Originally published March 17, 2009

You ever have those moments of unspeakable stupidity? You know, those moments when you are glad there was no one there to witness them, or you try your best to convince yourself that no one did just because everyone was too polite to say anything? I had one of those tonight as I sat down to take off my shoes, getting ready for bed. Now, usually when I sit there is some measure of crunching as my sad, sad little knees strain to maintain the balance between upright and… well… not upright. But tonight, when I sat, there was the most horrendous cellophane crackling sound that I have ever heard issue forth from my lower body region. I looked down at my thighs, half expecting to see something protruding from my legs.

Nope. Nothing. I touched them. No pain.

I picked up my left leg – the one the sound seemed to come from – thinking I must have heard wrong or it was some horrendous fluke to be unrepeated in future testing. As my thigh lifted up off the seat, it crackled like no tomorrow. I grabbed at the muscle, thinking that maybe the 630 pounds on the seated leg press really WAS a little too much after all; here, finally, was my penance for my overly-competitive nature. No pain. Just a knotted muscle. Oh God, what have I done?

Straightened my knee out, just the normal crunch of bone grinding against the place my healthy cartilege should be. Let it drop. Raised the thigh off the chair again and the noise was horrendous. Up and down I repeated it, each time with the same horrible, horrible crunching noise. I watched it in horror, waiting for something to show itself on my leg, or for the pain to finally kick in. Surely I would lose it. I clutched at my abdominal region, my innards in turmoil (not enough protein after that last workout, I guess), and my hand closed around a lump in my left jacket pocket. Immediately the horrible cellophane crunch issued forth. It took me a couple of seconds before I realized what it was. THERE was that cellophane-wrapped protein bar I had completely forgotten about.

Yeah, I know. Really though, it COULD have been the leg.