I got an Election Day earache

   Praise God for small favors. That's a Calumet Region way of saying, "thank God elections are over."
   For months we've been watching Chicago TV about the governor's race. Incumbent Democrat Pat Quinnn calling Bruce Rauner a rich a#%hole. And Republican Rauner calling Quinn an incompetent overspending Democrat. Like you, I've spent hours of my life during football games and The Good Wife watching attack commercials about a race that I only mildly care or know about.
   And now it's over, at least by 10 pm or so. On WJOB, it's been the tradition that Dave Kusiak and Matt Reardon host the election results show on WJOB. That way it's people who know what they're talking about. If I did the election show, then it would a person who really didn't know what he was talking about.
   I come from the sports and business world. That's not really changed in the ten years we've owned the local talk radio station. I bumble my way through thoughts on government, party affiliation, elections, but really I'm a visitor to a game in which I have no business portraying myself as an expert in. In the end, a lot of candidates used WJOB to get their word out (cha-ching), so we weren't all that different than WGN, channel 7 and the rest. I really am grateful to all of you candidates for spending some Johnny with us to tell your story.
   But, with all due respect, I'm also glad that it's over. Hope you understand. Wish all of you well.
   ... So there. What I really wanted to talk about is earaches. No kidding. If you're in local radio and you wear headphones on average six hours a day, then maybe you get them too.
    Add it up. I wear headphones for the morning show on average about four hours a day. Then afterwards I put on a different set of headphones to edit the show for podcast and stuff... and sometimes I put on headphones to listen to music or Adam Carolla and sometimes I announce a football or basketball game or a soccer match or a parade or a panel or you get the picture. I figure that I wear headphones about 30 hours a week.
    That has to be why I get this recurring earache. It won't go away. Lately it's started on Thursday evening. That's after four days of sweating billions of bacteria into a padded ear covering. By Friday morning my left jaw's swollen. I look like I'm chewing a golf ball.
    But through August and September I didn't do much radio over the weekend. Brian Jennings and Kirk "the Minnow" Smith announced the main football game, and Ryan Walsh and Rick Massoels did the bounce game. I sat at home on Friday and Saturday nights and drank beer, without headphones. By Monday morning the earache would be gone.
    But in the past few weeks I've been announcing football on Friday night, cutting it up on Saturday and building a studio in my house. It adds up to another ten or more hours of headphone time over the weekend... and a badass earache that won't go away.
    The solution? I'm hoping that it's a one-ear headset. No kidding. Your mic hangs off of the headphone on one side and then on the other side there's nothing. Your bad ear is open. No sweaty bacteria buildup. 
   So I just called Paul at BSW, where I buy all my radio stuff. He said they get so few requests for single-sided headsets that it might take a while.
    "Why, may I ask, do you want a single-sided headset?" Paul asked. 
    For some reason, I was too embarrassed to tell him that, like a little baby, I don't sleep well because of an earache and that in the middle of the night my wife has to wake up and put drops in my ear.
   So don't tell anybody.