Not a problem

Turned on the radio this morning and the first thing I heard was a report on the tragedy of the poor suffering store clerks at Target and Walmart actually having to work on Thanksgiving Day. Oh, the humanity. Give me a break. When was the last time you heard someone bemoaning the fate of the poor saps who work at 7-11, Circle K, or any of the other convenience stores/gas stations that are open 24/7 every day of the year? Or sympathy expressed for the nurse aides, orderlies, and janitors in hospitals and nursing homes? Does anyone ever think about the housekeeping staff at hotels, the ticket agents and ramp rats at airports, or any of a long list of other occupations that never shut down? But stores that used to be closed on Thanksgiving Day are now staying open and suddenly it's a problem. Unreal.

I agree it sucks to work on a holiday. Been there, done that. I've worked in nursing homes, hospitals, and hotels. If I think about it, I can recall years when I worked every single holiday, from New Year's Day right through to New Year's Eve. But so did a lot of other people, and, as a rule, we all agreed that working on a holiday and collecting a pay check beat not collecting a pay check. You know, I occasionally see the phrases "first world problem" or "white people's problem" used to describe things that don't really qualify as problems -- they're more annoyances than actual problems. Being homeless would qualify as a problem. Working on a holiday is an annoyance. And for sure bitching about having to run a cash register or stock shelves on Thanksgiving Day is definitely a first world/white people's problem.

On a meta level, the rampant consumerism and excessive focus on material goods in our society are problems, but that's a subject for a different post.

I should have listened to my mother

I'm feeling like a walking cliche this morning.  It hasn't been that many years since I mocked my elders for seemingly having nothing to talk about but their health -- the various operations, the specialists they were seeing, the battery of medications they took -- and now it's payback time.  I've become one of them.  The pill bottles are proliferating, and conversations with friends focus way too much health issues. 

The latest for me is my back.  It's betrayed me.  I would have halfway understood having back trouble if I did anything that was remotely strenuous.  Screwing up my back while I was still working for the Park Service and scrambling in and out of boats, bushwhacking trying to find abandoned buildings, or doing something -- anything! -- that required some effort wouldn't bother me much.  Ditto if I'd managed to screw it up at home, even if it was by reaching for something on a closet shelf.  No such luck. 

What's done my back in is several decades of office work.  Eight hours a day in front of a computer while sitting in chairs that don't fit right coupled with a lifetime of poor posture.  End result:  pinched nerve and strange pains.  No, that's not quite right:  End result -- multiple visits to a physical therapist in an attempt to unlearn a lifetime of bad habits and learn some "trunk strengthening" exercises. 

I definitely should have listened to my mother when she kept nagging me to sit up straight.