Sunday, April 3, 2011

Getting All Bent Into Shape

There have been all sorts of sicknesses in my office the last few weeks. I'm pretty sure I've been exposed to the cold virus, whatever new strain exists of swine flu, and the black plague. I mentioned this when I went to the chiropractor yesterday, and he told me it was a smart move on my part to come visit him. Getting your spine aligned helps your immune system, he assured me.

Well, smart me was pretty happy that less-smart-me had scheduled the appointment a month earlier.

Here's what he didn't tell me: your emotions live in your spine. And when you get your vertebrae crackling and lined up, you're releasing all sorts of feelings into your nerves and blood and whatnot -- and who knows how much build up is in there.

If you're a robot it's no big deal. In fact, if you're a robot you probably don't even need a chiropractor and you're totally getting gypped. But if you're a female, you are in TROUBLE.

It's like when you have plaque built up in your veins and it releases and clogs an artery and you have a heart attack and die. Kind of. And I think you get plaque in your veins but that might only be your teeth, but you get the idea -- this is all very sciencey so trust me on it.

So after getting my back adjusted yesterday, I felt awesome... for half an hour. My hips were aligned -- better for swaying, I say -- my back was straight-ish, and my shoulders weren't hunched into some painful-looking posture.

Then: everyone was terrible and mean to me. Even the people who were nice were only that way because they were afraid of being honest about their repulsion of me and that made me want to kick them. When my father offered to give me a cordless drill I assumed it was to write messages in people's car doors who were clearly against me (the offer of the drill was rescinded). The weather was gross on purpose to make me sad and the stores didn't have clothes or shoes I wanted out of spite. SPITE.

Even chocolate was against me, I could tell.

And then I realized: I didn't feel this way before my back was cracked earlier in the day. My agile mind put 2 and 2 together and realized what had happened.



Chiropractors need to come with surgeon general warnings.