The Only Time Mrs. HM Has Ever Wished For A Dowager's Hump

Let the record show that Mrs. HM is not a good passenger for 9.5-hour rides. I have to stop every couple of hours, and loosen up my knees before I can walk to the rest area. I've grown used to the pain of long-distance trips, and the couple days of disability after we return from visiting The Pony. This trip, I had a new complaint.

When I got into A-Cad to start our journey on Wednesday at 6:00 a.m., I told Farmer H that the seat didn't feel right.

"It feels like my head is poking forward."

"That's because you tilted the seat back, because you said you felt like you were on a slide the last time, when we went to the casino for our anniversary."

"I know I tilted the seat back. But wouldn't that mean my head would also feel like it was leaning back?"

"No. You tilted the whole seat. Bottom and back. Not just the back."

"I KNOW that. But still, if the whole seat it tilted back, that wouldn't affect just my neck area. It would feel tilted back as well."

"I don't know how to explain it to you, HM. You can adjust the headrest up and down."

"That won't help me. I don't know who you've had in this car that got my seat all messed up."

"Nobody since my buddy and I went to Vegas."

"Well. It hurts my neck."

"Something is always hurting you."

So I rode 9.5 hours, more uncomfortable than previous trips, but it didn't kill me. Probably much to Farmer H's dismay, I'm pretty sure.

We had a good time with The Pony, who was coming down with a cold. When we started home on Friday, I had a terrible headache. I thought that perhaps I'd caught something from The Pony. My sinuses were quite stuffy. Maybe it was a result of casino smoke. That's happened before.

Anyhoo...I was nauseated and in pain from the headache. Any time I tried to close my eyes and nap, Farmer H had to interject a comment about a lot of cows in a field, or something else totally unnecessary. Plus he was jabbing the brakes. I don't know why he can't squeeze the brakes like a normal person. He's a jabber. A sweaving jabber! Every time he jabbed the brake pedal, my head snapped forward off the headrest. Which it was barely in contact with anyway, what with being pushed ahead of my shoulders.

By the time we got about 2 hours out of Norman, I could barely stand it. I came out of the gas station restroom before Farmer H, and was struggling to move the headrest when he got to A-Cad. I was almost in tears.

"I've already taken a tylenol, and it hasn't helped a bit. My head hurts SO bad! I've been trying to move this headrest down. It can't get any worse. But now it won't move at all! I've felt all over the place for a button or lever, and can't find one. And THEN I grabbed the headrest, and it

MOVED TWO MORE NOTCHES FORWARD!!!

You told me it only moved up and down!"

"There's a button that moves it, HM."

Sighed Farmer H, settling into the driver's seat, while I stood outside the car, leaning in the back door, trying to wrench the headrest back into its previous position.

"Then you could at least fix it for me! Not just sit there, all smug, telling me something that I've been trying to find."

Farmer H got out and walked around. He reached in and pushed the button on the side of the headrest, the ONE PLACE that I couldn't see, and hadn't touched. The button that was in plain sight from his position in the driver's seat all the way down there and a fourth of the way back!

"There."

"You told me it didn't  move forward and back! This is JUST WHAT I NEEDED! I suffered all that way for nothing."

I did not experience an instant recovery, but when we stopped for lunch two hours later, I gradually lost a bit of the headache over the rest of the way home. My neck felt much better. I'm pretty sure the smug sweaving jabber was disappointed.