As I mentioned in a previous post, I have a broken tailbone. Not the most glamorous of injuries, but I have to admit it’s a great non-starter if I want people to leave me alone while getting my mail at the post office.

Person at PO whose name I can’t remember: Hey Stacy, long time, no see. How’s it going?
Me: Well, I have a broken tailbone. You wanna see?
PAPOWNICR: Nope. Gotta run. Left the kids in my illegally parked car with the windows rolled up.

Some people will do anything to get out of seeing my cracked ass.

But the real comedy of breaking my tailbone was not the clown-like, klutzy pratfall that sent me reeling down a flight of stairs like a sack of cement shot from a linear accelerator. No, it’s the follow-up broken tailbone exercises that I swear are useless, but physical therapists insist you do, because let’s face it they’re all sadistic bastards.

Broken Tailbone 911

But before we get into that let’s deconstruct.

There’s nothing you can do for a broken tailbone in terms of using conventional medicine to fix it. Like broken ribs or collar bones, to repair a broken tailbone you simply put the separated fragments in a room together and through some sort of biological voodoo they eventually find each other and bond. I’m totally onboard with this. Because quite honestly a butt sling is not my idea of a fashion accessory. Talk about having your panties in a wad, sheesh.

Apparently strengthening the muscles around (and increasing the blood flow to) the damaged area is the only way to get a broken tailbone to mend. But being a woman of a certain age, my muscles are about as motivated as fossils to do stuff. That means I have to exercise and stretch my…um…let’s say lower back muscles in ways those muscles find offensive. And boy, do they let me know it, usually the next day when I’m trying to get in and out of the car, or get up off the toilet.

Which brings us to stupid-ass stunt #2.

Tailbone Therapy Can Be Hazardous to Your Health

Yesterday while I was in Costco my lower back started to hurt from standing around too long. I decide to stretch it out like the physical therapist had shown me, but I didn’t want to bend over and touch my toes, thus pointing my butt in the air like a Hamadryas Baboon in heat. So I had the bright idea to put my foot up on the shopping cart, like it was a ballet bar. Being the brilliant species that I am, I first propped the cart up against a pallet of Honey Nut Cheerios in the cereal aisle. I then swung my foot up on the handle of the shopping cart, leaned over my extended leg and gently stretched.

Ahhh. So far, so good.

Until I felt the shopping cart slowly inch away from me, thus causing me to go into a gradual above ground splits, the likes of which my loins have not experienced since the seventh grade. Apparently there weren’t enough Honey Nut Cheerios boxes on the pallet to secure the cart plus my weight, and as a result the pallet started to scoot.

This being Costco I grabbed the shelf above the pallet and hung among the cereal boxes between the aisles. Hey, at least I was out of the way. But unfortunately, I was also stuck. I couldn’t move the cart, I couldn’t get my leg off the cart, and I didn’t dare let go of the shelf above me. And of course, there was no one in the aisle to help me.

I thought about calling for assistance, but quite honestly the muscles in my inner thighs had my immediate attention, as they felt like they were about to snap like worn out bungee cords.

They’ve Seen it All at Costco

Just when I was ready to pass out from pain, a Costco worker doing inventory on an adjacent shelf yelled out, “Ma’am, you’re not supposed to be in the stock area between the aisles.” No mention of me doing an arabesque from the cereal to the car batteries.

“Yes, I realize that, but I’m kind of stuck. Could you come help me, please?”

He meandered over obviously annoyed that he had lost count of the Sweet and Lo packets.

Once he had a full view of my talents, he stared at me a good 10 seconds before coming up with, “Why did you do that?” like I had planned this from the moment I left the house.

“Well…” I thought about concocting some crazy story, but went with the truth instead, “I have a broken tailbone.” And just like the people in the post office, he decided that was more than enough information.

“Okey dokey,” he replied without further inquiry. He then graciously let me hang on to him so I could lean over far enough to take my foot off the cart.

“Thanks.” I said sincerely. “I needed to stretch.”

“Of course you did,” he deadpanned. And then went back to counting sugar substitutes without so much as a backward glance.

Well, at least he let me keep my dignity…in Costco.

As a final note, it might interest you to know that my broken tailbone feels much better. Mainly because now all my attention is focused on icing my inner thighs. But on the plus side, who knew I could still do the splits at my age?

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Stacy Dymalski is the host of the hilarious TV talk show “Mother Bloggers” on FirstRun.tv. She’s also an award winning keynote speaker and stand-up comic who gave up the glamorous life of coach travel, smokey comedy clubs, and heckling drunks for the glamourous life of raising kids (who happen to be bigger hecklers than the drunks). This blog is her new stage.

For more of Stacy’s comedy check out her book Confessions of a Band Geek Mom available in bookstores and on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.