Screwdriver

I was across the desk from Bill Murray the other night arguing with him about having eaten the last of his ice cream, but I told  him I didn't have time for his goofy crap because I was already late for a meeting with Emma Stone, who was going through one of her redhead incarnations and was interested in demonstrating some new things she'd come up with to be nice to me. He ignored me and leaned forward putting his elbows on the desk and began another harangue, so I just turned around and started to walk out of his office. He shot me from behind, hitting the calf of my right leg square-on. The pain was immediate and crippling, the kind of pain that will make you gasp and have to clamp down to keep from screaming. Through waves of agony, my only thought was that if I could straighten out the leg it would feel better, but when I tried it threw me off balance and I started to tip over and had to catch myself, which was even worse, the pain climbing to near-nauseating levels.

"Bill, you asshole, you shot me over a pint of ICE CREAM?! What the fuck is the matter with you?"

"I'M the asshole?" he replied, "It was fucking ROCKY ROAD!" which, once he put it like that was really kind of reasonable, or at least I could see where he was coming from, but my LEG, holy Jesus, my leg, and then Emma came running into the office, and I could see her start to tear up when she saw my distress, and she reached for me…

…and I woke up with my right calf bunched into a morning-star knot of fiber-and-tendon tearing, no-bullshit muscle contraction that was ripping through me like a chainsaw. I packed a wad of blanket between my teeth to bite down on so I wouldn't scream like a little girl, and for the next two or three minutes, which doesn't sound long but really is when you're hurting like that, I was concentrating on relaxing that leg 100% while using the other leg to gently straighten it and even more gently flex the foot up toward the shin to help the calf unbind, which was roughly as comfortable as staying calm while slowly driving a large Phillips screwdriver through the thickest part of meat and muscle clear to the bone.

Eventually, I was able to get out of bed and stand, covered in sweat. As long as I didn't do anything that involved the calf muscle, which turns out to be trickier than you might think in the old balancing on two-feet stunt that  humans have learned, I was reasonably stable. I went staggering into the livingroom to find the Beneficiary, who was long since up, awake, drinking coffee, and working on a sculpture.

"Morning!" she chirped, "I let you sleep in because you've been working too hard and it's your day off. Did you sleep well? Coffee's ready!" and then when she noticed me limping, "Oh, are you alright?"

"Leg cramp," I explained through gritted teeth, which was enough of an explanation as I've had these things infrequently but averaging out at about twice a year for years now, as had my father before me, one of my two brothers, and both of my kids. Apparently, it's part of my legacy. Leg-acy. Yeah, I just heard that, too, when I typed it. Never mind.

I've occasionally been worried about the damned things being symptoms of Deep Vein Thrombosis or some other horrible crap, and have had them checked more than once. The doc says no — "We don't know why," he said. "Some people have 'em. Luck of the draw." He also said even he had them now and again, and he'd truthfully rather take a beating or a waterboarding than have another — and he's a guy who did both when he was in the military. Him being a hard-core ex-military field doc is one of the reasons I like him.

"Ouch," she said to my announcement, "I'm sorry. Did you wake up in time to stop it before it got bad?" She knows if I can get awake fast enough to work with it, it dramatically eases the intensity and duration.

"No," I said. "I was sleeping way too deep and dreaming about Emma Stone."

"Ah," she said, "a sex injury. That'll teach you to leave the young ones alone, ya' old fart." She was smirking as I limped into the kitchen for my coffee. No sympathy to be had there.

So, I've spent most of the day with my lower leg feeling like I've been visited by a particularly talented mob enforcer armed with a metal baseball bat, but I'm feeling better now. I just hope I don't get a two-fer, which is to say, two nights in a row. That's happened once a few years back and it was memorable. I doubt Emma's waiting for me tonight, as that feels like it was pretty much a one-time opportunity. Which seems unfair somehow.

And how are YOU sleeping lately?