Psycho

         My mission was simple: remember your mission. It’s a good thing I have a good memory, I would hate to end up like Steve, all alone, crying in the corner, sucking on his thumb. It’s a shame they don’t allow five-year-olds in the Army, Steve would have been great. It’s also a shame that I consider this video game to be the real Army. And that I feel the need to make others believe that I’m not Steve.

         People who know me would tell you some interesting facts about me, but you’d be hard lucked to find anyone who knew the real me. Every person I meet gets a different code name. You can call me, well, you can call me whatever you’d like. I prefer Fernando. It makes me feel sexy.

         My psychiatrist tells me that I’m living in this game. I believe him, but I’m afraid we have different views on what game this is. According to him, my life is a video game. However, I see things a little differently: I am not living a game; this is real.

         See? There I go again. I don’t really have a psychiatrist; I am my own shrink. It both saves money and arguments. It’s funny how I always win, always know what’s wrong with me, and always know exactly how I want it fixed.

         The mind is a tricky place. Once you get lost in it, you may never find your way out. And if you went in with a sandwich? Don’t expect to leave with it. Trust me on this one.

         This mind business, it’s what I do. I get in people’s minds, I figure out what’s wrong with them, why they see dead people, you know, the usual. I set up shop at home, and let the answer-seekers come to my doorstep. I don’t charge much, or at least that’s what I tell my clients. They’ll believe anything.

         You may be asking yourself, why is this (incredibly handsome) man doing…what he does? You may also be asking yourself, why is my stomach making funny noises? And for that, I tell you to eat something before continuing. A turkey sandwich on rye, perhaps. I am a psychiatrist because of one man: Joe.

         This was a couple years back, when I still had it in my mind that I was going to be an architect. How wrong I was.

         Joe was in the midst of a death in the family. He came to me as a friend, asking me to remodel his newly gained estate. It was during this time that Joe came to me with his problem. He had a strange fear of goats. Off the record, he also had Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia, the fear of the number 666, and Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, the fear of long words. And while we realize I just looked up funny sounding pointless phobias, he might as well have had Pnumonomicroscopicsilicovolcanocoviosophobia too, which is the fear of a lung disease caused by coal dust.

         I thought I’d help him out, being the least I could do for grossly overpricing the job. Now that I think of it, that would have been the laughing stock of the neighborhood. Off the bat, I made him start with listing possible reasons for his strange fear(s).

1)          He somehow knew that the taste of raw goat was not for a feeble stomach.
2)          His father was a goat.
3)          He drank goat milk for years until discovering crows (not a typo).

                Due to this obvious lack of a reason, I decided I’d give hypnotherapy a shot. Seeing as I didn’t, and still don’t, know what hypnotherapy consists of, I most likely did a different procedure. Since drilling into his skull to try and read his brain seemed a little far-fetched, I decided to settle with this hypnocrap. Therapy, I mean.

                I had him lay down. Then I had him get off me and lay down on the bed. I took out a fork and slowly swayed it back and forth until I hit the light bulb hanging above my head which added to the illusion that I knew what I was doing as I told him, “You are now in the dream state.” It was also a cool-looking and dangerous effect, and I don’t suggest it to anyone at home. I then took out a pocket watch (in retrospect, it seems the pocket watch would have been the smart thing to start out with, but who’s counting?). Slowly swaying it back and forth, I started to fall asleep. Realizing this was being counterproductive, I flipped the face of the clock around so it was facing Joe. His eyelids began to quiver and I took that as a sign that I was doing it right.

“In two seconds, you will tell me your bank code.”
“I’m still awake.”
“…. Just kidding.”

              Telling him to try and remember where his wallet was didn’t work either, so I told him to count to six and go back to the last time he remembered encountering a goat. For some reason there was a mix of emotions, so I took the needle out of his arm and the crying went away. Now he was only screaming. I figured he must have been in the circus when he was younger and a goat must have eaten his recently fallen ice cream scoop. Any kid would fear goats if that were to happen to them; it’s almost like the goat was saying “who’s your daddy?” to Joe, letting Joe know who the alpha goat was. I decided this was the only explanation, and woke Joe up.

              Waking a sleeping man up is one thing, but waking a hypnotized man up is an entirely new experience for me. Joe jumped up and ripped his shirt off, turning greener all the while, and started screaming. Thinking he was some incredibly hulky figure or something, he attempted to walk through the wall. Unfortunately, Joe was only green because of the seafood he had eaten earlier, and I only know this because in a few seconds, I was at lunch with him, or so it seemed. Poor guy, that shirt must have cost him at least fifteen dollars.

              From that moment on, I knew I would be a psychiatrist. I threw my once-lifetime dream of becoming a famous ballerina out the window and immediately gained thirty pounds, sat on the couch all day, and watched soap operas until I realized I needed an ad to publicize before anyone would seek my services.

              Having never taken a psychology class, it was hard to come upon clients. This is when I discovered the perfect way to obtain problematic customers: I changed my ad to a female escort service. The phone was off the hook. And people say I don’t know how to read minds. Ha.

              That charade lasted for a little over two years, until my customers realized I had a penis. And let me tell you: that did not blow over well.

              After discovering that money was required to pay the bills (hamburgers sent through the mail must not taste as good), I decided I would go buy a couch for my clients to rest on. You know, one of those “I’m not going to hurt you” couches, mixed with “If you don’t pay me, you’ll need more than a chiropractor.” I settled on a yellow piece of crap from the junkyard, seeing as money was also a requisite for purchasing expensive items. Republican, my ass.

              My clients enjoyed the luxury of being able to feel like they were in a movie. Because of this, I felt compelled to raise my prices. Despite the obnoxious uproar from my clientele, I assured them that this was all for their well-being. After all, if I wasn’t happy, then I surely wouldn’t let them be happy. Cuz I’m that nice of a doctor; I like to make sure I feel exactly what the patient is feeling.

              One day, a hefty woman of about thirty came in, seeking my advice. It seemed that she had an eating disorder, where every time she was hungry, she ate. The nerve. I assured her this was a normal occurrence. People are SUPPOSED to eat. She didn’t believe me, insisting it was something mental. Well, I knew she was mental, but, being the great doc that I am, I didn’t tell her that. To her face.

              I decided to play along and ask her a few questions. “What did you eat for breakfast?” “Three hamburgers and a potato.” “How did you get here?” “I drove.” “When was the last time you exercised?” “Exerwhat?” Bingo.

              After carefully explaining that she was obese because she was, in fact, lazy, she finally let me be and left. Scanning my list of patients to come, I decided I was feeling equally lazy that day, so I cancelled the rest of my appointments, using Jury Duty as my excuse.

              You may be wondering why I bothered to tell you about this particular day. It’s quite simple. That was the best day of my life. I lived the American Dream that day. I bought myself a car and watched a baseball game, then refused to exercise and ate dinner at McDonalds. What a day.

              Did I mention my father was a goat?