Jeremy Fang’s Pretty Stiff

If I’m mistaken, Jeremy is upset in this photo due to the excessive variety of Velveeta cheese.

That’s just my guess.

Jeremy told me that he’s “incredibly, incredibly stiff”...and no, not in the way you’re thinking, you pervert. What he means by “stiff” is that he’s not flexible and his muscles are constantly tight. It may be caused by the fact that he doesn’t stretch as much as he should for the number of physical activities he does, but he reiterated that he’s just “abnormally stiff.” So when he’s stiff, he pulls out his...muscle roller, which he uses to massage and relieve the tight part of his body. 

Truth be told, it’s become a necessity in his life. “I just carry around a muscle roller almost everywhere I go. So any overnight trips I’m going on, I’ve got a muscle roller in my backpack. Anytime I’m playing basketball or baseball, I’ve got a muscle roller in my bag.” He even has “a bunch of photos” of his muscle roller, which only signals that he’s some kind of a sociopath or that he’s romantically linked to it or both. Who knows?

The stiffness only worsened when he tore his PCL (posterior cruciate ligament), which only prompted me to ask how he got his injury. I’ll let him take the floor to explain. “It’s fairly long, so don’t mind me,” he prefaced.

. . .

Storytime on an April Afternoon with Jeremy Fang

(Shortened and revised for clarity)

They always say to never meet your heroes.

So it was a relief for the Pita Pita mascot to know that he only had to meet Jeremy and Vincent.

We were having a grad movie night. So we booked out a movie theatre because they were doing a private showing because of COVID. There were about fifty grads [who had] planned to go that night. So I and a group of friends met up outside my friend’s house before the movie. Then, we were like, ‘Oh, let’s go skateboarding.’ I’ve skateboarded before, but I don’t own a skateboard and I’m not good at skateboarding. But so we were going and most of them had skateboarding experience.

And then we went downhill. And when I say downhill, it’s perhaps a little bump in the road — it’s a very minor decline. And so I pushed off a little too hard from the ground, and that caused me to step on the board funny. Then the board, essentially, did a little ‘tippy-tippy’, and I did a little ‘steppy-twisty.’

And then next thing I know, I’m on the concrete, and the first thing I noticed is that I got a cut on my elbow and I had another one on my hand. I’m like, ‘Oh shoot!’ And so I was sitting up, and I was just like ‘Oh, okay. I’m gonna head back [to my friend’s house], they’ll go grab a band-aid and I’ll clean the cuts up outside.

So while I was cleaning myself up, my knee was getting stiff. But I was like, ‘Oh, It’s all good. It’s all good.’ We were like, ‘Let’s not skateboard. Let’s just walk.’ So we walked for dinner. By the time we left the house, my knee was seized up. It was locked. It was stuck. So I was straight-legged walking three kilometres to the restaurant and three kilometres back to the house before we got a ride to the movie theatre. I didn’t want to be a party pooper and just went to the grad event.

The movie ended around midnight. I was keeping my legs straight the whole time and it was really swollen. I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s obviously pretty bad. I’ll go to the hospital tomorrow morning.’ But then I realized that my driving test was on the next morning in Port Coquitlam. For me, that’s an hour’s drive to get there. 

So I woke up in the morning, putting myself out of bed and trying to bend my leg, but then it locked at 90 degrees. I felt a tearing feeling in my knee and I couldn’t move and my leg just started spasming for two minutes. And so, I’m like, ‘There’s no way I’m not taking my test today.’ There was a debate on whether or not I should go to the hospital or the driving test. I thought to myself: ‘I am not postponing this any longer.’ So my mom drove me to PoCo. 

I got to PoCo. I was trying to get out of the car to walk into the driving test place to register for my test. As I was getting out of the car, I had to bend my leg. So I bent my leg and it seized up at 90 degrees. I started having another leg spasm. I was lying in the parking lot with my leg locked.

Eventually, my leg calmed down and I hobbled into the office. I signed in for my test, and as I’m walking to my car, I’m trying my best to semi-walk normally so that the [tester] was not thinking to himself that ‘this kid couldn’t walk. Therefore, he shouldn’t be able to drive.’

Funnily enough, I passed my test perfectly, without killing us and without locking out, which I was genuinely surprised about.

This is brought to you by the “free” healthcare we enjoy in Canada.

And then, we were heading back home, dying in the back of the car while my mom’s driving me. Then I was like, ‘Okay, let’s go to the hospital.’ But then I realized that I had an AP Language meeting at school that I was supposed to go to that Saturday. So instead of going to the hospital, I went to school. So I was at school for maybe three hours doing AP work.

Then after that, finally, I went to the hospital and then waited for another four hours. So I didn’t get my leg checked out for like a full 24 hours, maybe? Maybe a bit more? In that span of time, I walked six kilometres, saw a movie, passed my driving test, and wrote an AP language exam. 

Priorities. I’ve got priorities.

. . .

Although it was unfortunate he was injured and in pain, I do snicker when I hear stories of smart people being dumb. (I’m a cruel person. What can I say?)

Recommended Song: willow (90’s trend remix) - Taylor Swift