To bend, or not to bend?
In my bathroom, on the floor far to the back of the counter area where the chair goes, is an orange lipstick. It has been there since last summer, long enough for the stick to go dry because the cap was off when I dropped it all those months ago.
Two years ago, I would have bent over and reached way down to pick it up, but that was before the back twinges and the knee thing. I know the aches are the result of all the bicycling I do eight months of the year, but it’s also likely to be the predictable effects of getting older.
As I’ve written in this space this spring, the right knee has been giving me problems, which led me to a cortisone shot; it helped for a while but then didn’t, so on Monday I went for a different shot.
But first, the doctor’s office wanted to ask me some things, mostly notably about my pain level (a nice, respectable ONE most days), and my mobility – how well I get around.
Are you able to do two hours of physical labor, such as vacuuming?
I marked yes on the screen.
And then I thought about the last time I’d vacuumed. There was that small cardboard Amazon box that fell behind the dining room table. Rather than pick it up, which required bending and stretching, I pushed it around with the sweeper, moving it out of the way to get to the dust beneath it.
How long had that box been there? I wondered. It had contained a guitar tuner that I’d ordered last winter, and I remember that because I was stuck inside and was practicing more. Had I been poking that empty box with the sweeper since Christmas?
“You reach a point where you see that thing on the floor,” my friend said, “and you decide whether you want or need it badly enough to warrant the ache of retrieving it.”
She reminded me of another pre-appointment question.
Are you able to move furniture in order to clean under it?
Wait … what? People move furniture? My friend told me about an elderly aunt who moved her furniture toward and then away from a large window every day to prevent sun fading. The last time my sofa was moved was on move-in day. On move-out day the workers will find a sofa-shaped layer of dust on the floor. I’ve been known to vacuum around my sleeping dog.
Lazy? Nope. The open floors of my house shine like a new penny (also, I no longer bend down to pick up pennies when I’m out and about). Horizontal surfaces at waist level and above are spotless. Walls, too. I get a pass about the piano because it’s heavy and shouldn’t be moved. When the sun hits the room just right, I can see a dust bunny or two lurking there, but the keyboard is clean.
Of course there are things that require picking up, and I save my stretches for them. Smoothie’s food and water bowls are on the floor in the kitchen. Because my knee and back always feel a bit more stiff in the morning, I fill the water bowl and pick up the food bowl last thing every night. That’s one less stretch in the morning.
Someday I might climb under the bathroom counter to fetch that lipstick, but for now it will stay there. When I calculate the pain-benefit equation, I decide I can live without it for now. Orange is not my color anyway.