Are People Crazier These Days?

It seems to come in groupings, maybe in threes, like celebrities dying.

Come on, you know! Gary Coleman died. Dennis Hopper died. Now who's going to round out the set? Somewhere in California or New York is an ailing or elderly celebrity scared sh-tless he or she might make headlines in the pushing-up-daisies section of the gossip mags.

It's the same with crazy people. You run into one, then you run into another, so you know not to let your guard down because somewhere soon the third is coming around a corner with a bucket full of unmedicated lunacy saved up just for you.

Without getting into too much detail -- by which I mean enough detail to get me fired, sued, or bitch-slapped -- in the past two months I have experienced some serious crazy.

No, I didn't leave out a word or misspell "craziness." You see, sometimes behavior is so crazy that the word "crazy" ceases to be an adjective and becomes a noun. In severe cases, it can even become a proper noun. Oh, it may sound like an adjective in conversation but what you can't see is the capitalization of the word as it precedes the name of a seriously deranged person. For instance: "I just saw Crazy Pam talking to imaginary squirrels."

Last month the crazy I experienced was work-related.

A fellow employee laid claim to an account already owned and worked by me. I stopped it. The fellow employee then sent six emails within the course of three hours, copying everyone and everyone's supervisor, explaining in wondrous detail how I was not being a team player, how I was actually the one somehow stealing an account I had owned for two years, and how I had somehow desecrated some non-existent client-salesperson relationship by calling my own client. You know, just recalling those kinds of details makes my head hurt again. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of tortured neurons and synapse relays in a brain that can dream up this kind of stuff and then convince itself it's all true. Serious crazy!

Now, in the past few days, we have experienced even more bizarre behavior. It's really too fresh and too difficult to explain without giving away who and what it is about to too many people, so I will simply say that my poor lovely wife has been dealing with something ridiculous from someone ridiculous. The worst part is she hasn't yet seen the worst part. While my lovely wife is sleeping soundly in our bed, she has no idea that a new email chock full of angry crazy is waiting to greet her in the morning.

Email is an amazing tool but it also can serve as an electronic jet stream carrying crazy from one computer to another at lightning speed. What people suffering from serious crazy don't realize is that emails are not temporary, transient bursts of digital magic that spit out their vitriol only to poof into nothingness the moment they are opened and read. A gem of a crazy email can, and often will, be forwarded.

I'm not exactly sure how my lovely wife will react in the morning when she reads the email full of angry crazy. However, after fifteen years of marriage, I have a pretty good idea.

So, now, the only thing left to do is wait for the next round of serious crazy to raise its multi-personalitied head. With any luck, I'll be busy dreaming up my own version of crazy when it comes calling.


ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler