My Health Crisis Due To Becoming A Designer

Category Story • 4

Jan 28, 2025

In the previous episode, our hero started a new industry: digital clothes. Then, he had a temporary epiphany about life and considered changing his ways, which he quickly overcame, and is back to his old billionaire self. He also decided to add Designer to his skill set.

I decided to begin my career as a designer by looking for a funky place to do my designing. I read that designers like funky spaces. I am not sure precisely what funky means, but I hope it doesn’t mean I have to work in a smelly building. I would rather get a nice-smelling place and play some Sly and The Family Stone, Ohio Players, and Earth, Wind, and Fire albums to make the place funky enough to design in.

Then I thought maybe I should go with a minimalist workspace, like outer space. I thought about checking what space on the International Space Station goes for. But after some consideration, I figured the commute was probably a killer. So, I scrapped that idea. Next, I considered getting a giant yellow orb to work in and calling it Hamster Ball Design.

Ultimately, I decided to only work in coffee and sandwich shops. I figured if it’s good enough for writers, it’s good enough for this designer. All I need is a Mac or an iPad and WiFi access. Boom. No rent or maintenance and easy access to food and caffeine. Perfection!

My first design project was a cube. I made it square and flat on all sides. It was a huge success. Apple called. I followed that up with a sphere. Things were starting to snowball. I actually designed a snowball for Nike when rumors of professional snowball fighting started circulating in the media. And just because it was mainly—alright, only—on my Category Story podcast is pure coincidence.

I was really enjoying being a designer until one day a potential customer came into the sandwich shop and asked me to design something with wiggly lines. It gave me the willies. I nearly fainted. Actually, I did faint.

Apparently, a steady diet of triple mocha chocolate espresso coffees with three sugars and cream, plus thick sandwiches made of bread with seeds, crumbs, and tree bark on them, and two pounds of meat inside, and pastries severed in plastic wrappers is not exactly healthy. I should have known when I ordered some skinny jeans online, and my laptop actually laughed at me.

So there I was, stretched out flat on my back on the floor of the sandwich shop, noticing how awful the ceiling design was and barely clinging to life. Thank goodness I had a client who called 911 because all the writers were too busy ensuring they didn’t miss a day of their six-million-days-in-a-row writing challenge to notice I had fallen. Frankly, I think some did notice, but being introverts, they didn’t want to have to talk to anyone on the phone or have to interact with paramedics. So they kept their eyes straight ahead on their laptop screens, hammering out another essay on how to beat writer’s block or what they learned so far from their writing challenge.

I was rushed to the nearest local hospital that accepted my insanely expensive self-employed medical insurance and began my fourteen-hour wait to see someone employed in the medical field who was not yet a doctor. Spoiler: I lived.

I thought I had experienced a heart attack, but the almost-doctor assured me that my heart was working fine, in spite of being stone cold. He told me to wait there ten more hours for an actual doctor to come in and see me. Fortunately, it was only eight hours.

“What caused me to faint, Doc?”

“Have you done anything to overexert yourself?”

“You mean, like stand up?”

“Well, no. I meant like exercising too hard or running.”

“Dude, I sit in front of a computer all day designing cool stuff for skinny people. And when I'm not doing that, I sit in front of a microphone talking to skinny people who do cool stuff.”

“Hmm. Well, that rules that out. I better check your spleen.”

“Spleens can make you faint?”

“Perhaps. If you unexpectedly see one on the floor. Or you witness someone getting cut open, and their spleen falls out. But usually, no.”

“Then why do you want to check mine?”

“Just to be safe. Running tests is what I do best.”

“Okie-dokie.”

I spent the next ten weeks in the spleen testing ward. Four days later, the doctor called me with the test results.

“Mr. Category. Your spleen is the worst spleen I’ve ever seen. Sadly, it is beyond repair. I recommend a spleen transplant. Unfortunately, spleen donors are rare. But there is good news. A pharmaceutical company from which I receive no financial incentive has developed a medicine that allows us to use orangutan spleens in humans. It is all really quite humane. We only use the spleens from orangutans who have died in ape turf wars. So their sacrifice is not wasted.”

“Let's do it.”

After surgery, I felt great with no side effects at all. But I was starving and ate a whole bunch of bananas. I also had an uncontrollable urge to watch 1970s Charlton Heston movies while sitting in a tree. Weird.

For a while, life was great. I returned to hosting Category Story and had no spleen-related fainting that I can remember. But eventually, it became apparent that I had merely traded one medical issue for another. My new insatiable appetite for bananas and other jungle edibles led to my stomach growing at an alarming rate. I went back to the doctor.

“Doc, my stomach is growing like crazy!”

“Let me run some tests.”

“Forget that. I'm out of vacation time. Take an educated guess.”

“Alright. It is likely a result of your new diet. The vast amount of fruits and vegetation you have been eating creates a gas buildup in your stomach.”

“What are my options?”

“Well, I could pull your finger.”

“Ooo. My dad used to do that. Yank away, Doc.”

Nothing happened.

“Now what, Doc?”

“I'm afraid you'll need a zeppelinectomy.”

“What?”

“Your stomach is trapping gas, much like a zeppelin in 1930. We need to release the gas before you float away.”

“How do you do that?”

“A sharp straw and a lighter.”

“What's the lighter for?”

“It's cool to see a blue flame.”

“Alright, I'll give you that. Just knock me out first.”

“As you wish.”

It worked. The gas escaped, and both of my feet were still on the ground. I did have to make one change—my diet. I went on a donut-only diet.

Hey, it was doctor's orders!

Carlton Category signing off.