Tag: Cal Ripken

If performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) existed for bloggers I would be tempted to at least try some when my carpal tunnel was acting up. That way, I could multi-task pain-free. I could just say my cousin got them for me and I thought they were legitimate, nutritional supplements. I would not go as far as to say I was duped into their use. But think of the possibilities. I could blog and do homework, blog and do laundry, blog and fold clothes, blog and sew clothes, blog and get the government going again (oh, maybe not that), blog and study for tests, blog and send emails, blog and blog some more—the possibilities are endless, spicy and surely tempting.
I think Stephen King may have been the first writer to use PEDs. He may have tapered off if his publishers were rumored to be administering random urinalysis testing. How else to explain the untold numbers of books he has written? Even if you write every day, you would need some PEDs to go for the incredibly long durations at the keyboard that he did. I’m just suspicious, I guess.
It would be interesting to see how blogging PEDs would work. After taking them, how would I feel? Would I feel like peeling tons of oranges with my hands or typing fast for long periods of time? How about thumbing through huge, obsolete financial printing typesetting system manuals at incredibly fast speeds? What about suddenly being able to write both right-handed and left-handed equally well? I imagine blogging PEDs would be concentrated to work on your hands and mind so your hands could keep up with your racing mind. PEDs would help if you injured yourself while blogging, too. Recovery times from blogging injuries would be much quicker. One time my legs fell asleep while I was doing some editing. It was a strange feeling and it distracted me from the editing tasks at hand. Perhaps PEDs would have prevented my legs from going to sleep in the first place.

I try to be ergonomic as much as I can, but my desk is old, my chair is old, but at least I type on a good ergonomic keyboard. My mouse is pretty comfortable as well. If on blogging PEDs, I might be able to go back to being completely unergonomic and using poor technique—which led to the carpal in the first place. Since blogging PEDs would be intended to improve one’s blogging and recovery time from blogging injuries, I would imagine I would not need to worry about whether I was sitting up straight, bending my knees at the right angle, or keeping my tongue inside my mouth when typing posts.
Another thing I’d like blogging PEDs to be able to do for me is to give me the ability to talk with our dog Chelsea. I always say things to her and sometimes she wags her tail and looks at me happily. I think it would be cool if she could actually chat with me. I tell my wife that Chelsea told me this or Chelsea told me that and she mostly agrees in the way a sane person tries to be kind to someone who’s harmless yet completely off their rocker. But, I sometimes think she believes me when I tell her Chelsea told me this or that, when our little buffer and I were talking this morning. After all, Chelsea is our dog and she is smarter than most. To be clear, Chelsea would not be taking the PEDs, I would. Don’t ask me how my use of blogging PEDs allows Chelsea to speak and listen. Chelsea is 14 and can’t hear, so the PEDs would somehow project from me on to her the ability to hear again, too. Yeah, that’s it. This could be problematic, though, for if Chelsea actually heard and understood the things I tell her, she might wish she could go back to not being able to speak English or hear at all.

I would not try to hide my use of blogging PEDs, either. There would be full disclosure. I think if I am not completely transparent with our readers then they would feel as if my PED use was similar to professional athletes—like I was taking them to get an edge over other bloggers who were not using them. But I am not in competition with other bloggers. Nor does my contract contain incentive clauses that pay bonuses upon my reaching a certain number of blogs in a blogging season. I do feel if they ever come up with a blogging all-star team and I am voted to be a starter on the team by the blogging pastime’s fans, then, yes, by all means, I will give myself a few extra bucks to get fries with that a la carte burger at the fancy-schmancy, high-end burger joint.
For that’s what bloggers do. We are scribes fighting to be heard in a sea of infinite expansiveness. I’m sure readers would delight in my newfound and consistent witticisms resulting from blogging PED overuse. Which leads me to another question…what would the side effects of abusing blogging PEDs look like?

Well, sad to say, I’d probably have grotesquely muscular hands. They’d be disfigured with calluses top to bottom, from banging on the keyboard too hand, I mean, hard, and for too long. All the hair that was on the top of my hands would fall out, too—slowly at first and then more rapidly over time with my long-term blogging PEDs use. This would not necessarily be reason enough for me to stop using blogging PEDs. My readers would be addicted to my blogging PED-infused tales and high jinks. Other side effects might include my being prone to fits of blogging rage whereby I combine blogging PED use with drinking pots of super strong coffee and then playing on guitar the intro lead licks to “Love Me Two Times, Baby,” repeatedly, and for hours on end. It would be sad and sadly entertaining simultaneously.

If I suffered from OCD and my particular malady was checking to make sure the locks were really locked when I either tried to go to bed or leave the house, I might set records for how many times I check before I just say, “Universe, whether the doors are locked is in your hands now. I’ve checked them 2,132 times—Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played until Cal Ripken broke it. Please stop my fingers from receding into my hands (fingers shriveling up in size another blogging PED use side effect), give me peace of mind and let me resist the urge to use the asterisk key more than three times to denote the end of a blog post.”

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