#20

If you are highly susceptible to suggestion or you are in any way a hypochondriac or a sufferer of psychosomatic illnesses then do not read on. Because this week I have been suffering from the Jimmy Legs and while reading its definition on Wikkipedia I started to have the Jimmy Leg urges in parts I didn't think you could have them. I was already getting them in my back and the classic name-sake location: legs. If you don't know what the 'Jimmy Legs' is, it's the urge to move, usually your legs, to satisfy strange almost crawling 'stretch me' feelings in your muscles.
The Jimmy Legs complaint became much more widely known thanks to an episode of Seinfeld ('The Money') where Kramer's girl friend was disturbing his sleep with the Jimmy Legs.

For mild occasional sufferers, like me, suffering from the complaint is almost as amusing as the name itself. The particular brand of the complaint I suffer from I call: 'Isometric Jimmy Legs'...for example: if I get the Jimmy Leg urge to lift my leg up I will tense the muscles as if to do that but also the opposing muscles to counteract it so my leg does not move but it still hopefully satisfies the Jimmy Leg urge and stretches the right muscles. There are pro's and con's to this: the good side is that you don't have to wave your limbs about and attract attention to yourself when submitting to the urges (like you would with 'Concentric Jimmy Legs'), but if someone did happen to spot you Jimmying it would look well suspicious... especially if it's a back and leg Jimmy urge combo since it can result in subtle pelvic thrusts or bum sticky-out-y movements which could possibly be mistaken for some kind of surreptitious clandestine personal activity.

The Wikkipedia article about Jimmy legs says that only 2.5 percent of people suffer from it...personally I think it is more like 25 percent when mild sufferers are taken into account, so if you suffer from it then I reckon there's a good chance one of your friends does too... but wait... who has the best (or should I say worst) Jimmy Legs?? Because we all like a bit of one-up-man-ship when talking to our friends about our ailments so I have come-up with a Jimmy Legs scale ranging from Force 1 to Force 10. You can gauge your level by seeing where your experience fits on the scale below... I have placed scenarios on the scale so that you can compare your own experiences and judge the magnitude of your Jimmy Legness, however I don't think I've managed to make it very easy to pin-point your level of suffering from 1 to 10, but perhaps that's a good thing because when engaging in ailment jousting with your friends you want there to be at least a bit of room for inane disagreement. The definition for Force 1 and the potentially fatal Force 10 seem quite good though I think.



Force 1 --- You have urges in your muscles but it would not effect your concentration doing your work and you could easily resist the temptation to Jimmy-about for about 3 hours. For example if you were at work and started having the Jimmy Legs at 10am you could wait till lunch time till having a good Jimmy.

Force 2 --- You could concentrate on your work for about 15 minutes before having to Jimmy-about.

Force 3 --- Like Force2 but for about 5 minutes.

Force 4 ---Like Force 3 you could resist the temptation to Jimmy-about for about 5 minutes but it would be futile because you could not concentrate on your work until after you have satisfied the urges.

Force 5 --- If you were doing urgent and important work where others are relying on you where Jimmying-about might mean you did not finish in time, but where Jimmying-about was no risk to heath or safety, you could not resist the urges for more than 30 seconds. For example you have to submit a tender to a customer by a dead-line for your boss or else he loses the business.

Force 7 --- You would have to submit to your Jimmy urges if doing something urgent and important where others are relying on you and there is a small risk to heath or safety, for example if you had the Jimmy urges while driving your boss to the airport, with no spare time to stop, you would be able to wait until you were driving on a straight clear stretch of road before submitting to your Jimmy Leg urges -- you would not have to Jimmy-about while driving round a traffic island or navigating a road junction.

Force 8 --- You're are talking to your prospective boss (who doesn't strike you being even remotely the 'understanding type') at a job interview for a job you really really want but your Jimmy urges are so strong you cannot resist Jimmying about in front of him.

Force 9 --- As Force, 8 but you have been unemployed for over a year and your house is about to be repossessed.

Force 10 --- You have urges that are so strong that even if you were standing on the edge of a 100foot high cliff and you had urges in your legs, you could not resist Jimmying your legs about. [Obvious advice for sufferers at this level: keep away from the edges of cliffs.]


Myself: I had a few episodes of the Force 4 Isometric Jimmy Legs this last week. I wonder if cats have the Jimmy Legs. Sumpy the Cat does seem to have uncontrollable urges but they mainly seem to be the ones to lye on his side and shred the stair carpet at the bottom step with all fours, having some kind of 'possessed by the devil' look in his eyes...