Step One to Back Problem Recovery: Admit you have a problem.

Step Two: Do something about the problem.

Step One, as it turns out, was a piece of cake. The doctor made me walk on my toes, lie on my back and do a couple of knee bends. He then recommended me for physical therapy.

It took me a few weeks to actually get in there because of late nights with the newspaper, grading essays, global warming, insurance runarounds...oh hell, mostly it was dread. Dread over what I knew would happen.

I got right in there around 6:45 and was sitting on the examination table shortly afterwards. The therapist did some stress tests, then asked me to stand.

That's it. Just stand, like I would normally stand.

Her eyes rolled like marbles. Apparently, my posture sucks: I've adopted the Al Bundy life-has-defeated-me slouch for so long, it's putting pressure on my upper back. I'm supposed to square my shoulders and tighten my abdomen to improve my posture while standing. She said this is the intended way the body is to stand. To me, it feels like I'm imitating George Reeve in Superman.

So now I'm supposed to do a series of exercises every day that aren't even exercises. Ab tightening, back-stretching and other routines designed to improve flexibility and loosen/strengthen my ligaments. They aren't particularly grueling, but they take about a half hour to do. Yes, I've been doing them and everything, and I've been hating every minute of it. It's not so much the effort. It's the fact that, were someone in shape to watch me, they'd fall over laughing.

If my brother were to scoff, that would be one thing. But when a mid-twenties physical therapist with a potbelly of her own watches my leg tremble while doing a leglift and has to put a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing, you know you've hit some kind of bottom. Bottom, here I be.