health

#1225: A Mighty Great Fall

RECORD STORE TALES #1225: A Mighty Great Fall

 

The big plastic bin of garbage lay before me, to take out as I go.  We had a bathroom pipe break the day before, so in the plastic bin was not just your average garbage, but also an impressively rusted bathroom drain pipe.  I tucked my two cell phones (work and personal) into my shirt pocket as I always did, and picked the plastic bin up with the legs.  Navigating the simple act of taking out an awkward bin of garbage is tricky at age 53.  Carrying the brunt of the weight against my chest, I walked the garbage out to the dumpster.

I opened the lid a crack, struggled a bit, and heaved the trash into the dumpster.  Job done, and off to work.

I’m a nervous nelly and I’m always checking my pockets.  Right front pants; keys.  Left front pants; wallet.  Front right shirt…front right shirt.

Shit.

My phones.  Both of them.  Gone.

I ran back to the dumpster and opened the lid in the pitch black.  Fortunately, one of my phones was lit up.  They must have fallen in with the garbage, when I dumped the contents of the plastic bin into the dumpster.

I’ve never gone dumpster diving in my life.  I have zero experience in this.  Well, I was about to get my wings.  I calculated the risk as I lifted myself up.  I got my right leg up.

“This is easy,” I actually thought to myself.  “I wonder if they design these things so you can get in if you have to.”

I lifted my whole body over the edge, and lost control of the situation quickly.  I tipped over to the left and landed with a mighty crash on my left side.

“Fuck!” I might have shouted.  I don’t remember.  That’s when the adrenaline kicked in.  Even though I could not see, one lit-up phone led to another, and I retrieved both.  Nothing gets the adrenaline flowing like being stuck in a dumpster, and so I somehow lifted myself back up and out.  I landed on both feet this time.  I truly do not know how I did it, but as soon as I hit the ground, I began slowly walking it off and focusing on breathing.  It only occurred to me later what would have happened if I landed on something sharp.

I was convinced that nothing was broken, so I got in the car and went to work.  When I got there, I felt the adrenaline wearing off and more pain settling in.  I tried to move a box of documents to be shredded and couldn’t even budge it.  That’s when I changed my mind and decided to go to the hospital.

According to my notes, I was admitted right around 7:30 and discharged at 1:00; not a bad turnaround.

The nurses and attendants with all very helpful and sympathetic.  They helped me out of my chair when I needed a lift.  Between all the nurses and doctors, I think I told my story five times.  Each time, it was hard not to laugh at the stupidity.  That’s when I realized how much it hurt to laugh.  It was a fairly easy wait.  I bought with me a book, which was noted by the triage nurse.  “Oh, I see you brought a book, smart!”  I mumbled something about thinking ahead, but what came out was more or less gibberish.  The book I had with me was, of course, dystopian fiction: 2546: Harbinger of The Equinox by Australian writer Violeta M Bagia.  I ripped through the first 60 pages before I was let go.

X-rays were thorough.  Nothing broken.  It’s not as simple as that though, as this is an injury that can get worse if not cared for.

They gave me three yellow pills and three white pills.  I could definitely feel their effects as breathing became easier.  Getting up?  Not so easy.  Still working on that.  It requires a system of sequential movements that I haven’t quite mastered yet.

I got myself home.  My mom bought me a sandwich.  It was the first food I’d had all day.

I can’t see any marks on my body, but I sure bet that will change in the coming days.

Having sat long enough, now I move to go lay down a while.  Wish me luck.  I’m sure this isn’t the end of this story.

 

 

#1196: When the Lightning Strikes

RECORD STORE TALES #1196: When the Lightning Strikes

Friday night, and we were off to the races.  I live for the weekend, and so Friday June 27 was set to be another one for the history books.  Fridays are a shorter day at work.  We get to go home at 4:00 PM instead of 4:30 which can make a significant difference when it comes to traffic.  Jen had bought a couple decent steaks at a cheap price, so that was the planned dinner.  Steak is always something to look forward to, even when cooked at home in a cast iron frying pan.  (The grill at the cottage is always preferred.)  On top of this, I had the night “off” from doing shows.  The evening’s episode of Grab A Stack of Rock was a fun re-run featuring my good pal Aaron along with Harrison Kopp and Jex Russell.  All I had to do was watch and comment along.  A low pressure evening.

