2173 Crick Crack

I wonder about the word "crick."

The other day I woke up from what I thought was a restful repose only to find out that I had a pain in my neck. No, not some sort of annoying busybody that kept bugging me, an actual pain in my actual non-metaphorical neck. 

I had a crick.

That's right, the proverbial crick in the neck. Which, by the way, some people identify as a crink in the neck. Not sure if that's a regional or accidental variation.

But it does make one wonder what it all means. Crick. An old word. One that implies so much. Oldness, bendiness, non-flexibility, and rivers.

Does crick come from creaky? I'm so old my bones are creaking. And now one of those old bones got jammed in my neck somehow. Like a locked knee in my creaky old leg joint, but in my upper spine.

Or does crick come from crook? Not the criminal kind of crook, the crook in a hook sort of crook. Like when some ancient biblical prophet is depicted with a crook in his staff. Which, I know, sounds like an administrative embezzler, but I mean like the hook they use to pull bad talent off the stage. The bendy type of crook. Because your neck is bent funny when you have a crick in it. Or you can't bend it back to normal without pain.

Or is it crick as in creek as in river? I catched me some catfish down by the crick. And man, that crick had more bends than a backbone. Makes some sense. Cricks do bend around necks of land.

Or is it because the cure for a crick in your neck is to crack it?

Or is everything I said just a crock? 

America, ya gotta love it.