It’s what I call a phantom ouch monster that attacks our bodies as we sleep.
Yes, there is such a thing because I just made it up.
So many friends have told me stories about waking up in the morning with parts of their body wracked with pain.
Why I ask? What did you do? Did you run a marathon in the middle of the night?
“The frightening thing is they were working fine when we went to bed,” they all say.
So what happened during the night?
The answer is always “nothing, I just went to bed. Then of course there was the usual bathroom trips, but I didn’t fall or bump into anything. So why does my foot feel like it’s broken?”
As one who has watched Sherlock Holmes ad nauseum I feel qualified to take on this mystery and find a hasty conclusion.
I have a theory. I think many great detectives, Holmes, Poirot, Scooby Do, Marple, quickly get a handle on the evidence and where it might be leading. Or is it that the writers already know the ending? I’m not quite certain, but I shall propose an idea that popped into my head while I was searching the cupboard for a box of Girl Scout cookies I may have overlooked.
There is obviously a bone fairy that comes in the night and twists and turns our bodies in unmanageable ways while we’re sleeping. When we awake, we suddenly face a knee that’s not working, an elbow aching, or any number of body parts screaming, “ouch.”
Why you ask would a bone fairy attack someone? And what the heck is a bone fairy?
Aha, this is the part you have to wait until the end of the story for Holmes to reveal…it’s actually the tooth fairy’s evil twin. I didn’t want to make you wait.
Yes, like Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West, related by birth, but oh so different.
There is no other explanation to these sudden body parts turning on us during the night.
Unless one chooses to believe the mattress is attacking.
I have awakened to painful toes, a shoulder than refuses to allow my arm to turn, and a neck that one can only call completely uncooperative.
Is it not bad enough that every day brings a new adventure in ouch-something-else-hurts land?
That the simple act of watching an athlete is depressing and trying to open a jar has become a task as Herculean as the Trojan Wars.
Where bending down to reach into a lower cupboard can seem like a guarantee of a shoulder injury. And forget leaning on a knee anymore!
I actually find it hard to believe I have friends that still go to spin classes and play pickleball.
Oh sure they have sore knees, but there is at least an explanation for their plight.
What can one say to justify an ace bandage on a knee when the cause was a pillow gone rogue?
I am aware of the whole twisting and turning thing at night, but to wake up unable to walk from it, this is new.
When young we literally twisted to music. We jump roped, ran races, roller skated on cement, and did cartwheels on the lawn.
Today if I unroll the toilet paper too fast I have to put a splint on my wrist.
So why does the ouch monster attack only at night while our guard is down?
While we are unaware that our bones or joints may be in imminent danger of being fodder for the evil Bone Fairy and no way of fighting back?
Can we protect ourselves from this evil and walk upright again?
I guess we could fool the fairy and sleep in a chair. Just like when you have knee or hip surgery and can’t get in or out of bed.
So when the Bone Fairy enters your bedroom at night to twist your knee into an unrecognizable part of your anatomy; surprise. You are comfortably ensconced in the living room La-Z- Boy, feet up and snoring happily away.
But can that evil ouch monster seek you out and hone in on a body part uncovered or unprotected?
I must admit that yes, it is true. While you sleep the forces of darkness are busily at work to create a vortex of pain to which you must awaken.
Suddenly there is an aching back, or unhappy elbow or pain that shoots down your hip into your lower leg.
Ah, the great challenge of a duel against an ouch monster attacking your unprotected body.
I have often asked myself why my body doesn’t fight back. Yell for help or scream a warning that your foe has entered the room.
At least you could awaken, jump out of bed and grab a heating pad or ice pack to defeat its evil purpose.
But alas, no. Your poor tired body sleeps away, totally unaware that when morning comes it will suffer the ravages of an enemy. One so sneaky it can enter during the night and attack without mercy.
Perhaps one day someone will invent a Bone Fairy trap. At night as you sleep it will awaken you at the first sign of something closing in on a bone or joint. Aha, and then you can do battle against this foe with no mercy!
Until that day we must do our best to stretch, ice and heat the bruises and pains from our invisible enemy.
Et tu Ouch Monster?
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