I had a sinus infection flying to Vegas a couple of weeks ago. I was stuck with a middle seat because I checked in late and on either side of me I had a gabby woman who refused to sit next to each other to talk.

“I like the window.”

“I like the aisle.”

Have you ever had a sinus infection rocketing through skies in a pressurized aluminum tube with no escape until landing billions of years in the future? Consider your head is a very empty toothpaste tube, the type of empty toothpaste tube most folks would ditch in the dustbin, yet an exceptionally frugal bloke decides he wants to get one more brushing out of this tube and he squeezes and bends and folds and coils and squeezes until he gets that final brushing… only there isn’t enough toothpaste to get a satisfactory amount of toothpaste for that final brushing, and he stubbornly squeezes and bends and folds and coils and squeezes the empty toothpaste tube all the same for infinity eternity. That’s what it’s like having a sinus infection on a plane.

So these two women yammered over me oblivious to the world and with my sinus infection and an ever growing headache nearing head-explode-pressurization. The girl to my right got on the subject of birth control. “I’m on the pill. I’ve never been on the pill. It’s making me crazy. Can you believe that a pill can make you crazy?”

I’d had enough. I turned to her and said, “You know, honey, you don’t need contraception. You’ve got your personality.”

Effective! They shut up after that.