How Did You Hurt Yourself?
Clever alibis for when you find yourself aboard the pain train
Hurting and injuring yourself. An aspect of life associated with risk taking or being accident prone. It happens to all of us at one point or the other. Nobody likes to get hurt in modern times, but it does happen. That’s why emergency rooms and injury attorneys are so prevalent in our society. With high-speed transport and high impact activities the law of averages states a certain amount of people are going to injure and sometimes kill themselves. In our evolutionary trajectory certain kinds of risks were tolerated, in the procurement of food or to fight off immediate threats. Without guts, there is no glory. Darwinism is alive and well whether it was during caveman times or in the modern era.
Years of wear and tear can also result in the need for radical knee reconstruction surgery or procedures used to address afflictions in the back or hip sockets. Decades of engaging in your favorite pastimes sometimes leads to the body needing some sort of surgical intervention. There’s no shame in it, just part of growing older. The outcomes ultimately lead to a person having more mobility and better movement. Physical therapy followed by 6-8 weeks of slowly recuperating can be expected. Sometimes medical hardware is assigned to the patient to help them accomplish life’s daily activities with more ease. Things like crutches, neck braces, slings, and a whole other variety of plastic medical instruments allows for the person to go about their life even while recovering from ACL surgery.
Where I reside in Colorado, the outdoor lifestyle is very high impact, and you’ll see a lot of weekend warriors messing themselves up on their favorite hobbies. Skiing, mountain biking, kayaking, rock climbing, etc. are for the hardcore and sometimes those folks can push it to the limit in harming themselves. It’s essentially Newtonian physics. When you’re traveling at a high speed of velocity and you hit a tree on a pair of skis or a mountain bike, your day has the potential to turn into a bodacious bummer. It’s happened to me before and it happens to plenty of diehard outdoor enthusiasts. Before you know it, you’re in a cast walking around on crutches with a sympathetic public asking you what happened. “What happened to you?” “Are you okay?” “How did you manage to injure yourself.” At first, you don’t mind giving people an explanation but after awhile it gets old. You could tell them that you got shot by cops after a high-speed pursuit but after awhile that loses its luster. I find that using an Albanian Mafia alibi is the most creative and works best. So, the next time some numb nuts ask you how you sprained your neck since you’re in a brace, politely explain to him that you were indebted forty thousand dollars to the Albanian mafia and they threw you out a third story window.
La Costra Nostra isn’t as prevalent as they were fifty years ago, the Russian Mafia is still powerful yet highly decentralized, but pound for pound the Albanian Mafia are the baddest motherfuckers on the block. Featured in such movies as Taken and The Equalizer, these Balkan bad boys are a menace to society everywhere they go. From the streets of Paris to Colorado’s mountain towns the gangsters from the Land of the Eagles protect their interests through extortion and violence. The also provide the perfect excuse in explaining how you injured your Achilles tendon. When a concerned woman asks why you are hobbling around on crutches, don’t tell her about your soccer injury, explain to her that the Agron the Albanian Capo roughed you up a bit when you failed to make delivery from the Bolivians in due time. The Bolivian marching powder was supposed to flood the streets of Aspen by Friday, and you were 12 hours late. After a beatdown from Agron in a nearby safehouse you feel his pain from the pain he just inflicted on you, and you’ll never be late again. After freaking the woman out, you can now go about your day moving at half speed.
After breaking both legs in a freak rodeo clown accident, I am now confined to a wheelchair for 3-4 weeks. After getting out of the hospital, I’m continuously overwhelmed with sympathy cards and people asking me how I incurred such a terrible mishap. Growing weary of telling the truth, I concoct a story explaining that I got caught up in an arms deal gone bad in the Mediterranean. Acting as a middleman, negotiating in good faith for a shipload of AK-47 rifles and grenades that were destined for Central Africa, I messed up on the agreed price selling the weapons to an African warlord at a significant discount. This did not please Ratko AKA the Tyrant of Tirana. After refusing to pay me my commission his goons ran me over in a car thus putting me in a wheelchair for the foreseeable future. Having a bull mess your lower body up is one thing but seeing the looks on people’s faces by explaining that I double crossed the Albanian mafia is priceless.
Dislocating my shoulder rollerblading, I’m a little hesitant to tell people how I incurred the injury. I’m now in a sling, fully embarrassed, and can’t let people know the truth of how I ended up with this painful injury. Instead, I explain to them that I got this battle scar when me and my friend Liam raided an Albanian sex trafficking ring in Paris. It was rumored that his daughter and her friend were kidnapped and taken there and he and I fought our way in and out looking for intelligence. Liam may have done most of the stabbing and shooting, but I caught a bullet during the exfil and here I am slung up. It’s a much better explanation than roller blading and blaming the Albanian Mafia for all of my woes is all the more interesting.
Having thoroughly messed myself up by tumbling down a hillside full of cacti, I’m a hurting unit from head to toe. With various bandages, skin discoloration, and gauze wrapped around my head and ear, people just can’t wait to see what the hell I did to myself. I could tell the truth and say it was a mescaline retreat gone bad or I could make it all the more interesting and explain to them that this is what happens when you get involved with the Albanian Mafia in the exchange of counterfeit Britney Spears merchandise. Shkelzen was none too pleased with the lineup of Britney Spears concert T-shirts that I brought to the flea market, so he wailed on me with a baseball bat. Senselessly beating me he is the reason for my many injuries and the shocked look on my audiences’ faces. Being referred to as the Albanian Joe Pesci, Shkelzen doesn’t tolerate shit from anyone especially when it comes to moving Britney merchandise within the black-market of Chicago. I came up short, and this short statured Albanian from the criminal syndicate put me in my place.
At one point or another, you’re going to fuck yourself up. It could be no fault of your own but eventually you’ll need some sort of medical apparatus to help you navigate in the world. Healthy people need healthcare, that is for sure. When that time comes, and every semi-concerned dipshit on the street has to ask you what happened and if you’re okay, fuck them up with an Albanian alibi. Tell them Albanian Al fucked you up for spilling the beans on a fraudulent childcare facility in Albany. It’s a way better storyline than telling someone that you are on crutches since you tripped and sprained your ankle while shopping for flowers at your local farmer’s market. Instead of shamelessly having to admit that you are in a neck brace from a freak goat yoga accident, tell someone that this is a result of Tonin Berisha AKA the Albanian Tony Soprano beating your ass and throwing you out of a helicopter from a crypto currency dealer going awry. Never give in to mediocrity when explaining your injuries, lie your ass off and point the finger at the Albanian mafia for your external afflictions.
Brian Ss