I have had a mild headache for almost a week now. This is a bit unusual for me because I rarely get headaches. It is more annoying than painful; nonetheless I wish it would go away. I have been trying to figure out the source and I have narrowed it down to:
1) Wearing contacts again after a few months of not wearing contacts. 2) Pollen or weather changes 3) A sinus infection 4) My brain is getting to be so large and mighty that it is swelling against the sides of my skull.
As much as all evidence points to number 4, I am still leaning towards a sinus infection. Today I can feel a pressure building a bit on the side of my head, and I just know that is going to blossom into an earache. Sigh. So I need to make an appointment to see the doctor.
My sister, who thought it was pollen, advised me to try a Neti pot. I have seen those things before and I am suspicious of them. Apparently you fill them with warm salty water, stick it up your nose, and then somehow snort the entire solution through your sinus cavities. Frankly I find that a bit appalling. It’s like water boarding. I even have to hold my nose when I go under water, I cannot imagine willingly snorting it up. I think I will pass on the neti pot, no matter how much Oprah might like them.
I came home yesterday and saw a package on my doorstop. A while back I had come across an Amtrak site where you could order promotional materials. They were free. I decided I wanted the big USA map that shows all the Amtrak routes. I could put it on the wall of my office and daydream about the places I would like to go.
Well, yesterday the package arrived. Fed Ex no less. I ripped it open, but instead of the route map was a couple of large calendars. They featured a shot of an Amtrak train merrily chugging through Washington DC and a calendar below it. Now, to add insult to the injury, the calendar was for 1986! WTF?
This is the odd part. Out of curiosity, I pulled up the 1986 calendar. And all the dates and days line up exactly as they do for 2008. So, the calendar is useable…even though it is for 1986. I am baffled. Are these old calendars? Did someone find them in a dusty old box somewhere? And where is my route map?
One last rant: There used to be a direct train that ran from Orlando to L.A.. However, Katrina whipped out the tracks. They have thus re-instated the tracks, however they are not going to run the train from Orlando to L.A. anymore. Instead it goes from New Orleans to L.A. That irritates me. Why don’t I find out about these things until its too late.
2026 Update
Dialing back to 2008, where Ed's big freebie from Amtrak turns out to be a 1986 calendar—and the headache is optional.
Beautiful. Here is a man with a week-long headache trying to diagnose himself through the ancient art of elimination, while a free Amtrak calendar from 1986 arrives by FedEx and he is annoyed about a train route. Let me count the fossils. Free promotional material ordered from a website and shipped to his door—now you'd get a link to a PDF, a login, or an ad for a cruise. The Neti pot was exotic Oprah magic; now every sinus-clogged fool has a little plastic teapot in their bathroom cabinet, bought off the internet at 3 a.m., half of them never opened. And the 1986 calendar matching 2008 is a lovely reminder that paper calendars were still objects people expected to hang on walls, not screens that nag you about meetings. But the real casualty is Amtrak as a dream machine. Ed wanted a map of routes to daydream about, and instead got a relic from a time when Reagan was president and trains still went places. Now the daydream itself is subscription-based and the map is an app with a loading spinner.
“2008 Ed, did the headache dull your suspicion when a free promotional calendar from 1986 showed up on your doorstep—or did your magnificent brain just accept that Amtrak was shipping twenty-two-year-old swag with a straight face?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2008 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that's a fair question, and I'd love to blame the headache, but honestly my magnificent brain was too busy being baffled to be suspicious. I mean, sure, the pressure on the side of my head probably clouded my judgment a bit, but who expects Amtrak to send a calendar from 1986? That's not just old swag, that's ancient relics. I half expected a note apologizing for the train being late. And the fact that the dates line up perfectly with 2008? That's either a cosmic coincidence or someone in a dusty warehouse is having a good laugh at my expense. I'm leaning toward the latter. Still, the headache remains, and I'm no closer to knowing if it's contacts, pollen, or my brain swelling. Probably the brain. But no, I didn't question it too hard. I was too busy wondering where my route map went. Take that, Amtrak.
