Anatomy of a headache

At 9:30 I couldn't stand it anymore. I got up and left. I felt simultaneously dizzy, nauseated, and weak. My head was throbbing, although with a three-hour half life. I had suffered enough, and I just wanted to go home.

The drive home was a trial. I had the worst headache of my life. I couldn't even dwell on the horrific football match that I had just watched. Even for a moment I didn't think about how I needed 29 points to win my fantasy matchup and Matt Forte wasn't doing his fair share. I would have been further wounded to find out that he fumbled twice, twice!, at the goal line. Even Cedric Benson had the decency to salvage a poor performance with a touchdown. He's considerate that way.
I got home, dumped my things and immediately went to bed. I did not pass go. I laid in the darkness. The wife was nice enough to get me a hot towel. Two Ibuprofen battled as I eventually got under the covers and felt less like I was going to die.

How did I get the worst headache of my life? It was like a hangover, a concussion, and the worst, longest movie you've ever seen rolled into one.

I started my Sunday like usual. I got up early, pretended to be productive, and got my supplies ready for NFL Sunday at the Funk Bar and Grill. I arrived at noon. My original thought for lunch was to make onion burgers. Get burger, add onion. That's the secret recipe. Problem is, I didn't notice that instead of ground sirloin in the usual shapeless form, it was in pre-made patties. I'd have to use the onion-garlic mixture I'd sautéed earlier as a topping. I can improvise. I made them and opened my first beer.

There's always an unnatural hunger associated with football Sunday. Since Don and I are sometimes battling on the dorky gridiron, aka fantasy football, we get competitive about all things. We play Wii Bowling before the game. We have unspoken drinking contests, with one of us yelling out "that just happened" after finishing another bottle or glass. The same goes to food. I assumed that when I made four burgers, along with a solid pound of sweet potato fries, that we'd share equally. I had burger number one and half the fries. Don stayed at one. My victory was eating the second burger. That was nearly a pound of meat and probably 3/4 of the fries. I washed all this down with a high-gravity pumpkin ale. I will not mention the brand as it was rubbish. When I have pumpkin anything I want to taste pumpkin. I know, call me crazy. This beer's dominant flavor was of spice. Put my spice on the side, like salad dressing.

I was still stuffed as I watched a so-called football game between the thrown-back Patriots and Titans. It was the football version of the Bataan Death March. I apologize for anyone reading this who knows anyone who went through the march. I know it's not a real comparison. It was like a video game where you know exactly what the computer team's going to do. And every play you call is perfect and you keep scoring to see if you can break a personal record.

Let me not get too far off track. We were talking about the headache. I drink a lot of soda, lately diet soda, during the week. On the weekends I tend not to drink it, but on this weekend I had not stopped for a long time. On Saturday I was fine. On Sunday I felt the headache start in the morning. It grew as I watched the horror unfold on the screen. By the time dinner was served, I had forgotten about it because my wife had concocted a dessert called the pumpkin gooey cake.

I had a sudden hankering for pumpkin last week. My wife, kind soul that she is, decided to make a pumpkin gooey cake. I will not detail the dessert's perfect qualities. Let's just say that it's a very nice combination of cake and pie. I could eat a metric ton and die a happy man.

I actually kept it relatively sane before the dessert. Still, between the five beers, two burgers, basket o fries, chicken tenders, tomatoes, couscous (can't say no to that), and dessert, I was full. I was full like Rex Ryan was full of praise after the Jets were 3-0 and had just defeated the Patriots. See how well that worked out.

It was time for the last game. The slight annoyance of the headache turned into a nonstop barrage of pain. I tried to stay as still as possible, and that was very possible due to the football game going on. I was on hour eight of staring as a TV screen. I felt like if I as much as batted an eyelash that I would hurl.
How did I get to this point? Was it the lack of water? I had a couple of large glasses. Was it the food? I suppose 2,000 calories consumed in half a day would be considered excessive. Was it the horrible performance by the team that used to reside in Houston? I was numb to that pain.

It was a lot of little things that led up to the headache. The same could be said for the team formerly known as the Titans. My friend named them the Miniatures and I concur.

I woke up this morning with a slight headache hangover but not too bad overall. Had I learned my lesson? What lesson? Bring on the bye week!