But Seriously

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I'm battling a nasty injury these days, sports fans. And it's a real doozy.

You've heard of tennis elbow? And housemaid's knee?

Painful stuff, right?

Well trust me, this one makes them both seem like paper cuts in comparison. And the thing is I didn't come by it in the usual way, you know, playing hockey or jogging or lifting weights or doing anything strenuous at all for that matter.

Fact is, I suffered it simply by ordering a seemingly harmless cup of coffee.

Actually, I came down with it right after I finished drinking the coffee.

The injury is known in medical parlance as Tim Hortons Thumbs, Wrists and Maxillary and Mandibular Central Incisors and it's caused by that bleepin' Rrroll Up The Rim To Win contest.

Rrroll up to the rim to win, my foot. C'mon. Who does Tim Hortons think their fooling? I've never seen anybody roll up one of their rims. They're welded shut. And if you are so bold as to try and roll one up, you do so at great peril to several body parts, most notably the thumbs, wrists and top and bottom two front teeth. Hence the name of the malady Tim Hortons Thumbs, Wrists and Maxillary and Mandibular Central Incisors.

The dreaded injury is acquired in three stages, each more painful than the next.

First, you wear out your thumbs trying unsuccessfully to loosen the rim. Second, after the thumbs give out, you start yanking on it pathetically with both wrists until they scream "no mas." And finally, when the wrists are reduced to jelly, you start chewing furiously on that rim until your gums start aching.

Then, the now moist rim still firmly intact - and dare I say mocking you in its still unrolled state - you spit out the pieces of cup lodged in your teeth and toss the cup in the garbage muttering expletives.

Actually, you don't even throw it in the garbage. At this point your arms are too sore to do something that strenuous. So you have to gently nudge it off the table into the trash can with your nose. Heck, my hands were so weak from trying to look under rims all week that I could hardly type this column. And for what? To try and win 10 per cent off on a Timbit?

Well I'm here to report that my rim rolling days are officially over, thanks to a nifty little device called, not surprisingly, the Rimroller.

Ottawa inventor Paul Kind created it for contests just like this one. It was sold originally through Lee Valley Tools. You can now also get it at Zellers.

But Kind is no dummy. He may call it the Rimroller, but don't be misled, it doesn't rrroll up the rim either. Kind knows after years of testing that it is scientifically impossible to roll up a Tim Hortons rim.

So he designed the Rimroller to pppull it up. And that's only after doing a little dddropping and sssqueezing first.

The Rimroller works like so: You drop it over the rim, squeeze it on either side of the rim and then you pull up on it quickly. And presto, the rim is up, standing at attention like a well-trained military cadet. And best of all, it works like a charm each and every time, and more importantly, after you're done, you're no worse for wear.

Actually that's not necessarily true. After using it the first time, I was so excited to finally see what was under a Tim Hortons rim, I accidentally dropped the Rimroller on my big toe. That's now killing me, too, along with everything else.

I tell ya folks, I can't catch a break.