Come Stroll Down the Psychopath!

Yes, you. Don’t go looking over your shoulder. You’re the one I’m talking to.

Just cinch up the buckles on that straitjacket of yours, and match me stride for stride as we amble on down the psychopath. To the bughouse. Chucklehead Manor. The loony bin. Crazy acres. The wack factory. You know the place I’m talking about. Drool Central. The rubber room resort. Nut Palace. That big joint for small minds. The place where every resident ends up doing the Electric Slide — after a few rounds with the beanie studded with all those cute multi-colored electrodes.

After all, life’s just about got you flippin’ crazy by now, hasn’t it? Y’know, cracked? Dotty? Off the beam? Haywire? Frothing at the mouth? Deranged? Out of your gourd? Screwy? Touched? Derailed? Mad as a March hare? A few eggs short of a dozen? Light in the lid?

Feeling barmy after your boss gave you two hours notice, on a Tuesday morning, no less? Perhaps you’re just a bit pixilated after that pinhead in the Porsche cut you off, laying on the horn and lofting the double middle fingers for the edification of you and everyone else on the interstate? (Was that a*****e just changing lanes at 97 miles per hour with his knees?)

Or maybe you’re maniacal ‘cause your morning Mocha with mint set you back $5.98, and it wasn’t even warm? (Besides, how the %^&$@#! are you going to be able to be shelling out a cool six Washingtons for a measly tepid cuppa joe, now that you are soon to join the recently unemployed?)

Coming a bit unglued as you realize your wife thinks sex is a once-a-month affair, but, gee, there are jewelry and fur and spa and shoe sales every single week? Or could it by chance be your wonderful offspring that have got you totally unsprung? (After all, they say insanity is hereditary — you get it from your kids.)

Addlepated and moonstruck because your local team lost again? Ignominiously. Thereby taking much of what remained of your ready disposable cash with them, since they couldn’t even manage to beat the point spread? Or are you simply going rabidly starkers as you settle in for the evening to note that the sole cop procedural you almost sort-of look forward to now and then — among the 80 bazillion crappy shows on the thousands of lousy cable channels that you’ve paid a premium to subscribe to — has really jumped the shark with a story line about the senior detective’s alcoholic kleptomaniac ex-D.A. first wife’s adopted Downs syndrome kid being revealed as the cyber-mastermind behind a series of chain-saw muggings of talkative mixed-race seniors who’ve won the lottery?

Well, hell, don’t worry, be happy! So what if you’re missing the occasional button? Who cares if your elevator never makes it to the top floor anymore? What’s the big deal if your crockery’s a bit chipped? No one minds if that character that lives in your brain got off a few stops back! A little ranting and raving and wandering around bereft of reason never really hurt anyone! (Except, that is, at a few post offices over the years.)

Be glad of your daftness! Take comfort in your mental meltdown! Embrace the fruitcake within. After all, once you go totally around the bend, a whole lot of things that occur every day in this wacky world will actually start to seem reasonable. In no time at all, you’ll be looking out fondly on all those ‘sane’ folk out there with bemused and knowing nostalgia.

Take it from me, though, of all the things I’ve ever lost, I miss my mind the most.