The Crazies

This semester in Nursing I will be introduced to the joyous world of Mental Health. You say, "Joyous? In what way?" Well I'll tell you. Joyous in the beautiful sense of a perpetually repeated phrase or word, like "HELP!" or "I AM GEORGE WASHINGTON." Joyous in the wonder of knitting a beautiful blanket with absolutely no yarn and no needles. Joyous in the comfort of being surrounding by family and friends, who, for your forgetful benefit, all wear name tags and carry around bags of skittles that although make your body feel like Jell-O, make your mind feel like a million bucks.

Most especially, joyous in the amount of rules (with a personalized explanation by myself) set for students and hospital personnel:
1. Do not wear bright colors (as it will agitate the crazies<--not politically correct)
2. Do not wear tight fitting clothing (the more androgynous, the less likely they'll remember you are their girlfriend/wife/lover when you make eye contact)
3. Keep hair pulled out of your face (knitting with invisible yarn for too long and they'll take any substitute they can get)
4. If wearing lanyard, have a breakable clasp in the back (for when they decide to strangle you because you remind them of a distant figure from the past)
5. Do not wear jewelry, sparkling accessories or nail polish of any sort (See explanation on question 1)
6. Never intentionally "egg-on" the patients (they will kill you)

So there you have it. A few easy rules to live by that ultimately, could save you from a bloody nose, a bald spot, and/or various degrees of harassment. I hope to have some fun and exciting stories to share this semester, but mostly I just hope to see some crazy crap accompanied by my best nursing buds, and a few nutsos.







***Dedicated to Abinadi Ayerdis