My Gourd Is Splittin’ Like Tiger and Elin

Doesn’t the hairless, transparent individual above look eerily like Tiger Woods? And no, I don’t think all half-Asian (one-quarter Chinese and one-quarter Thai), one-quarter African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eighth Dutch pro golfers look alike.  Anyway, when you’ve been brained in the gourd like a freshly thumped melon as I have, you can expect that your head will ache from time to time.  My headaches are usually solved by approximately 7 Advil a day.  I formerly swilled sugar free Red Bull, because it was free advertising for the gay criminal market.  Just kidding.  Actually, my wife told me big doses of gayness, er, uh, I mean caffeine causes something to restrict, and helps ease the pain from the aches of your head.  So, I’ve recently given up the wuss version of the brightly colored male cow, but that’s mainly because it also contains a large amount of sodium.  This was causing my most recent attempt at losing weight to be slowed because you retain more water, and in some extreme cases you can, to quote my wife, “blow up like a toad.”  Although I didn’t have the firsthand knowledge of a serial killer whose childhood was filled with defiling and detonating small amphibians, the mental image was enough to make me quit the Bull completely.

One of the weird things about headaches is that they always make you look so serious or angry.  You hardly ever see someone cheesin’ with a migraine, and if you do, there’s a 99.999% chance they have some serious mental problems.  When the head starts throbbin’, your eyes squint, and you get that straining-bowel-movement-hoping-not-to-blow-out-your-O-ring type look.  Most people either shy away from you because they think they’ve made you angry (and they don’t like you when you’re angry), or they are expecting wind to be broken in their general direction – or for you to start imitating the monkeys you see at the zoo.  I ain’t talkin’ bout no primate palm love here people.

I’ve been prescribed something called Nortriptyline for gourd aching.  To be clear, it’s not in the same class as the stuff that scares off Superman.  It was first subscripted to me after my stay at the plush confines of Vanderbilt Hospital – “Vandy: Excellent medical care, with the comfortable homey feel of a fancy shack in a third world country.”  Getting back on track, I remember when Dr. Mi Yu – his name or spelling thereof has not been changed to protect anyone from laughing – telling me I’d be getting a prescription of it.  At first, I thought he said he was prescribing me mescaline.  Unfortunately, I was hallucinating that part.  When I asked him how hallucinating would help control my seizures, I made it perfectly clear that I really didn’t care what the explanation was.  I just wanted to figure out how to justify it to my pharmacist, but then Mi Yu broke my heart by breaking it down to me caveman lawyer style.

It wasn’t the “I’m just a caveman neurologist.  I don’t understand your fancy EEG’s or CAT Scans.  I just know what hurting means, because that’s been around longer than the wheel” type pandering.  Dr. Mi Yu basically said, “Yu thought mescaline.  Mi thinks Notriptyline.”  And that was that.  Much to my dismay, my seizures were not going to be treated like Oliver Stone films a movie – i.e. morphing shapes, freaky noises, flashes of light and some kind of conspiracy thrown in for added effect.

So far, I’m not quite sure if Nortriptyline has really done anything for me.  I’m only supposed to take it when my head is achy breaky, to start.  So, when the mullet of head pain – pain up front, shooting pain in the back – has already started, taking this stuff should de-mullet my problem.  To the best of my not-even-close-to-being-the-best memory, it has never really worked.  It really doesn’t give you any straight effects whatsoever, and it doesn’t even have any serious side effects like death, compulsive gambling, or converting to Scientology.  I guess it would be rough to be on a medicine that made you bet all you had at the craps table before clutching your chest during a pump attack, and praying L. Ron Hubbard would save you.  If he didn’t, Dia-netics would simply describe warm-up exercises in the afterlife, as opposed to a handbook on how to be a member of a weird cult for famous people.

Well, I’ve covered some topical territory on this weird, pain-filled evening.  Signing off, and reminding everyone that August is Mayonnaise Awareness Month.  I’m going to be giving tips on how to avoid foods that have hidden quantities of mayo in them.  And also, a technique for always remembering to check your food before leaving the drive thru, because inattention to special order detail is the number one cause of mayonnaise-related injuries at fast food restaurants.  You must be keen to be mayo free!