Crazy People

There are a whole lot of people who are at the end of their rope.

Just hanging on.

Crazy as a loon.

We stumbled upon a documentary on Netflix called “The High School Catfish” or some such nonsense, and we were horrified by the theme.

A young girl and her junior high boyfriend were being harassed via text message.

Simply nasty, disgusting messages that literally drove the entire town insane.

The police were stymied and eventually they brought the FBI in.

Now, I don’t want to spoil the ending, but it was the first documentary where I literally was shocked, and my crazy barometer exploded.

Three days later, and I’m still thinking about it. Kathy was also utterly disgusted.

And we hear a lot about mental health every time there’s a mass shooting.

People aren’t getting the help they need and on freedom road they’re free to concoct and plan and ultimately destroy innocent people, or their own families.

I stopped for lunch in Buffalo yesterday, and it was a nice enough day to eat outside. I was scrolling through my phone and eating a $15 sandwich (when did sandwiches go up to $15?)

I got tapped on the shoulder.

Which made me jump clear out of my skin.

“Hey, I’m homeless,” a man about my age said. “I could use a dollar or two.”

He was in the restaurant dining area, panhandling.

Every once in a while I will fork over a dollar or two, but this dude was not only homeless, he was rude, and I was trying to eat and he was filthy, and he touched me.

“I can’t help you,” I said.

“You’re a great guy,” he said. “Really a great guy.”

It irritated me even more, but I didn’t respond, and he was off to the next table.

An obviously frightened woman forked over a dollar, and the man scampered away.

The woman looked at me.

“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “He scared me.”

I was thinking about that dude and the documentary as I drove through downtown.

There were at least 5 men standing on corners with signs that read:

“Anything helps.”

Mental health.

People suffering.

And all the avenues that they used to walk down to get back to some semblance of life are now one-way, dead-end streets.

And desperation explodes into pain.

Watch that doc and let me know if you felt like I did at the end of it.

Simply crazy.