Do you ever wonder if you're a few fries short of a Happy Meal, but everyone around you is just too nice to say so?
I do.
I mean, I don't think I'm certifiably insane or anything. I don't have aluminum foil taped over my windows to keep out radiation, and I don't believe that aliens are trying to communicate with me through the fillings in my teeth.
But still, I sometimes wonder if I have some glaring idiosyncrasy or some painfully obvious weirdness about me, but everyone I know is simply too kind to tell me about it.
We all know that woman in her 50's who runs around in a tight mini-skirt, high heels, and bleached hair, who suffers under the delusion that she looks 23.
We all know some guy who thinks he's a hilarious joke teller, yet everyone frantically bolts when they see him heading in their direction.
We all know (or at least I know) an otherwise attractive, competent woman who believes that the government has cloned Jimmy Carter. The real Jimmy died some years back, she claims.
The toothy guy we see working with Habitat for Humanity is apparently a lab creation. And for the record, these "Jimmy clones" only live for 40 days, so the government has to keep making a new Jimmy every month or so.
(I'm not sure why our government is so obsessed with keeping Jimmy Carter alive...maybe Habitat for Humanity is severely short-handed these days...but obviously, it's a top priority project. Who am I to question?)
Yet no one, no one, ever seems to look these people squarely in the eye and say, "Friend, you're not playing with a full deck."
No one tells them.
When the 50-something-year-old J Lo wannabe tells us how teenage boys are always whistling at her, we smile politely. When the crashing bore tells yet another monotonous joke, we laugh. When the sane-appearing clone lady tells us about her Jimmy Carter theory, we nod and say, "How ... interesting." (Okay, maybe only I do that.)
This worries me.
Am I doing, thinking, or believing something that has people shaking their heads in pity or amusement, yet all the while, they're pretending to me that I'm a normal, functioning member of society?
Am I actually a delusional nut case, yet no one wants to confront me? Am I the naked emperor, yet no one dares to tell me I'm wearing no clothes?
It's sort of scary to think about.
Not that I really have time to think about it.
I have more important things to do.
The aliens have been beeping in through my teeth for the last ten minutes...they need me to make a Wal-Mart run to pick up more aluminum foil.
Over and out. ;-)