In more ways than one…

A minor seizure derailed Jen, but only for an hour and a half.  She recovered after a quick nap.  We’d have to do dinner after the show, instead of before.  No big deal.  The electricity in her synapses doesn’t always play nice, but she’s definitely doing much better than she was doing only two or three years ago.  New medications have made a difference.

The skies were darker than usual for a summer night in June.  According to the radar, a storm was rolling in.  It had already hit the shores of Lake Huron a couple hours earlier, as my dad told me.

“The power went out a couple times,” he told me.  “The neighbours came over for a visit and they had to stay and wait out the storm, they couldn’t go home.”

Me personally, I never let a little rain get in the way of me leaving a social engagement early, but that’s just me.

“It’ll be coming your way soon,” warned my dad.  I love a good rainstorm.  The harder the better.  A low pressure zone was churning up some thunder and lightning.  It should be a good one.  The rumble of distant thunder could be heard.

Jen made a couple pretty good steaks with enough left over for breakfast the next day.  We settled in for an evening.  I was watching classic Doctor Who on Tubi.  I chose the high-strung Second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, because I like his Scottish sidekick Jamie.  I usually watch Doctor Who on my laptop with my headphones, while Jen watches sports on TV.  The lights flickered as a power surge hit, followed by a roar of thunder outside.

“Here it comes,” I enthused.  The power went out twice total, knocking out the cable, but not Doctor Who.  The episode was ending and I removed my headphones.

“Wow is that the rain?” I asked, as I heard the pounding on the windows.  “Good storm!”

But there was another sound.  I thought I heard loud dripping, inside.  I went to check around the front windows, which were soaking wet and dripping all over.

“Holy shit, there’s water coming in through the windows!” I yelled.  I could see it dripping in through the top of the window sill.  This is actually not as big a deal as it sounds, as the windows are all being replaced in a few weeks.  The building itself it currently stripped of its outer siding, as it is being re-finished with a new exterior this summer.  It’s no surprise that a storm of that power could drive water right through the walls with no siding.  Any leaks will be gone along with the old windows soon.  So I was not concerned.  I just wanted to stop the water from coming in and dripping all over my stuff.

“Do you want a couple towels?” asked Jen.

“Yeah!  Great idea!” I said as I moved stuff away from the wall, out of the drip.  There was a lot of water on the window sill, but a couple towels would stop the drip.

I carefully placed the towels along the entire length of the window sill.  They thirstily soaked up water, very quickly, indicating the amount of liquid that we were dealing with.  My fingers were wet as I pushed the towels into the corners of the window sill.

BANG!

Just like that – like a loud fireworks exploding in my face – lightning struck just outside.

Shocked, I jumped and yelled “WOAH!  WHAT WAS THAT?”  It was a completely different kind of sound from lightning that I’m used it.  More a loud pop; like an explosion.  Less a bright flash of light, but more a dark flash of black!  And my fingers were deep in the water when it hit.  They tingled afterwards for hours; almost a day.  My head burst with a headache right at the pointy top of my skull.  I have no doubt that I received a mild electrical shock.

I’m going to tell people that I was hit by lightning.  Why not?  That’s where the electricity came from.  It conducted through the water in the ground into my fingers.  We live in a basement apartment and the window is at ground level.  That’s how I got shocked.  It was mild, yes – but I’m going to use it as a boast anyway.

I felt really crappy all night.  I didn’t sleep well.  I did, however, test something myself.

Lying in bed, I stretched my arms up towards the ceiling fan.  Stretching out my fingers, and using only the power of my mind, I made an effort to move the fan with my new electricity-based superpowers.  Failing that, I tried to make the lightbulbs explode.  That didn’t work either, so in a last ditch effort, I attempted to levitate myself out of bed.

