(therapy for our times)
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Lately, people in America have gotten weird. Okay, fair point. People in America have gotten weirder.

I don’t know if it’s a punishment, or a cleansing, or some side-effect of something else. Maybe it’s some kind of cyclical anthropology, some naturally occurring phenomenon caused by too many people watching too many reality TV shows. (Of course, these days, “reality TV” is anything that’s not the news).

Maybe it’s a result of parents being in quarantine lockdown with their kids for so long that the parents are considering sneaking out in the middle of the night and relocating. Maybe it’s an unavoidable consequence of living in a country caught in a playground-gang mentality where everybody thinks everybody else is evil.

Or maybe we’re just getting better at being weird.

The symptoms are simple (and spreading): people thinking, staying, and doing stupid stuff. Fortunately, there’s help with a diagnosis, and there’s hope for treatment. The hope lies in the good hands of our good friend, the legendary physician, Dr. Chaz Ghedreel. Admittedly, much of the doctor’s therapy involves slapping you upside the head and yelling “Are you kidding me?” but, hey … when you’re sick, it’s time to take your medicine.

And the diagnosis? I’m glad you asked…

How to Know If You Need the Doctor

• You hear about a new grocery dairy item, and scan the internet for pictures of an acidophilus cow
• You think the phrase “nun’s habit” means she’s taking drugs
• Then you call the nun to see if she can hook you up
• Forty years ago, during high school, you played in a glam rock band, and you still have that hair
• You buy a refillable candle lighter … and then you buy another as backup.
• You’re a single guy and you’ve ever dated a woman who studied before her sobriety test
• If you make a New Year’s resolution not to make any more New Year’s resolutions
• If, a month later, you’re bitter about not keeping your resolution … or not
• You finance a car based on a promising email you got from a deposed Ethiopian prince
• You get an invitation to a job interview, the invitation contains about eight teeth-clenchingly obvious typos, and you go anyway
• You think the fourth Marx Brother was named Karl
• When you hear that it’s fine for Wall Street professionals to do things that they try to stop you from doing, and you don’t head for the shed to grab a pitchfork
• You think The Golden Girls was about King Midas’s wives
• You’re driving to catch a plane and you turn around to go back home because you saw a sign that read “AIRPORT LEFT”
• If, during your fifth trip to the all-you-can-eat buffet, you ask the waitress for another diet coke
• You meet someone on a cruise who says they’re from your State, and you say, “Oh, do you know Bob?”
• On an online dating site, you post that you like kittens and long walks on the beach, when in fact you are a male Eastern European wrestler with revenge issues
• Your idea of exercise is standing in the hallway at work swinging at imaginary golf balls
• If you corner people at the water cooler to complain about plot holes in Star Wars sequels
• You travel to a foreign country and think people will understand you if you just speak English slowly and loudly
• If, as Governor, you force infected citizens to be herded in to retirement homes, and then when there’s a huge spike in resident deaths, you blame politics
• You call the Help Desk at work because your keyboard doesn’t have an “any key” key
• When you leave your own lawn to walk your dog so the beast can “drop trou” in somebody else’s front yard
• You buy a churn because you want to make peanut butter
• If you hear “Get two for the price of one! Just pay a separate free!” and yet you still think the second one is free
• When the CDC’s new advice is to start wearing two medical masks, you decide that, just to be safe, you might as well start wearing four shoes
• In a facebook post, you misspell The Chosen and suddenly your friends think Jesus grew up in Korea
• You hoard toilet paper because of a global pandemic that affects your lungs
• You complain to your grocery because the ice cream aisle is out of Milli Vanilli
• When you come home smelling like pot and tell your parents you were just holding the aroma for a friend
• You vote for a government that, before getting around to vaccinating most Americans, decides to offer the COVID vaccine to Guantanamo terrorists who led the 9/11 attack
• If your personal health care regimen revolves around a diet of food that is handed to you through a hole in a restaurant’s wall
• You’ve convinced yourself that your life will never really be complete unless you have a flashlight that can survive getting frozen in a block of ice
• You hear about an election where more votes were cast than there are voters, and you still think the election is valid
• If you still haven’t figured out that when a car dealer’s ad says, “Prices will never be this low again!”, what they mean is, “Prices will never be this low again until next week’s ad!”
• You lived through the summer of 2020 in Minneapolis and still think getting rid of the police department would be a good idea
• If you go online, shopping for a new car, despite the fact that you haven’t left your house since March 2020
• You call your local AT&T store and ask to speak to Lily