Wednesday I went to the doctor’s for excruciating pain in my knee. In the commercials, a woman grabs her knee in pain as she’s going upstairs. She pops a couple aspirin and the next frame shows her taking the stairs three at a time while doing long division. I took Vicodin and still looked like I was recovering from a stroke while climbing stairs. Mathematical operators were the last thing on my mind.

X-rays revealed that I have osteo-arthritis. Now here’s my problem. Rheumatoid arthritis gets all the commercials and all the sympathy. Osteo-arthritis is like the poor second cousin who comes to sleep on your couch and eat all your cheese balls.

When I told my husband, “I can’t be on my feet long enough to make you dinner tonight,” his reaction was, “Oh boo-hoo.” He had the nerve to be annoyed. He showed his displeasure by bringing home hot wings. He knows I hate wings—they’re just skin and gristle on a stick. His passive aggressive dietary habits did not go unnoticed.

That’s when my survival instincts kicked in. Arthritis be damned, I dove on the potato salad like a vulture on road kill. The cheese balls were soon to follow. This wouldn’t have bothered me if I hadn’t recently rung the bell on the doctor’s scale.

The doctor gave me a tube of ibuprofin gel. What will they think of next? I don’t like to turn on the bathroom light and disturb my sweetie when he’s sleeping, so this morning, as I gelled up my knee, something didn’t feel right. I turned on the light and discovered that I had spread toothpaste on my knee. The fluoride and whitening power were little comfort, but my knee is now minty fresh.

Tonight I will try for a little normalcy. I’ll shave the front of my leg (nobody looks at the back anyway), hobble to the phone, and order a pizza. It may not make a difference on the doctor’s scale, but I’m getting tired of eating cheese balls.