In elementary school, we had color books that taught us about “red flag, green flag” touches. The focus was on child abuse, and finding out if kids had been abused. There were line drawings of nude kids in the coloring book at the end, after pages of discussing various acceptable and non-acceptable touches.

Our instructions were to put a red X on any touch we’d ever received that hurt, and a green checkmark on touches that were nice. I don’t remember the entire scene, but I do recall the teacher’s reaction when she came to my desk.

“Julie…you have a red X on your crotch? Did someone hurt you?” The teacher looked concerned.

“My sister Janet and I got into a fight once and she kicked me in the crotch.”

“Oh, I see. Well, what we’re looking for is something different,” she said, moving onto the next red flag touch. “You have a few red X’s on your bottom. What happened? Did someone touch you there?”

“My sister Janet and I got caught starting fires in the front yard, so dad spanked us. And one time I swore in front of grandma and she spanked me.”

Really, the instructions were too broad, and I seem to remember the same scene repeating itself throughout the classroom. Some of the students had a lot of red X’s, and an amazing memory for every place they’d ever been hit by a sibling.

I tell you all of this for no particular reason, other than it came to mind today as I sat in the chiropractor’s office, looking at four views of a person with the instructions to make note of various pains and their locations. I immediately wanted a red and green crayon and struggled with discerning which pains were important enough to include on the diagrams.

The visit went well.

While waiting in the room, I heard laughter outside. When the chiropractor came in, he commented that they were laughing at something I put in the forms I filled out. I panicked and wondered if I’d left an errant red X somewhere.

“It had to do with your reason for how you broke your wrist a few years ago,” he said with a chuckle, nodding to my chart.

I had put down two simple but true words: stupid horse.

“We’ve learned, here at this office anyway, that there are a lot of stupid horses out there.”

Then, with a snap, crackle, and pop, I felt a bit better. I was also given some exercises I can do next time I’m at the Y, as well as a couple of suggestions on additional weight machines to add to my regular routine so that I strengthen core muscles.

This is because, apparently, I have “sloppy joints.” That is, I’m too flexible.

The chiropractor said that usually, people aren’t flexible enough and tend to strain or tear things by movement. People like me, however, have loose joints that tend to migrate out of place and not find their way back to exactly where they should be because such a broad range of movement is easily possible.

I have a parlor trick I like to show people; it often grosses them out, though in school I’d get requests.

“Hey Julie, do that elbow thing again!” they might say.

Do you want to know if you have “sloppy joints”?

Put your fists on your hips, arms akimbo. Now, keeping your hands in place, touch your elbows together in front of you. Can you do it?

I will never forgive my sister for kicking me in the crotch.