Surface Tens on

My remembery wife pointed out this morning - with perhaps just a hint of longsufferingness in her tone - that I do in fact have not one but two TENS machines in my drawer, precisely for this circumstance, where my shoulder is painful enough to stop me working.

I hate the necessity, but this is why we have the word "necessity", for occasions where we really don't wanna. This is also why we have TENS machines*.

I'm in the library right now, trying to work regardless; it's easier on the laptop than the desktop, because angles, ergonomics, posture. (Why yes, I do indeed have appalling posture and shockingly bad set-ups at my desk, thank you for asking.) But I will buy batteries on my way home, and wire myself up as soon as I'm withindoor, and then I will be All Tingly for Valentine's Day.


*Why two, you ask? Because I used to flit heedlessly hither and yon, shuttling between the UK to the US two or three times a year, and if there is one thing I am certain of, it is that the TSA and the airlines would look with disfavour on a person boarding an airplane all wired up to an active electrical box, cables concealed beneath their clothing. So I went for the wife-in-every-port option. And now I have two, and only one body between them.

ElectroChaz

I wonder, can one have electrodes and their attendant wirings fixed permanently to one's body? Tattooed in electromagnetic ink would be cool, like one's very own circuit-board printed on the skin, but I'll take wires slipped underneath if that's the alternative. And a power source, a battery implanted in my hip, with touch-sensitive controls that respond when I beat a rhythm with my fingers. Or something.

In other words, I am all wired up to TENS the Younger, and remembering how fussy the process is - batteries die, patches slip, wires come loose without warning - and wishing it could be oh so very much simpler, because it makes oh so very much difference.

I have to go make lunch right now, but actually right now I would be perfectly happy to go on typing. Which is the first time in days. So yup, for definite, I want my own implanted cyberTENS. Please.

Oh, I remember this

Q: How is a TENS machine like eating chillies?

A: One is obliged to be macho, and constantly look to increase the dosage. I've been running it mildly since noon, and that is no longer enough; I have turned it up from korma to rogan josh. By this evening, I'll have burned through one battery (I predict) and have the thing set on madras. My old physical-therapy goddess had a massive high-powered industrial version, that she finished me off with after every session; and once she'd set the vasty suckers on my back she used to dial it up from nothing, saying "Let me know when it's too much" - and I would just lie there and say nothing till she had it turned up all the way through vindaloo to phal. I loved that thing. (And despite the mega-oomph of it, as often as not I'd fall asleep under its ministrations. They do say that after a session of torture, it's perfectly normal to doze off. I attest to that. *nods*)