Nothing.

I sighed and slumped back into a restless night, dreaming of flying over the landscape using my new superpowers, and zapping people I don’t like with lightning.  But no superpowers manifested.  I was ripped off!

The rain pattered on and off through the night, but no more water leaked in.  Soon there will be new windows through which no water shall leak.  Lightning seldom strikes the same place twice, and very few people are hit more than once, so I hope my dance with Lady Electric is over.  One of my fingers still tingles a bit.  My chance at being a superhero has passed me by, but I’m still here to write the tale.

 

First Lunchwalk of the Year! Aching Joints, Happy Head

The clouds have parted, the sun has returned…and so have I, to my old lunchwalk route!

I have two routes.  The shorter one is about 25 minutes.  The longer one is about twice that.  Against my better judgement, I chose the long route.  No pain no gain?  I was definitely in pain!  My right leg specifically.  My knee and hip were groaning towards the end.  I pushed through, increasing my speed as much as I could handle, in order to get back and drink something cold and fizzy.

I decided to go the opposite direction as I usually went last year.  If you recall, I was getting really tired of the same route last year.  As usual, I took pictures.  I really like the one bag of dog poo that someone tried to throw over the fence into the work yard, but got tangled in a tree.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll do the short route!

#1046: Puke! 2

WARNING!  This is not a pretty story.  A sequel to #686:  Puke!

 

Jen was super sick on Thursday.  She had eaten some Indian food from a place that was new to her, and it wasn’t good.  We both assumed it was food poisoning.  Until Friday night.

I was scheduled to go live at 7:00 PM.  I messaged the guys at 6:40 – “I just barfed”.  Usually I’m just “one and done” when it comes to barfing.  Not this time.  I was prepared to go on with the show, but 10 minutes later I barfed again and got hit with the chills.  I cancelled.

By 8:00 PM I had barfed five times.  This never happens to me.  Clearly, Jen didn’t have food poisoning the previous night.  Whatever stomach bug she had, I now had it too.  Five pukes in 80 minutes – that’s a new record for me.  The last few were closer to painful, dry heaves.

I asked Jen to place a Skip the Dishes order with a gas station or a Little Short Stop – get me Gatorade, ginger ale, and water.  (We scored here – we ordered and paid for small bottles but they sent big two-liter ginger ales.)  I began sipping the sweet, cold, soothing beverages as soon as they arrived, and they were the most incredible sips I’ve ever taken.

The farts that came with this sudden illness were unreal.  Easily and by far the most wretched and lingering smells I have ever produced, and that is saying something.  Putrid, foul, rotten.  My wife is a saint.

Despite sipping the drinks, I was so thirsty.  Constantly thirsty.  I was sipping every five minutes.  Obviously dehydration set in.  I barfed again at 10:30, but I then changed my strategy a bit.  When I was a kid, my dad wouldn’t let me drink anything when I was sick, so I wouldn’t barf it back up.  This time it was different.  I drank Gatorade and ginger ale in earnest until I could feel my stomach was full.

The next three barfs were nothing but water, ginger ale and Gatorade.  They came out easily, in mad gushes, and amazingly still tasted good.  The red Gatorade puke still tasted exactly like red Gatorade.  Because it was pure liquid and nothing else, it was effortless to bring up and I was in no pain (unlike the dry heaves).  When I was done throwing up, I re-hydrated immediately and repeated the cycle a few more times.  My final puke was around 4:00 AM on Saturday, my ninth.  Another record.  But I didn’t have any dehydration or associated pain/discomfort.  A win.

I’m feeling a lot better now, just sore.  Very sore.  My joints are sore and mostly my chest.

I tested Covid negative, so it’s just a bug.  Unfortunately I cannot go see my grandma in the hospital today because of this, and she is lonely.

Rest today, back to work tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

#686: Puke!

GETTING MORE TALE #686: Puke!

