You may have heard that old adage that says "Your body is a temple," even "Your body is a temple, not an amusement park". The amusement park atmosphere that often intrudes on the temple claim is more often now in the form of raucous spousal laughter as I engage in what used to be normal activities.

There is the common undressing maneuver, (which again I am told is practised mainly by males) where all of the garments from the upper body are removed in one smooth, graceful motion. There are times when the motion is neither smooth nor graceful however, usually a result of having forgotten to undo cuff buttons, or worse, to undo sufficient buttons at the neck. The resultant dervish whirl and arm flail is akin to the tai chi move of caressing wild stallion’s mane while avoiding bedroom furniture, or some approximation thereof. It can result in very unpleasant stretching of the flickers and swatters as well as nose-tip tearing and bumnal bashing. Any stress on one’s relationship with co-owner of bedroom furniture may be eased by recalling the damage to home and garden sometimes caused by the related partner.

Apropos of which, you may see on some late afternoon in spring your Beloved backing in the driveway, her over-the-shoulder view obscured by some mass of foliage in the rear seats. You rush out to greet her with loving concern for her safety and that of the garage door, walls and nearby shrubbery, but you are too late. Your leap to safety with a frantic clutch at the side storage shelving causes a severe strain to the lifter majors and inflicts a nasty gouge in your hoopus rotator where your hip jams itself against a shelf bracket. Then, after a clean-up of plant matter and bits of garage siding, comes the unloading of the vehicle.

You are tasked with the removal of several large flowering plant arrangements all housed in ceramic pots, the least of which probably required a forklift loader for its placement in the storage compartment of your SUV. By the time you have tottered the five trips needed to carry the plants to the back yard, your stridus-alongus are threatening collapse and your bumnals are no longer speaking to you. You know the next day will not be nice.