Verti Has To Go!

My nemesis, Verti, has got to go! I’m tired of her magical spell. She’s not nice. In fact, she’s downright cruel. She keeps things stirred up and puts her own twisted spin on everything. She’s really mixed up!!

It started with a headache for a couple of days, which in and of itself is unusual for me. But then it turned into light headedness. I guess it’s obvious I may be light in the head …. but this isn’t a ditz light-headed … it’s a someone is playing spin the bottle in my brain light-headed!

I was at work walking in the plant and some sneaky rascal started moving the concrete floor! The world was spinning like a county fair Tilt-A-Whirl!

The Tilt-A-Whirl is the ride kids always seem to take right after eating a foot long corn dog, fried in hog fat, that was washed down with a quart of root beer. The results are almost always disgusting….a smelly, splattered puddle.

Anyway, everything started spinning round and round like an invisible merry-go-round. I staggered to a unit of lumber and braced myself with both hands. Sitting down didn’t help. I thought I was going to fall off!

I made it another fifty feet to a lunchroom table and sat down. I suspect other employees thought I should be drug tested because my feet and head felt like they were changing positions faster than a politician on the campaign trail.

A mental checklist started — Blood pressure? Nope. I took it earlier and it was perfect. Heart? Naw. I don’t take blood pressure meds. Aneurism? No pain or stabbing feeling. Stroke? I did a quick finger exercise with both hands at the same time. They were fine, but I looked in the mirror, smiled and raised both hands, just to make sure. No stroke.

Hot. Dizzy. Nauseous. Headache. Ear pressure. Ah, an idea! Vertigo!?

After walking three sheets to the wind back to the office, I looked up vertigo symptoms. Had 7 of 10 symptoms. Bingo! Vertigo, and that’s just what Verti needed to do, go!

At the doctor’s office a few minutes later, he kind of shrugged, prescribed over-the-counter medications for symptoms, and said to take it easy a few days. Psft! Not easy to do when you’re on a roller coaster with no tracks!!

Seven years ago on a cruise ship we were in choppy waters off the coast of Canada steaming north to Alaska. My son and I played a game to see who could walk up a hallway without wavering off the straight and narrow path. We couldn’t do it! The boat was rocking and moving so much, we would inadvertently bump into walls!

That, however, was sea legs. This was on solid ground 302 feet above sea level. That dizzy came from without, but Verti brought dizzy from within.

What did I ever do to you, Verti?! In words of the wise sage philosopher, Sweet Brown, “Aint nobody got time for that!”

Verti takes your sense of balance, puts a string around it and turns it like a top. Verti spins your sugar round and round till you feel like weightless cotton candy. She puts your brain in a centrifuge to make you feel like you’re being separated by fractionation!

You look whole in the mirror, but your brain feels like a shattered mirror held together by wet Elmer’s glue.

Maybe Verti, in some twisted way, just wants us to be in touch with creation? At the equator our globe spins at 1,037 miles per hour! Maybe the spinning, dizzy sensation is Verti’s little prod to let you know we are always moving, always twisting, always spinning round and round even though gravity makes us feel we are perfectly still.

Or maybe, just maybe Verti is angelic like and wants to spin out a reminder that our days are short, so number and use them wisely. Maybe Verti wants us to stop and close our eyes to the spinning day-to-day activities and set our eyes on the Creator rather than the creation.

Or maybe, according to the doctor, Verti is just an inner ear infection that will go away soon.

Hmm, I don’t know. I do know Verti’s gotta go! And the sooner, the better!