The Sardine Can
Feels like: The bone protecting your thought ball has been peeled back and a thousand grackles are pecking at your exposed brain.
Cause: Five minutes on a computer.
The “Star Wars”
Feels like: Your skull is the Death Star’s trash compactor, and Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewie are your noggin.
Cause: You didn’t eat your 10 A.M. snack.
The Puddin’ Pop
Feels like: Your brain is a gelatinous substance held together by a skull made of dollar-store construction paper.
Cause: You drank only eighty ounces of water today.
The Ineffectual Superhero
Feels like: You have superhuman senses. You can hear the sink drip in your neighbors’ house like it’s a wrecking ball in your cranium, so you sit, monk-like, in a dark, soundproof room, wondering how Clark Kent could stand it.
Cause: It rained.
The Non-alcoholic Hangover
Feels like: You drank a Russian F.S.B. officer’s weight in vodka while a black bear thumped on a tambourine and someone’s granny slapped you and yelled, “It’s ‘babushka’!”
Cause: Your period started.
The Super Smeller
Feels like: Hug-the-toilet nausea, but in your brain.
Cause: Someone walked past vaping a cucumber Juul.
The Headbanger’s Ball
Feels like: There’s a free concert by the Norwegian black-metal band Gorgoroth in your dome, and their vocalist is screaming, “ØDELEGGELSE OG UNDERGANG!”
Cause: You looked at red wine.
The Babysitter
Feels like: Your toddler niece is playing kitchenware drums while scream-singing “Let It Go” into her Disney “Frozen” karaoke mike and twisting the cord around your eyeballs.
Cause: It’s your only day off. (And you don’t have a niece.)
The “Are You Kidding Me?”
Feels like: Your scalp shrank in the dryer, but you continue to wear it just like your favorite mint-green, pointelle sweater.
Cause: You put your hair in a ponytail.
The Glitter Bomb
Feels like: Everything in your field of vision—well, the left eye—is blurred and sparkly. You live in a dream-nightmare sequence straight out of Tim Burton’s 2005 remake of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
Cause: No one knows. Though everyone has a theory.
