One-man band of pain ...

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.