the painometer.

For the last few days I’ve been flirting with a state of deathly illness, fighting both bouts of debilitating flu tremors as well as a condition I call “Tabasco Throat,” which transforms swallowing into a fate less desirable than the Boo Box featured in Disney’s 1991 modern adaptation of the Peter Pan story, Hook. I’ve stayed home from work buoyed only by very occasional (and very mild) expressions of sympathy from family and friends. I think if everyone knew how much pain I was in, they’d be more lavish in their condolences and quicker to send compassionate fruit baskets. But a person can only say “I think I’m going to die” so many times in his or her life before the expression’s efficacy begins to taper off (and I imagine the intentional melodrama that has so much defined my life thus far has pushed me well over the acceptable limit). Therefore, I find myself rather committed to inventing an invention that will revolutionize human sympathy as we know it. I call it the Painometer.

I’m still ironing out the kinks, but at its essence the Painometer is like a thermometer that measures on a scale of zero to ten the level to which a person is experiencing pain or discomfort. Installed somewhere blatantly visible like the forehead, the Painometer will bring clarity to otherwise potentially sticky social situations. For instance, one Painometer patron might express, “Jeez, I have the worst headache,” to which his nearby friend could respond, “No you don’t. You’re headache is yet to even reach a 4, liar.” Expressions of sympathy, no longer watered down by doubts regarding the severity of the condition of a whiner, could be stockpiled and used only in appropriate circumstances. (Should we say in cases of pain level exceeding 6.5 perhaps?) Even better, ailments like ingrown toenails, paper cuts, and sandy swimsuit-induced chafing could finally receive the sympathy they have long merited but rarely reaped.

Obviously, the Painometer would be incomplete without the release of it’s sister product, the Sympathometer (sold separately). Surgically inserted on the forehead immediately next to the Painometer, the Sympathometer would display in a similar zero to ten fashion the degree to which a person is experiencing sympathy. Ideally, the combination of these two products would usher in the demise of verbal communication that text messaging and e-mail have only alluded to. A husband having lunch with his wife might begin to experience chest pain triggering a 7 or 8 reading on his Painometer, to which his wife’s Sympathometer would proportionately react, expressing instantaneous and genuine pity—all without a single word. Talk about human progression.