That was how Alphonse Daudet described himself The Land of Pain. My plight today was nowhere near as desperate as Daudet's, but his comment did come to mind.
I have been accumulating change and putting it in jars in my home office. When I restored order to the office this past weekend I decided to start getting rid of the change, which was taking up too much space. So this morning I putting what turned out to be $400 worth of quarters into my flimsiest backpack and haul it 23 blocks to a credit union that would exchange the coins for cash.
That many quarters doesn't actually weigh all that much -- something on the order of 12 pounds, and I've certainly carried more than 12 pounds in that backpack. But it is an unusually concentrated 12 pounds, and when I was free of the weight I noticed that I was aching quite a bit. By the time I left the Inquirer this afternoon I could hardly walk. My back, my knees, and my legs all ached. When I got home, I popped a couple of extra-strength aspiring and lay down for a couple of hours . I feel better now, but still not all that great. So I am going to take a hot bath and go to bed early.
Sounds like something out of the Purgatorio ... punishment for hoarders, perhaps.
ReplyDeleteYou should give no quarters and ask for none.
ReplyDelete