Amused? Who Me? and Maybe Not Even My Feet

You might think your feet are designed for standing and walking, but there are scientists who believe we are really designed to walk on all fours, and not standing upright on two.  This theory is often used to try to explain away the high incidence of lumbar and cervical injuries among humans.  There are lots of theories as to why primates moved from quadrupedal to bipedal travel, including some who believed they found it less strenuous.  Picture yourself walking around on all fours all day.  I am sure I'd find it exhausting.

Anthropologists have recently found in treadmill studies measuring metabolic, kinematic and kinetic data that four out of five chimps used more or an equal amount of energy walking upright.  The one using an equal amount of energy and the one using less shared skeletal characteristics of the hip and hind limb that allow for greater extension of the hind limb.  Examining old fossil records, they noted the same in some early bipeds.  

Which brings me to my recent experience in four different "amusement" parks in the Orlando, Florida.  My experiences there led me to inquire into what "amusement" means "the state of being amused, entertained, or pleased.  That didn't help much, it's a little like defining "park" as "a place where a park ranger hangs out."  Really?  Amusement is the state of being amused?  

OK, so I moved on to amused, and the answer was not particularly credible--it was "to cause to laugh or smile by giving pleasure."  By the time I had stood, walked and stood again for more than eight hours each day for four consecutive days, nothing could cause me to laugh or smile--about my legs or feet anyway.  I only fully understood the situation when I ran across the archaic meaning of the word amuse (Archaic To delude or deceive.).  Now I get it, we are deceived into believing that walking on two feet is what we evolved into (a higher state, at least assuming you are taller walking on two feet instead of four) so that we could get around using less energy.  But, the fact is, we expend more or less the same amount of energy walking on two feet instead of four.  We forsook walking on all fours (knuckle-dragging as some would say) just to be taller, I guess.  We were likely deceived (amused?) into it.  Today, I think we are being amused into believing that amusement parks are a place where we will laugh or smile all the day long.  

Now, I don't consider myself old and feeble, I work out daily, attend yoga, pilates and personal training sessions, and I walk.  I just don't do a lot of standing around, thus I was ill-prepared for an "amusement" park.  Each day, after six hours or so standing in line or standing around waiting for others to finish their rides, I was "pining" for the pine bench.  Pining means "to feel a lingering, often nostalgic desire."  A perfectly accurate description of how I felt.  I really, really wanted to sit down.  

Which brings me to another gnawing resentment I began to harbor--I didn't care for all those people riding around on electric scooters.  They'd ride up, park and hop off their vehicle spryly, ready to stand in a line, having passed many of those in line ahead of them, who moved aside--believing they were disabled in some way or they would not be on a scooter.  But these people were not disabled, they were simply smarter than I am.  They had probably been at "amusement" parks before, and learned they would be better off renting a nice little scooter than walking, standing, walking, sitting as I did.  In fact, when they "sat" they sat on a padded seat, not a pine bench as I had whenever I sought rest.  Speaking for my feet, I am not amused...