My father, the inventor.

Yesterday, after another invigorating zumba class, I stopped by my parent's house to pick up some mail and see my dad for a bit (Mom is in Florida visiting her youngest brother, Jody). 

I noticed a pair of bungees hanging from the second-story balcony when I walked in, but I just shook my head as I passed them on the way to the beans and sausage on the stove.  (The smell of it was divine)  I helped myself to a bowl and chatted with a customer service woman on the phone -Dad couldn't understand her through the accent, so I was the interpreter... explaining the problem of a lost package.

After finishing my meal, and determining that we had been speaking to the wrong department for a while on the phone, Dad offered an explanation for the bungees.

"Want to see my traction device?"
"I was wondering about those bungees... I was afraid it was something like that."
"Yeah, it beats spending $3500 for the chiropractor to fix me...so I just use it for about an hour a day... look at this..."

I watched, slightly horrified, as my father strapped a belt and a couple bungees around his head... it looked a bit morbid, but he seemed content with his contraption.  He noted the ease of movement of his neck and smiled at me...."You want to try it?"  I paused, looked at the way the bungee hooks seemed to dig straight into his head, and answered in a single word, "Yes."