We need a simplified way of speaking about body parts. That realization came to me in a flash of pain when I saw that the medical community at large and the first responders to my predicament in particular needed a new way of talking about muscle systems, specifically the ones I had just damaged. I picked myself up out of the closet, divested myself of coat hangers and articles of clothing and tested those muscles gingerly. There seemed to be no broken bones and the mental discomfort of spousal laughter would pass. Muscles were another matter. I knew from previous over-exertions last spring in the garden — it was always exertions, in spring, in the garden — that muscles took a while to present their complaints. It was as if they wanted full attention of the nerve corridors and were quite prepared to wait a few days for minor scrapes to fade from consciousness before registering their suits. Where will the pain come from, I wondered, and how will I locate it when I describing my agonies on any who will listen?

The activity that had caused my predicament was a simple enough procedure and one familiar to any male person, although it is not necessarily restricted to only my sex. While dressing, I had assumed the crane posture preparatory to inserting my right leg into my underwear and had inadvertently caught my toe on the waistband just as I was stretching out the foot to complete the process. With hands still gripping the aforesaid waistband, I executed the typical pant-leg arabesque and backwards triple-lutz, thereby hurling myself into the closet. It was a move familiar as I have said (and have said far too often it seems) to any male, and although I am certain that this problem occurs with equal frequency to single and married men, there is a reticence on the part of bachelors to admit to what is really a minor problem. This unreasonable attachment to a sense of dignity makes it appear to be an issue common only to couples; either that or a disproportionate and quite un-called-for publicity from the wives of injured males. Back to my pains and the description thereof.

The major muscle group to experience discomfort as I age and in particular when dressing it seems, has been the “outer bumnal.” I have been frequently called a pain in the ass but now I find I more often have one. I could consult an atlas of human anatomy and find that I am referring to something called the gluteus maximus but no matter; I will not remember that word long enough to repeat it in the office of a physiotherapist. It is for me the “outer bumnal", a location I will not easily forget.

The same cannot be said for the other nomenclatures of human anatomy since Hippocrates the Greek and Galen, the Romanized Greek, first made lists of names for the body parts. It took a United Nations task force in 1989 to finally reach a global consensus, and their damn list is still largely composed of Greek which if I may enlist a colloquialism to describe, is still “all Greek to me.” “Bumnals” however, are real, and if precision is called for, I am quite able to specify upper and lower, even outer or central aspects of this most accident-prone of muscle groups. I also know I will never forget the location, susceptibility to accident, and sensitivity to sharp objects of this most important of anatomical structures.

The bumnal is anchored at the sides to the hoopus rotators and at the front to the stridus-alongus. These muscles cause little grief unless prompted to over-exertion by grandchildren with hula hoops and soccer balls. Indeed, most of the other large muscles largely behave themselves. Oh, the lifter majors (or minors in those too young to drink) and flickers and swatters in the arms may be tested with pieces of luggage, but that usually happens only at the end of a trip when the weight of said luggage pieces has increased to the point where they should be checked as cargo rather than stuffed into overhead bins.

Of even lesser importance are the heroicals and boobulars of the torso whose significance decreases with advancing age and declining opportunity for sudden posturing on tropical beaches. Perhaps the shrugglia remain functional in response to queries such as “Who ate the cream scones I put in the fridge for my bridge club?” but they are not usually thereby susceptible to much damage. It remains for the stridus-alongus and various aspects of the bumnal to experience a disproportionate amount of discomfort in life. How many of these common injuries are sustained every day and how difficult is it for the suffering public to indicate with some precision, the afflicted body part?

Your only consolation in these circumstances will be that your health care practitioner may be familiar with this new simple nomenclature and can decipher your tearful explanations and gestures to most precisely poke and pull at your injured parts. Closet damage can be repaired; the body deserves the care and respect due to a temple.