Walking the Yellow Mile

The Yellow Mile. 7 meters x 2 laps/minute x 40 minutes/week x 7 weeks = 7840 meters (where one lap is "there and back").

Last Thursday was entertaining in a ludicrous way!

My fingers were looking particularly "fing" that morning and my experiment to change my eye colour using nothing but lemon juice continued unabated.

Aside from brushing my teeth in reverse order and eating my cereal with a spatula instead of a spoon (you gotta keep things fresh), nothing in my morning routine had changed. I looked particularily dashing!

I arrived at rehab and walked the Yellow Mile as usual, brain screaming out the tune to Dr. Who and singing "the song that never ends" with deafening results inside my head.

That's normally the point in my week where my mind wanders. Back and forth, back and forth... I leave my head for a little while and when I get back, I usually find an epiphany of some sort waiting for me.

I achieve perfect Zen in there. This is of course because the Yellow Mile is exceedingly boring and in my highly unqualified opinion, becoming that comatose is basically the same as meditation for people who are really bad at sitting still or have short attention spans like me.

I was contemplating that fact when it dawned on me: I've walked nearly 8 km between two little yellow bars on an airbag, back and forth, back and forth with only the odd attempt at a moonwalk.

Is this my happy place? I sure hope not. The coffee is terrible and there's no cereal. I really love cereal.

I went from there to my orthopedic review where I was brought in for x-rays. It is necessary to pause for a moment here to consider my gigantic chart. That's an Australian 10 cent piece next to it, roughly the same size as a Canadian quarter.

Understandably so, the intern clearly hadn't read the last chapter of my file, the one entitled "All we had was a Hacksaw and a Pocket Full of Mischief". I know this because of what transpired next in the x-ray room.

Now normally I'm not one to push for reading. If someone would rather watch the movie that's their call but in the case of my Doctors, I do hope they're not waiting for Lucas or Spielberg to finish my epic tail on the widescreen. I'm still working on the ending and it involves training thousands of monkeys.

The conversation in x-ray went something like this:
Tech - Please put your left ankle up on the bench for x-ray.
Mike - That might be a problem.
Tech - Sir, we have to take pictures of the metal work in your left ankle.
Mike - Again, that might be difficult.
Tech - Are you saying there's no metal in your left ankle?
Mike - No, I'm sure it's still there... it's just, I didn't bring it with me!
Tech (finally looking up) - Sorry? What? Oh.. Hmmm... but the doctor requested... I might need to ask someone...

Back to the waiting room for me to sit and contemplate my Yellow Mile. This time there was a little TV to keep my brain from leaping out of my skull.

If you've read my original few posts, you'll remember the episode of M*A*S*H I cited in the Emergency room that night. To my delight, M*A*S*H sparked up in the waiting room!

In this episode, Hawkeye asks for the bone saw, then gets that concerned "I'm a doctor who cares too much" look and pulls off an amazing procedure to save a man's leg using some sausage tubing from the cafeteria! Too funny!

I kept laughing quietly to myself through the serious bits. Like Tom Hanks (Paul) said in the Green Mile: "You ever try to not to laugh in church when something funny gets stuck in your head?" Same thing!

Back inside my head, try to look serious... wow, 8 km... how many more?

"This is the song that never ends
it just goes on and on my friends!
Some people started singing it
not knowing what it was,
and they'll continue singing it
forever just because..."
(repeat until dead from line one)

naaa naa naa na na HEEEEY! na na na na! naaa naa naa na na HEEEEY! na na na na!