"Day Trip to the Nut House"

Well there I was at the Social Security office get signed up for all that Welfare State gravy. You gets a psych evaluation then a physical. All was going well. The trick is to smile, and nod then sign.

Problem was I was a tad too honest about certain matters. Came the question about suicidal thoughts, and I sez "sure..who don't". Well I went, and pushed the invisible red button...the biggest.

My friendly pencil pushing apparatchik ever smiling excused himself from the office, and ten minutes later the guys in the white coats shows up. 

Also smiling. 

"We understand ya has a little problem. That's okay just come along with us." I notice that they has them cop plastic tie cords with them.

OOPS! Thinks I.  

Was it something I said?

See the deal is if you say certain key words or phrases there's standing protocols. The "S" words is about the most serious. Not to nutters like me. For craps sakes depressed obscure genius type thinks of doing themselves in all day every day...we don't do it, but still.

Anyway normal people, and bureaucracies see stuff like that in an entirely different light...in the extreme. So off I go in an ambulance to a Nut Hospital. I have to say the EMT folks was as always real sweet. Takes a special sort to see all the hell they do, and still have so much humanity.

But I digress.

So there I am at Saint so, and so's waiting for a head shrinker to count the bumps on my head or whatever. By this time the social worker my sister hired to help me through my adventures with officialdom shows up.

Looks like they wants to hold me for a few days for "Observation", and or immersion in ice water, tubs of leeches, and perhaps oral sex. That last bit was just wishful thinking.

Anyway I sez I just wanna get home, and no I've no intention of staying. It's about this time some big ass orderlies slowly surrounds me...all smiling of course. 

However before I'm frog marched to a rubber room in some basement never to be seen again. My doctor shows up. 

He's not smiling. 

He sez there's no need to be concerned, and that we should have a chat privately.

'Turned out to be a cool guy. He was a first class pro. We got on fine. He knew just what to say, and ask. I leveled with him, and he with me. We had an insightful talk. He teaches tai chi yoga breathing all the brainiac jazz.

Hey I'm a smart weirdo, and so was he so we were on the same page. He told me it wasn't often that he encountered a nut job that was articulate in introspective. Which was a sweet thing to say. 

Still he got to the crunch. 

He asked was I a danger to myself. I said no. I said for people with my condition going to the brink was a daily experience. For the so-called healthy it was an alarming state.

To which he nodded. Anyway, and this was interesting he asked  if I would mind speaking with his students. I said sure. Again having a lab rat that can actually speak in coherent sentences seems rare so I was game.

I did my Uncle Sidney act as here, and on the air. I love performing, and they were a good audience. I hope they got something out of it. I basically said that we were in parallel universes.  Same space different vibrations all that Steven Hawkings jazz.

We can see each other, but can't hear each other. They can't hear us say that they've got it all wrong with their damned meds, and drilling holes in our heads to let out the evil spirits.

I said it's like medicine before germ theory was understood. Doctors just couldn't figure out where all these infections were coming from or what to do about them. That's exactly what stands between the emotionally wounded, and the alleged healthy.  

They don't know what the fuck is going on, and they can't hear us try to tell them.

Anyway I was cut loose, and went home. 

I have to go back to them SSI jerks next week to continue my processing. Both my Social Worker, and My Doctor both cautioned me to 'never ever' tell the pencil pushers anything serious. Certainly nothing that'll get one of them red buttons pushed again.

Aw crap there has to be an easier way.

Stay Tuned.