have “made it” are miserable and… wait a second why didn’t anyone stop me? I guess that’s beside the point, but getting older isn’t all bad. There is one part of it that super-duper sucks and I think you’ll all agree: there are SO many annoying ways to hurt your neck.

Here are the top three most embarrassing ways I’ve hurt my neck in descending order (let me know in the comment section what your list is).

3) Sneezing

Sneezing is a weird one because it’s not surprising that you might hurt yourself doing it, it can be a fairly violent act after all. What’s strange is the average human does it 450 times per year and doesn’t think anything of it. That is until you rip off a huge sneeze, a sneeze so boisterous it would shake the foundations of our very civilization and then suddenly you can’t look left for at least three days.

2) Sleeping

This one was my inspiration for this essay. I know I’m no frontiersman, no Viking warrior, no caveman crossing the Bering Strait but I still like to think of myself as moderately tough. Yeah, that notion goes right out the window when I sleep for a single night on a pillow that’s just a little too soft and lumpy, and suddenly I can’t look down without whining. This one feels miserable because I was trying to do something healthy and get a good night’s sleep but NOOOO I can’t even do that because my Princess-and-the-Pea-Ass-Neck can’t handle 7 hours in a slightly sub-optimal position. I imagine that if I slept on the ground for a single night I’d simply shatter into a thousand pieces like some weak millennial glass.

1) Checking your blind spot while driving

I’m still trying to figure out why this one feels so embarrassing. It’s such a “nothing” move…you’re just looking over your shoulder. How on God’s green earth did I hurt my neck looking over my shoulder? It made me feel so old…but in like a shameful way, like when you first have that feeling of “I shouldn’t go out with my friends tonight because I want to go to the hardware store tomorrow and if I don’t get there early, it’ll be an absolute zoo.” I’m shivering just thinking about it.

Hurting your neck is such a perfectly embarrassing injury because it’s incredibly annoying, there’s nothing you can really do to fix it, and it’s not serious enough to garner you any real sympathy…or get you out of work or jury duty.

So, what’s on your list of most embarrassing ways you’ve hurt your neck?