The Pain in Sprain is Mainly on the Plane
by Jay Dubya 
I know for a fact that the pain in sprain is mainly on the plane, even without ever personally knowing Audrey Hepburn or Rex Harrison. I don’t believe that Professor Henry Higgins and Elisha Doolittle ever had severe ankle sprains to match several of mine. One such minor calamity occurred just before Christmas in 1974.
This writer observed that one of my sons had tossed a small Frisbee onto the side porch’s roof, and the object had been left resting halfway between the pinnacle of the A-frame and the rain gutter. Dauntlessly, I ambled to the garage, removed my trusty aluminum ladder, and ascended up onto the side porch’s roof. ‘I hope I don’t get a bad case of shingles,’ I laughed to myself. ‘If this house didn’t have shingles, I’d be more roofless than I really am,’ I mused. Reaching the errant Frisbee, I adroitly flung the red plastic saucer back down to the ground, quite proud of my achievement.
When I returned to where I had placed the aluminum ladder, I soon realized that the wind had blown it over. ‘Hard to climb that thing from way up here,’ I thought. ‘My oldest son never locks his window. I’ll get into the house by climbing through it,’ I concluded.
Much to my aggravation, Joe’s bedroom window was locked. Then I assessed the true nature of my dilemma. The temperature was fifteen degrees, a gusty wind was blowing and the wind-chill factor was about minus five. I was stuck on the porch’s roof, no-one else was home, the aluminum ladder was horizontal on the hard ground, I was wearing an autumn-weight jacket, had no gloves, and felt rather foolish standing alone up there with the atmosphere cold enough to freeze an Eskimo’s bellybutton.
I spotted my wife driving by on the Pike heading west toward her mother’s place. I desperately and frantically waved my arms as if I was a stranded Robinson Crusoe trying to get Friday’s attention. Joanne whizzed by focused on changing lanes and unaware of my wild gesticulations. I motioned at other motorists traveling the White Horse Pike, but they either ignored my plight or thought that I was over-zealously trying to be friendly. Several drivers honked their horns in recognition of my zany hand’ signaling.
‘Now I know how Gilligan felt every time he and the Skipper had been almost rescued from that Pacific’ island,’ I lamented. ‘I gotta’ get off this roof before I turn into an icicle.’
I glanced at the security light’ telephone pole situated five feet from the roof’s back rain gutter and considered leaping onto it. ‘If only I had worn gloves,’ I regretted. ‘I don’t need fifty splinters in each of my cold hands if my open palms make contact with the pole and then accidentally are compelled by gravity to slide down the wooden object.’ Being under great mental duress, I panicked, and without yelling “Geronimo” or some other inane parachutist’ jargon, I leaped ten feet from the roof onto the Tundra-like ground. I injured my left ankle, and a doctor after examining x-rays diagnosed my self-inflicted condition as a “double-sprain.”
“What made you do such a stupid thing like climbing up on the roof when nobody else was home?” my wife criticized.
“Sometimes I enjoy being stupid,” I snapped back. “Rene Descartes said he could prove he existed by saying, ‘I think; therefore I am.’ To me, intense physical pain is the true proof of existence,” I stubbornly answered.
Two days later, Joanne and I were scheduled for a Caribbean cruise on the Cunard Adventurer. My left ankle had puffed up to the size of a cantaloupe, and I remember the excruciating pain as I dragged several pieces of luggage through New York’s Port Authority Bus Terminal, and later through Kennedy Airport. But the biggest agony was sitting on the plane for the four-hour flight to San Juan. I put the earphones on, switched to the Oldies audio-channel and had to suffer through Chubby Checker’s lively rendition of “The Twist.”
Several decades later I was showing an eighth grade class the film Bye, Bye Birdie as a basis for a writing lesson. In one movie’ scene, the Russian ballet was dancing, and the conductor had been given a special formula called “Speed-up.” The maestro drank the potion, and then wildly swung his baton, which made the stage’ dancers speed up to the music.
I always enjoyed spicing up video lessons, so in the dark, I dashed to the back of the classroom and started dancing and hopping around in front of the elevated television and VCR, acting like a nut’ case to entertain the class. A girl had not put a thick textbook under her desk, and when my left foot landed on the uneven surface, I immediately re-double-sprained my left ankle.
This English teacher hopped about the back of the classroom holding my raised left foot, and the students all roared, thinking I was doing some pre-planned theatrical exaggeration. I finally reached the side thigh-high’ bookshelf where I parked my body. I winced with pain as the thoroughly amused class still thought I was acting out false agony.
After the period ended, I had a student buzz the nurse’s office. Mrs. Marie DeLaurentis appeared and had to cut off my shoe to examine my inflated left foot. Bill Amedio, the middle school custodian, was assigned to drive me to the school physician’s office. Dr. Nurkiewicz evaluated my foot and put me on disability. So, I was one of the first Hammonton’ teachers to ever get injured on the job.
Several weeks later My Fair Lady and I went on vacation to the Bahamas with several other teacher’ couples. On the flight from Philly’ to Nassau, I again became quite aware that “the pain in sprain is mainly on the plane.”
, (Jay Dubya)
Copyright-The Hammonton (New Jersey)Gazette
January 25, 2002 edition
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