 

Almost everybody hates puking.  It’s one of the most unpleasant bodily functions, and everyone does it.  Especially rock stars!  I remember reading an interview with the rock band Kix in Hit Parader magazine.  On the subject of tour stories, one of the guitarists was sick during one show.  He had a puke bucket at side stage, but he missed and the puke ended up hitting an electric fan, which splattered the vomit all over the drummer.  “But he felt better for about half a song!”

On the less funny side, too many rock stars died after choking on their own vomit.  Jimi Hendrix and John Bonham come to mind.  It’s a tragic way to go, when the rock and roll lifestyle eats its own young.  Unfortunately the lessons are not always learned and rock and roll continues to be littered with tragedy.

But let’s keep it light this time.

I have always been a power-puker.  I wake up the neighborhood.  I’ve never puked on stage like the guy from Kix, but I do have a couple rock and roll stories.

At Sausagefest several years ago, I pushed it one step too far.  Not with alcohol, but with food.  That last sausage was a little undercooked and it didn’t feel right in my stomach. I was OK though the Saturday night countdown, and I went to bed after the music ended.  I slept in my car that year, and I started feeling sick after a very brief sleep.

I woke up and I knew I was going to puke.  I got out the car and walked towards the middle of the field.  I didn’t want to puke near anybody’s tent.  I could hear that some of the guys were still up and partying, but I couldn’t see anything.  And then, I released the hounds:

BRAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHAAAAHHHHH!

BORRRUGHHHHHEEEEERRRRRRRHHHHHEEEH!

PLAGHHHOUUGGGGGHHHHHEAAAAAAR!

“You OK there buddy?” I could hear Tom asking from somewhere in the dark.

“Yeah I just ate too much,” I responded as I recovered.  “Can you get me a bottle of water from my car?”

Tom made sure I was OK, and I slept great after that.  I have no idea how late those guys stayed up, but I know that some years I have woken up in the morning only to find Uncle Meat and Bucky still hadn’t gone to sleep!  There I was going for my morning shit, and these guys were still hanging by the fire.

It happened again a few years later, after Thanksgiving dinner at the cottage.  I blame my mom for this one.  She laid out way too much food, including tables full of chocolate and candy.  As I did at Sausagefest, I ate too much.  I woke up in the middle of the night again, knowing I was going to puke.  I didn’t want to wake anyone in that small cottage so I went outside to the back yard.  Then, once again, I released the evil from my stomach.

BRAAHHHHGGGGGHHHHRRRRRRRRTTT!

BLUUUGGGGGGPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFF.

HUUUAAAAAAHHHHHHHGGGGG!

I walked back into the cottage to find that I did in fact wake everyone, despite my best efforts not to.

Here’s the funny thing.  In both cases, the puddle of puke was gone in the morning.  Eaten by wild animals?  Hope they enjoyed the meal!

 

#362: Lávate las manos!

RECORD STORE TALES MkII: Getting More Tale
#362: Lávate las manos! (Wash your hands!)

What is the prime rule of retail? Some sources say it’s an employee’s presentation, from language to punctuality to appearance. A knowledgeable staff is absolutely important, and even trumps friendliness. Friendliness without knowledge in a retail environment doesn’t help the customer. Customer service is clearly important, as is leading by example, which I tried to do myself. Other sources say convenience is king. An online presence is a must, but in brick and mortar stores, what truly is the one prime, cardinal rule of retail?

I say it’s a simple one. Wash your hands!

Research suggests that in the United States, 22 million days of work are lost per year just by common illnesses spread in the conventional ways. When a sick employee does manage to make it into work, their productivity is reduced due to lack of energy and focus. They risk spreading the illness further, and also disgusting potential customers with their coughing and sneezing.

It’s easy enough to reduce the spread just by making sure your employees are washing their hands. According to the CDC, “Handwashing is like a ‘do-it-yourself’ vaccine—it involves five simple and effective steps (Wet, Lather, Scrub, Rinse, Dry) that you can take to reduce the spread of diarrheal and respiratory illness so you can stay healthy. Regular handwashing, particularly before and after certain activities, is one of the best ways to remove germs, avoid getting sick, and prevent the spread of germs to others.” By “certain activities”, I can tell you that buying used CDs off the public certainly qualified. At the Record Store, we had a bottle of hand sanitizer at the register, so I could quickly scrub up if there was no time to hit the washroom.

