Bustin Up My Back

OK, sorry for the delay. And sorry that there's no picture to go along with this. I swear there will be later. Check it out, there is totally a picture now!

So, Saturday night Phil and Carrie came over. The combination of them plus Sarah and I always leads to drunkenness. Always. This night, Phil and Sarah decided it was a good idea to ride a speaker (yes, speaker) down the front porch steps. So, of course, when I went outside and they related this genius idea to me, I thought, "That is a horrible idea... so... yes, I will surf this speaker down the steps." 

With nobody to deter me from this thought I hopped on top of the speaker, leaned forward... and... promptly let it slip out from under me and fell backwards, slamming my back into the steps.

At first, the fall knocked the wind out of me. I crawled over to the grass trying to get my breath back and trying to decide if my back was broken. After a bit of deliberation, I confirmed that no, in fact, my back was not broken, so all was well. Apparently the booze had dulled my senses enough to not realize how bad I had actually injured myself.

I woke the next morning in excruciating pain and went to sleep on the couch to keep from waking Sarah. Over the next couple of days I decided that I must have pulled a muscle and it would slowly get better. Now that some time has passed and it still hurts pretty damn bad, I'm weighing an alternate possibility: a cracked rib.

Naturally, being the mild hypochondriac that I am, I scoured the internet for verification. All of the symptoms I've found match mine entirely: pain when I move a certain way, pain when I cough or clear my throat (which is one of my Tourette's induced tics - I told you, mild hypochondriac), horrible pain when I sneeze (and I just did, trust me, don't crack a rib if you have allergies), pain when I take a deep breath (luckily this one isn't that bad, apparently if you can't take deep breaths it can lead to pneumonia).

The solution for this malady (according to various web forums): rest and painkillers. The same solution for a pulled muscle.

So, all that to end up with the same course of action I'm already taking. And I assume that whiskey is considered a painkiller, yes?