Off the crack
I changed chiropractors last month. I started going to the office closer to where I moved.

The head chiropractor at this office is an enormous man. He's at least six feet tall and built like a football player, with the beefy chin and everything. He reminds me of Elaine's meathead boyfriend from Seinfeld, even in the way he talks. His hair is coiffed like a Ken doll and his grin is so bright it's a weapon. His name is Dr. Arbuckle. I'm serious.

The first time I went, he had me lie on my back on the table with my knees bent up. He told me to kick one leg up, then the other, against his hand. It was harder to do with my right leg.

A longtime patient was watching. "It's her hips!" he said. "One leg is longer than the other."

Dr. Arbuckle pulled my legs down straight. "No, they're even. But it is her hips. See, she holds that one differently."

"What does this have to do with my neck?" I asked.

"You see, nobody gets in a car accident like this." He demonstrated a person getting their head knocked straight back. "Usually it's more like this," he said, knocking his head back to the right, "or this," he said, knocking his head back to the left.

"So your neck is a little crooked," he said. "But you don't want to hold your head sideways, so you adjust your shoulders. But you don't want to hold your shoulders that way, so you adjust your hips."

"She gets the blocks!" the patient said.

"Yes, the blocks."

He had me roll onto my stomach and placed what was basically a cube-shaped bean bag under each of my hips, the right one higher than the left.

"You're probably sore there," he said, jabbing a finger into my right butt cheek.

"Ow!" I exclaimed.

"But not there," he said, jabbing the other side.

"That's true."

"Just wait and let your weight do the work with those blocks," he said.

After three or five minutes, Dr. Arbuckle returned and took the blocks away.

"I bet you're not sore anymore," he said, jabbing me in the butt.

I was offended, but astonished. "You're right."

"Now try pushing up with your legs again."

Like magic, they were even. When I stood up, I even felt more balanced.

"That was...miraculous!" I exclaimed. He grinned. But he still needed to adjust my spine.

At the Wheaton office I'd had this short girl in her late 20s / early 30s cracking my back. She had to lift me up with her whole body and push me down on her knee to get my middle to pop. This guy just put a hand underneath me, told me to cross my arms over my chest, and pushed down the weight of a tank with one hand. CRACK CRACK!!

That's more like it. Except he wanted to crack my neck.

That little girl in Wheaton, she couldn't hurt me. This tree of a man could do me in, Steven Seagal-style. I was terrified.

I did not like it. He twisted my neck to an unnatural position and gave it a tiny shake before snapping it to the side. It hurt, just for a second. I gasped every time.

I came back three more times, and I never once got used to putting my head in the hands of a this man who could behead me like a Barbie doll.

After the fourth visit, I told him I was done.

At the Wheaton office, I had tried to same line. It didn't work. "Oh no, you're only half-recovered. Your neck is going to cause you problems again down the line and where will you be then, with no personal injury claim to pay for you?? You can't leave us! You must never leave us!!"

I braced for it. "Well," he said. "Do you feel better?"

"Yes."

"Have you met your goals?"

"When I'm driving I can turn my head to look for approaching cars without screaming, yes."

"Then you're done."

I was amazed. "That's it? I'm done?"

"Unless you don't think you are."

"Oh, believe me, I'm done."

"Hooray!" He patted me on the back with one giant paw and guided me out to the receptionist. "Put on some happy music; Katie is graduated!"

He flashed a giant, brilliantly white grin at me and lumbered back into the depths of the office.

"Aw, when will we see you again?" the receptionist asked.

"Nothing against you," I said, "but I hope never."