I have seen some gross, disgusting substances on CDs that I and my staff have handled. That doesn’t even include the invisible germs that were on a lot of them! Sticky CDs and CD cases were quite common. When I first started out, I caught hell from the boss because I didn’t want to buy a box of CDs from a guy who had very few discs without yucky, sticky CD cases! Most of the time, we couldn’t identify the goo, although we were fairly certain that some had been covered with semen before. (Needless to say, we passed on the semen CD, no complaints from bosses that time.)

The most disturbing health risk that I witnessed was covering the in-demand box set called Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys. It was covered in blood – still wet, as the guy selling it to us was actually bleeding from his hands at that moment! The staff guy who was handling the set, Jason, quietly announced, “I have to go and wash my hands – they are covered with blood.” The customer then laughed and said, “Yah, that’s me. But don’t worry, I ain’t got AIDS or nothin’.”

With hindsight, I seemed to be sick all the time. Handling all that dirty money and those filthy CDs, it was almost impossible to keep my hands clean. All it takes is one itchy eye to rub without thinking, and BAM! You’ve got a virus! At the Record Store I suffered from all sorts of ailments, as did we all. I also felt a certain amount of pressure to show up for work even when I was under the weather, so I tended to work through it.

I would give the same advice to customers and staff alike: There is only one prime rule of retail. If you want to stop spreading all those filthy germs, lávate las fucking manos!

LAVATE

#328: Slowly Going Deaf? (RSTs Mk II: Getting More Tale)

RECORD STORE TALES Mk II: Getting More Tale
#328: Slowly Going Deaf?

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I’ve been listening to music for as long as I can remember.  I’ve been listening to rock music — and I’ve been told to turn it down — since I was 11 years old.  That’s 30 years ago.  Remember all those times your parents said, “Turn it down, or you’ll be deaf by the time you’re 40!”  Let’s see if that’s true.

I’m not the concert-goer that a lot of you are.  I’ve always had a thing about crowds, but I’ve definitely seen my share of loud shows: Black Sabbath & Motorhead, Helix and Deep Purple are not the kind of bands that turn it down.  In 1972 Deep Purple were declared by Guinness to be the world’s loudest band!  But I don’t enjoy the sheer earthquake noise levels you can get at a concert like that, so I’ve been using earplugs much of the time for almost 20 years.  I started wearing them shortly after seeing Kiss in ’96.  I find this cuts a lot of the noise, and renders the concert to a volume more akin to a loud home stereo.

Where I’m most guilty of playing it too loud is the car.  Sometimes I don’t realize just how loud it is in there until I start the car in the morning, having left the stereo on at full blast.  I seem to turn it up, turn it up, turn it up…and get used to it.  Like a frog in cold water that you begin to slowly heat to boil, I become accommodated to the volume of the rock.  So that would concern me, where hearing loss is concerned.

How much hearing have I lost?  I completed a hearing test at work a short while ago, and have received the results.  Using a 2009 baseline as the comparison, it looks like it’s barely changed at all!

Here’s how the exam worked.  A mobile hearing test truck pulls into the parking lot and we take the hearing tests six people at a time.  Each one of us enters a soundproof booth, which look like we’re sitting in the escape pods of a spaceship, especially after we don our special noise-cancelling headphones.  Unfortunately it’s not a perfect setup.  I and several others could hear the beeping of forklifts and tow motors in the yard, through the booth and headphones.  This doesn’t help when you’re supposed to push a little button at the sound of a beep in your ears.  The test took about five minutes to complete and the results came back about two weeks later.  And here they are.  I don’t know what half this stuff means, but I’m told I have no major loss.  Alright!

