Fat, out of shape, lazy-to-exercise and overweight Kovai has just had his comeuppance delivered to him.
Kovai came back home in the morning from a friend's place where he'd been invited over for dinner the day before.
He looked around the apartment and decided that it needed a little dusting. Memories of the strenuous house cleaning exercise he had indulged in on the last weekend popped up in his mind. He then decided that a little cleaning shouldn't hurt, and it'd mean that much less work on the weekend anyway. What the heck, he'd go to work late today. Kovai reached for the broom, and disaster struck.
Even as his trapezius, rhomboids, deltoids and rotator moved in perfect harmony, one stupid little out-of-shape muscle in Kovai's stupid out-of-shape back decided that it had had enough. It stopped whatever it was doing. Just like that. And then there was a bad catch in Kovai's back. Bad enough to make him stop whatever he was doing. Bad enough to make him arch his back and twist his arms to try and make the catch go away. Of course, this did not help him any, it only made matters worse.
He gingerly made his way to the telephone and called up a colleague to make his excuses for his now inevitable absence from work. The catch in his back must have been feeling insecure; it wanted a little more attention, and so it made its presence felt. Kovai now found that he had to hold his breath, or else the catch in his back would start radiating waves of pain. With difficulty, he dialled his colleague's number. To his colleague, he must have sounded much like a drunken overweight asthmatic bullfrog trying unsuccessfully to compete with eminem. During the course of the telephone conversation, Kovai discovered that holding his right hand behind his back, as though there was a gangster/rapper standing behind indulging in some arm-twisting, brought him some relief. He now proceeded to hobble to the bedroom, with the imaginary gangster in tow, arm held firmly in place.
After many trials and many more painful errors, he discovered a comfortable position on the bed. Lying on his back, knees in the air and hands behind the head. The slightest move in any direction resulted in much pain, so he lay down there as still as he could. An hour later, when the pain had subsided a little, he attempted to get up from his prone position. He had to move like the robots in bad science fiction movies, one limb and one joint at a time. Success. Sweet painful success. He navigated his way to Gollum, his pet Computer, and turned it on.
The first thing he did was Google for "Dial a Meal". Typing, he discovered, wasn't such an easy thing at all. It was worse when he had to move his hand away from the keyboard to reach for the mouse. He began to curse himself for getting the stupid USB modem that was unsupported except under M$. Under any of the other beasties that ran on his box, he wouldn't have had to move his hands away from the keyboard. Surprise, surprise! Google turned up the Dial-a-Meal phone number in Kovai's four-letter city of residence. The wryest of smiles paused fleetingly on Kovai's face, before moving aside to make room for the grimace of pain that had taken up residence there. Hopefully this tenant would move out soon, it didn't matter if his rent was unpaid.
The problem of Lunch having been solved, Kovai turned to other matters. Like discovering a comfortable position to sit in the chair, in which he would not be assaulted by sudden spasms in his back. No amount of twisting and turning yielded comfort. He was now forced to sit with his back hunched and both elbows on the chair's armrests. Ever seen an eighty-year old hacker hard at work? he thought grimly.
He recalled with much guilt his half-hearted attempts to exercise earlier. "Time to get back into shape", he sighed. If only the damn catch would go away.
Argh. It looked like the catch didn't want to leave.
It's now time for me to get back to the bed, and settle down in the robotic position with knees in the air and hands behind the head. I'm not in a temple, so there's no fear of
Commissioner Robert Lingam making his way here in pursuit of the Da Machi code. Thank ... whatever. I'm an atheist, so I can't say "Thank God". Soon, when it is time for lunch, I must again engage my trunk and limbs in movements that would make an arthritic Red Indian doing a rain dance look like a spry young Cariocita doing the Samba. Only God-who-does-not-exist knows how I'm actually going to eat the lunch when it arrives.
Tomorrow I work out.
Tomorrow is another day.
Post ScriptumThe Dial-a-meal number in this four-letter city is 25881246. Alternatively 25881389.
