Tales from the Mental Hospital

Here’s the story of Michael, PFC First Class

I briefly described Michael earlier in the first post. He was your text book paranoid schizophrenic, with a twist.

He did some of the funniest things I've ever seen.

In the middle of groups, he would drop to the floor and start doing pushups while yelling " 1,2,3,4, I love the Marine Corp!”

To the best of my knowledge, he was never a Marine, just for the simple fact of I can't picture anyone putting a gun in this whacky bastard's hands.

Once he got going, it was hard to get him to stop until one day Desmond got fed up and said "On your feet, Marine" It worked like a charm. Michael immediately shot to his feet and said "Sir Yes sir!"

After that, anytime Michael went into Marine calisthenics mode, he was promptly given an order to get on his feet.

Often times at smoke break, Michael would sit in one of the chairs, fling his arms out to the sides, and bring them back in and cover his eyes with them, while chanting "Hoo Hah Hoo Hah" It reminded me of a Wu Tang song on crack.

Meal times with Michael were equally funny. He would tear his food to pieces looking for foreign objects. He always "found" something in them and freaked.

One day I decided to have a little fun with Michael. After he had torn his breakfast to shred and "found" something in it, I walked over to him right before he went nuts. "Michael" I said. "Here, take mine, it should be safe". Let the record show it was some form of powdered egg shit that I wouldn't even dream of touching, so I really didn't care what happened to it.

He was, of course, elated by this. He took it back to his table and started to tear it up. He got a funny look on his face and came running over to me. "There's something in yours too" he whispered. "They're trying to kill everyone named Michael on the wing"

At this point, I probably should have told him that he was wrong, and he was just seeing things that weren't there. But, I didn't. I asked him "What do we do about it"?

He smiled and said "Let us handle it" As soon as he said "us", I knew the shit was about to hit the fan.

He took both trays and ran up to the MHA desk and screamed "Incoming!" and fired both trays over the counter onto an MHA named Sandra. He then dove to the floor and screamed "Semper Fi! Do or die!"

The whole wing started cracking up, even the MHA's who weren't behind the desk. Well, everyone but Sandra and Ken. Ken was really pissed off for some reason. He ran over to Michael and picked him up and dragged him over to the nurse's station and had him sedated before he was tossed into his room.

After he finished doing that, he came right for me. I had a feeling I was pretty much fucked when I saw him heading to my table, and I was right. "What the fuck did you say to him?" he asked. "I just offered him my breakfast man" I told him. "You know I don't eat this fake eggs shit"

I almost got that lie off. Almost. "Michael told Mike that both their breakfasts had stuff in them, and Mike asked him to handle it" said Maritza.

Maritza was an 18 year old psycho in every sense of the word. She believed that she was Mary, the mother of God.

If you were stupid enough to speak to her, she would talk for a few minutes, then scream out things like “Get away from me" and "He's (or she) is trying to rape me" Needless to say, most people avoided her and her mustache like the plague.

Ken just glared at me for a second, and then said "You know you're in trouble, right?" "Ken", I replied. "Are you really going to take her word over mine? She thinks she's the fucking mother of God, for fuck's sake" "I may have asked him what we should do about the alleged foreign objects, but I certainly didn't tell him to go bombard Sandra with that gross ass shit you people call breakfast" I said. "Ok, I'm going to believe you for now, until Michael comes off the Haldol and I talk to him. If I find out you're bullshitting me, you're in deep shit" he replied. "Hey, no problem" I responded.

Now I was stuck at the mercy of an insane wannabe Marine. I lounged around for a few hours, until I saw Michael come out of his room. I had every intention of coaching him on what to say to Ken, but Ken beat me over there.

All I could do now was listen and hope for the best. "Michael" Ken said. "I need to talk to you about this morning" "Ok" Michael replied. Ken then asked him “Did Mike tell you to throw those trays at Sandra?" Now was the moment of truth, and I had no idea what he was going to say. "Trays? I didn't throw any trays" he responded. "My C.O. called in an artillery strike on an enemy position"

At this point I could see Ken was getting annoyed, so he asked "Well, who is your C.O.?"

Michael stood up straight, looked him straight in the eyes and said "Michael, pfc first class, 123456789" "Under the Geneva Convention, all I'll give you is my name, rank and serial number".

Ken just gave up at this point, and walked over to me and said "You're lucky he's out of his mind, but I'll keep an eye on the both of you"

And that's how the war movie ban at Runnells came about.

Wow, I had no idea people with mental imbalances had so much fun. Next time I swing by one of those places, I'm going to grab a Thorazine Big Gulp. That should pass the week real damn fast. Thanks again to forum Goon n3cro, and we're done with this week!

– Ryan "OMGWTFBBQ" Adams