The "Trick Back" Addendum (Or: Why I Retired at 40)

I truly give new meaning to the term

"Trick Photography"

AI assisted humor

If you are reading this, it’s probably because I politely declined to lift something, looked like a glitching robot while trying to drop into a chair, or mentioned my retirement.

Yes, I retired at the age of 40, and no, it wasn't because I struck it rich. It is because I had a terrible slip and fall accident on stairs so, I live with a lifelong disability courtesy of a spine that operates on pure, unpredictable chaos. To save myself from explaining the whole darn thing every time it comes up, here is a quick, handy guide to what my reality actually looks like:

My back tantrums don't stop me,

but they seem to stop others who have strict rules about appearances.

I always get the job done.

Do not harass me about standing too long.

I may bend funny.

But I always accomplish tasks.

Why I became Self Employed

Employers didn't like my slapstick antics.***

The Daily Reality Check

• The High-Stakes Hard-Boiled Egg Incident: My back doesn't care about heavy lifting. It chooses violence during the most mundane moments. I have literally thrown my entire back out merely putting ice into hard-boiled eggs. The eggs survived. I did not.

• I still made the egg salad, but I did it rather stiffly.

  
  
  
  
  
  

  High-stakes physical theater.

• 
  

  Interesting Angles

   If an object falls, it belongs to the tile now? No. The physical tax on retrieving it is high but I'll bend funny and get it somehow. The 8 second rule is moot. It's not edible now.

  Where there's a will there's a way.

• One millimeter off my specific pillow fold and I wake up shaped like a croissant. I never quit. A croissant shaped human has value. I'm sweet too! Getting all warm and melty straightens me out. Fortunately I live in Florida.

• The Words "Snap Crackle Pop" are not appetizing, not my favorite sound: 

• A snafued framework means I live stiff as a statue for the next three days. I do what I need to do anyway, but stiffly. And I eat raisin bran and honey nut o's with lactaid milk and peaches. They are more quiet.

• The Sneeze Hazard: Sometimes. A high-stakes bomb-defusal matrix. That visual is absolute poetry—and the struggle is entirely real. A "sneeze hazard" that powerful usually means your body is throwing its entire physical weight into a violent reflex, and if you don't anchor yourself, the recoil is genuinely disruptive.

The Stiff-Legged Lean 

If I ask you to pass me a roll of tape like it holds museum grade reverence, or if I look like a majestic, stiff-legged crane impression trying to pick up a dropped fork I am fully validated —now you know why. It’s not you, it’s my L4 vertebra throwing a tantrum.

Ouch. In everyday speech, a "trick back" describes a back that is prone to sudden pain, spasms, locking up, or "giving out" without much warning.

When the L4 vertebra throws a tantrum, it usually means the lumbar nerve roots are compressed or irritated, transforming simple, everyday movements into high-stakes physical theater.

• 
  
• 
  

• ***Forced to identify as Disabled.

• My humorous " trick back " repertoire no longer allowed me to skate through life undiscovered.

• 1988. "At twenty-six and a half, I had an accident resulting in a lifelong disability which threatened to sideline me. The orthopedic surgeon said I could possibly never walk again having endured an achilles strain, critical hamstring tear which left me with crippling sciatica and a trick back. I also have rheumatoid arthritis, diagnosed at age 14. But I still walk now. Refusing to give up, I found an industry that prized my mental focus over my physical limitations, allowing me to build a career for the next fourteen years. But by age 40, the cumulative toll of my condition caught up with me. It culminated with an exasperated employer flatly stating what I had been trying to outrun: 'Forget it, you're too disabled to work anywhere.' Accepting that reality, I moved to Florida, where a team of doctors confirmed the diagnosis. At 40, my working chapters closed, and I was officially, legally retired." I couldn't turn the pages of a book in bed without throwing out my trick back. Little by little, drawing and painting lead to picking up a camera again which helped me rehab. Looking forward to the sunset everyday was a God send.