A Return Of The Work Mule

If stumbling around a train, falling off a bus platform, and getting shit shoved into a sore knee constitutes a healthy return to the commuter life, than I suppose I could say that I have rejoined the mass transit work commuters and gone back to work.

I've returned to work after two weeks off, and I'm questioning whether or not that was a great idea. Being at work itself is fine: I can prop up my leg, do a few exercises at my desk and even ice down my knee when needed, which is all nice. I don't have to do much walking around, and the walking I do have to do is not too intensive. But the commute… the commute is a bitch.

Being on a bus, then another bus, then a train for a hour and a half in the morning, then again at night, is not as easy as I thought it would be. People, I am often reminded, are dicks and don't care what is going on around them as long as they are comfortable. I'm trying to snag seats that allow me to prop up my leg or give me some room to stretch, but there are only so many of those seats per bus. When I don't get one of those seats, it is a universal certainty that a bag/arm/random sharp object will find a way to jab my sore knee. It's just lovely.

Not that I think driving would be much better for me. It'd actually probably be much, much more dangerous. The surgery was on my right knee, and trying to navigate brakes and gas with a leg that doesn't want to work 100% correctly is probably a sure-fire way to end up on the morning traffic report as that accident on the highway causing everyone else to be late.

Then again, if I didn't come back to work now, when would I have learned to use to my leg in the setting that I normally use it? Yes, walking around my apartment or downtown or whatnot provides some challenge, but the everyday challenges are the ones I believe I should focus on. So while this is all quite annoying, I am learning to use my leg again, which cannot be a bad thing.

But that doesn't mean I don't want to swing my gimped knee right into the ass of some jerk on the bus who's talking too loud on their Blue-Tooth earpiece while chowing down on a McDonald's breakfast and taking up an entire bench with their shit. A bench which I could use to not further injure myself. But what can you do?