Sep 9, 2016 3 min read

I don’t normally carry over plot threads from previous columns. This is not “Mary Worth” or “Rex Morgan, M.D.” However, last week, I told faithful readers about slipping, falling and smacking my shin at the pool. It’s getting better, but it still hurts.

I don’t wince when I walk, and I can get down on my hands and knees and clean the bathtub without crying. We’re putting those small victories in the win column. I still have some difficulty driving, because when I press my foot on the accelerator, it moves a bunch of leg muscles at once. Those leg muscles hate me. Also, I’m afraid of things that are only shin high, like coffee tables and toddlers.

I picked a weird week to join a gym.

There are a few things you should know before I go any further. I won’t say I’m cheap, but I don’t like to spend money. When I heard a national gym chain was running a Labor Day special, I limped at the chance to join. Normally, I’d jump at such a chance, but see above. There’s something else you should know: I think of the day after Labor Day as the saddest day of the year. It’s the day they drain the community swimming pools. In a counter move to my post-Labor Day blues, I joined the gym because they have a swimming pool! Frankly, I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Clearly, I’m frugal and stupid.

My shin doesn’t hurt when I’m sleeping or swimming. I wanted more time in the water and less time saying, “Ouch.” Therefore, I joined the local fitness center.

When the saleswoman signed me up, I told her, “I hurt my shin. For now, I just want to use the pool.” She replied, “Well, you get a free training session. Ryan will show you how to use all the machines.”

A bell went off when I heard the word “free.” I guess I am cheap.

I met Ryan the Trainer. It’s a title like Conan the Barbarian, and they had very similar builds. I told Ryan the Trainer I couldn’t do leg stuff. He probably hears that a lot, because I saw a lot of top-heavy guys with chicken legs as we toured the facility.

Here’s the thing. At the gym, there were a lot of metal bars protruding from every which way. A lot of them are shin high. My frugality and desire to keep swimming after Labor Day plopped me down in the middle of my very own nightmare scenario. It was like I designed a torture chamber for my shin: The auto-de-fibula. Terror on the tibia!

I stared down at a lot of frightening contraptions. Ryan would say, “OK, this is the butterfly curl. To work this quadrant on your arms … you sit down here and you wrap your legs around this.”

“Um. No. I can’t put my legs on that. That puts pressure right on my hurty spot.”

A lot of the devices had painful plans for my shin. I gave wimps a bad name.

I finally had to say, “Ryan, if you need me, I’ll be in the pool.”