Groucho's Back

The words “independent movement” had barely passed the synapses of my brain and flowed out my fingertips onto the keyboard when the rest of my body absorbed the news. My back’s immediate reaction was to throw itself into a frenzy and spasmodically refuse to cooperate. So I’m moving like Groucho Marx, trying to coax my body into a better mood. To be honest, it probably wasn’t the words that pushed my back over the edge. More than likely, beyond a reasonable doubt even, it was the daylong bending over a filing cabinet, sorting and throwing things away that pushed my muscles over the edge. Let this be a cautionary tale: Do not try to clean out 15 years of financial documents all in one day. Better yet, do not wait 15 years to throw all those papers away.