The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

Dormant Butt Syndrome occurs when the gluteus maximus muscles are not functioning properly, heaping strain on other parts of the body.
I know what you’re thinking: I make this stuff up. Butt seriously, why would I make up a disease that impugns the lifestyle of most of us down here on the idyllically slothful South End? You think I’m advocating for more of those health clubs with their machines spinning in near unison while their poor pedallers listen to books on tape or NPR rebroadcasts through their earpods?? C’mon, get a grip. This is breaking news, not a Donald Trump press release.

DBS, it’s no laughing matter. You sit on yours too long and before you realize the couch has grown tendrils up into your pant leg, you start noticing back pain, maybe some hip creakiness, then knee problems begin to crop up when you head to the fridge for another beer or more chips. How can this be? you ask yourself, knowing full well you haven’t, couldn’ t possibly, have strained any muscles. You haven’t used a muscle for years. In fact, most have atrophied to stringy vestigial shadows of their former selves. And now you have back pain? Doesn’t seem possible, doesn’t seem fair!

Dormant butt syndrome, my friend. And it’s not just here on the South End, it’s a national epidemic. Park in front of a computer screen for hours at a time, then sit in front of a 60 inch television screen for an entire evening, catch some movies and ballgames, take a break for catching up on e-mail, sit and text message all your friends, then update Facebook accounts, well, doesn’t leave much time for exercise or a walk in the park. Butt who knew the deleterious consequences of our digital lifestyles??

Granted, most of us aren’t going to change our sedentary routines. No doubt we’ll soon see butt massagers soon, rollers built into our office chairs, our lazy-boys, the cushions of our couch. Expensive, sure, but cheaper than MRI’s and surgeries. Probably be covered by health insurance as medical instruments. Watch for the ads on late night TV. Help! I’ve sat down and I can’t get up!! Now, yours for only 29.95, the amazing Catapault Chair! But wait! Order now and we’ll send you a second chair free, just add shipping and handling.

National Butt Health. Soon to get its own holiday. And not a day too soon!

It’s not uncommon down here on the South End to be at the leading edge of the breaking wave. So far ahead, actually, that those trailing behind misunderstand us. And of course misunderstanding leads to mistrust and mistrust leads to avoidance and avoidance leads to contempt and contempt leads to fear and fear leads to hatred. We artists understand this implicitly. Or at least we like to say that is why our work is reviewed with such negative criticism. We’re just ahead of the Curve. We’re misunderstood. We’re too sensitive for this world.

Just recently the Institute of Medicine called for a review of a malady we South Enders have lived with most of our lives, one that heretofore was considered, not a disease, but a psychosomatic condition. Those who have never known its symptoms easily viewed us as whiners and misfits, slaggards and sloths. We were treated as psychological lepers, shunned by our newly arrived neighbors and subjected to their silent scorn, just as those with depression and anxiety were once similarly abused before science substantiated the underlying root cause. We suffered silently, secure in the knowledge that we were victims of a disease little understood or studied by the medical community.

Until now. What previously was diagnosed by our decidedly non-medical neighbors to the north as chronic laziness or chronic fatigue syndrome has now been deemed a true physiologic pathology deserving of a proper name: Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease (SEID), a crippling affliction most of my buddies and me have lived with for years with little sympathy from our mizzuses. Well, guess who’s going to have to apologize now, eh, little Miss Critical?? And, with a kinder gentler healthcare system in place, maybe now we can get the care and treatment we need … and even a sizeable disability check to help us cope with our difficult lives.

So next time you see a South Ender balking at work or employment, maybe you’ll show a bit of compassion. All I can say is you better hope this isn’t contagious.