Beth Anderson

The Migraine Machine

By Beth Anderson

We can never know for sure what the feeling is in any body besides our own... When I was a child, I invented, in my mind, a machine that you could attach to two people, a boxlike thing with cables coming out of it, and a little lever on top. When you turned the lever one way, the person on the right would feel the pain of the person on the left, and when you turned the lever the other way, the flow would reverse. This machine, I figured, would solve the problem of other people's underestimation of my pain and consequent indifference to it. If I were to say, "I have an awful stomachache (or migraine!!)," and the other person said, "Oh really?" (or "Get up and do something, damn it. I get headaches too, and I still do what I need to" ...) in a bored voice, I could hook us up to the machine, turn on the current, and wait for that person to say, "Yow, that hurts! Poor you! Now I understand!"

(Beth Anderson, Newsgroups: alt.support.headaches.migraine, October 15, 1996)

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