Amy Lu's View

The other “night” (actually 4:00ish in the morning) I was awoken by the worst Charley Horse that I’ve ever had. (It was the classic in the calf of the leg kind). I’ve never given birth or had kidney stones so my pain scale is limited, but I think this was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced. The pain was so bad I was light-headed and nauseous and broke out in a cold sweat to an extent I never have before.

There’s no need to be worried or give me any medical advice–I’m sure it was caused by all the comon reasons (dehydration, lack of stretching, over-exercising) topped off by an unwise amount alcohol consumption. Oh yeah, and according to my Googling, aging CAN be a contributing factor.

While doing my Googling, it struck me that “Charley Horse” is spelled CharLEY instead of CharLIE–the way my brother’s name is spelled, rather than Charlie Brown. This seems to be a more uncommon spelling of Charley, at least these days, so this made me mildly curious. Why was Charley spelled this way? And what was up with the Horse?

So I did some more Googling, but quickly lost interest. Too much reading. It was like when I tried to follow the Triscuit story. I got as far as learning the muscle cramps are named after a historical baseball player who frequently suffered from them. I don’t know what was up with the horse.

I also don’t know why my mom (I assume my dad didn’t have much of a role in the decision) decided to spell my brother’s name “LEY” instead of “LIE.” I didn’t know that many Charleys in my life so never thought much about it. Again, I attempted to find out via Googling, but only got as far as learning that today “Charley” is more common as a feminine nickname for “Charlotte.” Huh, I don’t think I’ll point that out to my brother (he prefers to go by “Chuck” anyway).

Writing this post has really highlighted a) what a limited attention span I can sometimes have and b) what tangents my thoughts can take. Here are just some of the mental rabbit holes I’ve went down while writing this inspired by thinking about the word “horse”:

• I really like the show “BoJack Horseman” which we’ve just started watching. This may be our biggest televsion viewing success story of the pandemic.
• Lewis Black has that great joke about overhearing part of a conversation and getting the totally random line “If it wasn’t for that horse I never would have went to college” stuck in his head.
• The 70’s “Horse With No Name–>Who performed that song, America or Bread? I can never keep those two bands straight–>other bands I can’t keep straight: Dr. Dog and Dinosaur Jr. (both have animals in the titles and Dr. and Jr. are close).

I may never solve the mystery of the name “Charley Horse” but I do hope I never have one so bad again. #BetterChoices?