TEST

NEWS: AC/DC’s Malcolm Young IS suffering from dementia

BREAKING NEWS
Exclusive World Premiere Of AC/DC "Live At River Plate" Presented By DeLeon Tequila

I didn’t want to post ANYTHING about this subject until confirmed by the band.  Now AC/DC have confirmed that Malcolm Young (61) is suffering from dementia.  Dementia is a horrible illness, without a cure, and all we can really do is pray (if you so choose) and support the Young family.

AC/DC is continuing on with Uncle Mal and Ang’s nephew Stevie Young, who previously filled in for Mal on the 1988 Blow Up Your Video tour.  The new album, Rock or Bust, is out December 1.

 

 

Part 256: A Case of the Mondays

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RECORD STORE TALES Part 256:  A Case of the Mondays

Towards the end of my record store years, 2005 to the start of 2006, the mere thought of waking up in the morning of a Monday was enough to make me feel physically ill. The feelings of dread usually began settling in on Sunday evening. By Monday morning I was not feeling well at all.  I was used to being beaten down by unpleasant customers, unpredictable superiors,  and long hours with not enough time off. I was sick and tired of being used, but I was also sick.  I began to hate the mere sight of a CD, and certain songs played in store became so annoying that they haunted me at night.  I stopped enjoying music.

I remember waking up one Monday morning and thinking to myself, “I wonder what would happen if I quit my job today.” I had a home and a mortgage, but finding a new job had proved difficult. My skill set was expansive, and my time at the record store had demonstrated my loyalty.  Most jobs I was applying for were not interested in somebody with only retail experience. It didn’t matter that I was a manager, so I went from interview to interview without luck. The steady rejection impacted my emotional state in a negative way.

I called my dad, who I could always count on for good advice.

“Hey dad,” I began. “I have kind of a weird question for you. What would you say if I told you I wanted to go to work and quit my job today?”

“I would say that is not a very good idea,” he responded with seriousness. “You have a mortgage, and I’m sure you know it’s easier to find a new job when you’re already employed. Finding a good job while out of work is easier said than done. I would strongly advise that you don’t quit anything until you have something else to fall back on.”

Not the answer I wanted to hear, but I knew he was right. What I didn’t tell my dad (and what he didn’t know until he started reading these Record Store Tales) is just how miserable I was. I had become a complete basket case.  He tells me now that he regrets the advice that he gave me that Monday morning. If he had known what I was going through he would have given me very different advice.

I thanked him for his words of wisdom and hung up the phone. I got dressed and ready for work. Breakfast was out of the question. My stomach was too wound up to handle eating. At the end of the record store days, I was generally only eating one or two meals a day. I didn’t really put together how that was affecting my mental and physical energy levels.

I used to listen to the same CD in the car on the way to work in the mornings: Dance of Death by Iron Maiden. I’d get in, put on the album, and then try to take as long as possible to get to work. Red lights meant more Maiden. Then as I’d pull into the store, I’d check out the parking lot and see if any of the bosses had arrived yet. You could never guess their temperament any day, so all I could do was pray they all had nice weekends. If they were in a good mood, they’d leave me more or less alone. If not, you could cut the tension with a knife.

I hated the tense Monday mornings.

Once I entered and hung up my coat, I’d do a walk around. I’d check to see how sales were on the weekend, what messes were left for me to clean up, and what problems had come up. I’d also rush to do a quick cleaning. Any glass surfaces with fingerprints had to be wiped clean before any bosses spotted them. They had a habit of bitching about anything they saw before I did. Other store managers didn’t have to deal with the stress of having “head office” in the back of their stores, but I did.

These taut Mondays were often long and enervating. I’d open the store at 10am and wait for the first customer. Usually they were people selling scratched up CDs for cigarette money. The day would drag on, and Mondays meant getting home later than usual, since Monday was also Stock Transfer Day! Even though I was “off” duty, none of us were ever really off duty. The phone, after all, could ring any time.

I suffered in silence. I didn’t want to stress out my parents, so that one phone call to my dad was all they knew. It was a dark time, but it is always darkest before the dawn.  I survived.  I am here with Record Store Tales to prove it.