We have a psychologist on our homeless veteran shelter premises. She doesn't do any one-on-one counselling of veterans or anything like that. I'm not sure what she does, but she does it in the Corporate Development office next to our computer room.
I'm not sure what Corporate Development does, either. I think they beg corporations for money and that's what kind of psychology Laura does: getting into corporate heads to relieve them of some of their corporate slush fund guilt money.
Laura is a rotund little person, a waddler. She reminds me of Oliver Hardy of Laurel and Hardy, even down to the mustache, except that she sports a dayglo red punk rock spikey hairdo. She looks like a fat little junior high schooler looking for the Halloween party. Every day.
She was doing the 'administrator shuffle' (head down, for God's sake don't make eye contact with the inmates) along the sidewalk from her office to the mess hall. I was walking the opposite direction from the elevators to the Benched Players benches. She looked up and asked me perfunctorily (not actually expecting an answer) "Howyaduune?"
"I'm on the unshaven edge of madness," I answered and kept walking.
She kept walking, too. She walked a few feet away, stopped, turned back to me and asked, "What?"
"I'M ON THE UNSHAVEN EDGE OF MADNESS!" I said louder over my shoulder and kept walking.
I sat down on the benches across from Gordon The Hollywood Anarchist, who was on his cell phone with a Washington, D.C. customer service bureaucrat at the Department of Labor. Gordon was really letting the bureaucrat have it, wrathfully screaming at him about what kind of shady, broken-souled government it must be that couldn't peel loose 37 cents to mail an honest laborer the form he needed.
Laura walked past the Benched Players bench just as Gordon was demanding to speak to the bureaucrat's supervisor or someone even higher up, preferably someone who had the authority and the ability to command the expense of 37 cents to mail him a labor complaint form.
"I was just kidding," I called out to Laura as she passed, "About the shaving, I mean. I'm going to shave this afternoon."
She must have run and told because since that little exchange, I've noticed other administrators suddenly making eye contact with me when they never did before. They seem to be going out of their way to ask me how I'm doing. Uh oh. I'm on their radar screens now. Laura must have put out a Psycho Nut Job Watch Alert.
She was doing the 'administrator shuffle' (head down, for God's sake don't make eye contact with the inmates) along the sidewalk from her office to the mess hall. I was walking the opposite direction from the elevators to the Benched Players benches. She looked up and asked me perfunctorily (not actually expecting an answer) "Howyaduune?"
"I'm on the unshaven edge of madness," I answered and kept walking.
She kept walking, too. She walked a few feet away, stopped, turned back to me and asked, "What?"
"I'M ON THE UNSHAVEN EDGE OF MADNESS!" I said louder over my shoulder and kept walking.
I sat down on the benches across from Gordon The Hollywood Anarchist, who was on his cell phone with a Washington, D.C. customer service bureaucrat at the Department of Labor. Gordon was really letting the bureaucrat have it, wrathfully screaming at him about what kind of shady, broken-souled government it must be that couldn't peel loose 37 cents to mail an honest laborer the form he needed.
Laura walked past the Benched Players bench just as Gordon was demanding to speak to the bureaucrat's supervisor or someone even higher up, preferably someone who had the authority and the ability to command the expense of 37 cents to mail him a labor complaint form.
"I was just kidding," I called out to Laura as she passed, "About the shaving, I mean. I'm going to shave this afternoon."
She must have run and told because since that little exchange, I've noticed other administrators suddenly making eye contact with me when they never did before. They seem to be going out of their way to ask me how I'm doing. Uh oh. I'm on their radar screens now. Laura must have put out a Psycho Nut Job Watch Alert.
Tags: psychologist, staff shrink, homeless, homeless veteran, veterans shelter, Department of Veterans Affairs, corporate development, slush fund, Oliver Hardy, Laurel and Hardy, unshaven edge of madness, eye contact, inmates, chow hall, Benched Players Bench, Washington DC, Department of Labor, broken-souled government, bureaucrat, labor complaint form, on their radar, psycho nut job, watch alert, jarvis, marquisdejolie
No comments:
Post a Comment