The Chriopractor Conspiracy

Over the years it has come to my attention that certain people believe that certain government agencies have conspired over a variety of major events.

Having seen the coordinated (and often uncoordinated) efforts of many government workers (at the DMV for example) I am not a conspiracy theorist - I mean seriously - some of these workers (and I use that term loosely) can barely agree on which window to send people to so they can register their motorcycles.

But there are real conspiracies out there. In fact, I just uncovered one last week.

Let me back up a moment.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that I have been reading garden decor magazines looking for ideas to enhance my backyard. This spring, many, many of these magazines featured articles (accompanied by glossy pictures of course) on how "easy" and "fun" it is to build stone benches.

I admit I have drooled over these articles and even dog-earing a few pages here and there... (How else will I know which flagstone color works best against natural stone?)

Looking back now (from a seated position next to my ice-pack) I can finally see how I fell right into their trap.

You see, last Wednesday (after consuming several handfuls of pain pills) I was reviewing one of my favorite articles and noticed the acronym: "ACA".

Suddenly all of the pieces fell into place like the little bones in your spine during an adjustment...

ACA = the American Chiropractic Association...THEY are behind this stone moving trend!

I wasn't going to make a stone bench - really I wasn't. It's just that I had this hill of rocks with no real focal point.

See? It's just crying out for something of visual interest.

And then a neighbor had a garage sale and was selling unneeded flagstone from his own stone bench and patio project for a fifth of the cost at a stone dealer.

Garage sale flagstone at 1/6th the cost of retail - wahoo!

I started by making a rock wall.

Then Ellen came over and together we started fitting the flagstones to make the seat. Soon, we had positioned the pieces to form the back rest and things were looking pretty good.

After leveling the wall, we leveled the flagstones individually.

I just had to slide one piece over just a inch. Ellen tried to help me. She did. But before she reach the slab, I had cinched it over and tweaked my back all in the same second.

Here's Ellen smoothing out the dirt in front of the bench - her back still works.

I have been to see the chiropractor now 6 times...my next appointment is Wednesday.  I want to confront him about the conspiracy but I'm worried he'll take offense and refuse to adjust my back...so I'm laying low with my icepack.

You can almost see the lake view in the distance...

At least the stone bench offers me a nice place to relax while my back heals up.