A seventeen-minute break.
Sometimes words lose potency over time; it's inevitable in any living language. Excruciating came to be because it was felt that no existing word was sufficient to describe the effects of crucifixion. Starving once only applied to someone dying of malnutrition. You get the idea. It's not arresting anymore to use the word insane. I wish Americans could use "mad" like the British without ambiguity. Regardless: For seventeen minutes yesterday, I spoke to a man who is insane. I mean it.
He's in late middle age, possibly older. He sounded avuncular, friendly, matter-of-fact. He opened by saying that, in his state of Utah, the Mormon church was into everything, and it pushed a certain agenda. This is not an unfamiliar opening; there are plenty of Utahans who don't like that they can't have an alcoholic drink at their neighborhood Applebee's. While they're used to it, they're still weary of having to follow someone else's morality because it happens to be popular.
For the entirety of the conversation, had you listened only to his tone and not to the content, you could imagine this was fishing he was talking about. It wasn't until the word "kill" came up that I started to think that maybe this call was going to run long.
"They sort of, you know, push an agenda onto people that maybe, well, and you know that they've, well, it's clear that they've had people killed when people, you know, when they disagree with the agenda."
Had he been in a rage, I could have taken this comment in stride, could have thought of it as sarcasm. What stripped my gears was that you could hear the resigned shrug. They kill people. Them's the breaks.
He visited one of our locations near his town, he said. He began to describe being seated, then told me that his time was short. "They've killed everyone who's tried to help me, you see. It's because I've said things. I speak out about them on, y'know, on the Internet. They're trying to, y'know, tear me down." it wasn't a tirade or even a lament. As far as I could tell, it was back story.
The reason his time is short is that they're poisoning him. They're doing it slowly. He has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He knows why. Slow food service, like he had at our restaurant. When his meal takes a long time to arrive at Applebee's, McDonald's, anywhere, it's because they've found out that he's at a different restaurant than usual, so they have to stall him while they rush over the poison and add it to his food. It's worth noting that I didn't consider until after the call that the man knows this and still goes out to eat. Suspension of disbelief was that easy-that is, suspension of disbelief that he was sincere. Still that even tone, rambling but not escalating.
His mother's fatal stroke back at the family home in Texas, at the age of eighty-seven, was likely because of something similar. I think he said that he suspected his brothers of being complicit in poisoning her such that it would appear natural..
The Mormons, or more likely Dick Cheney, had one of the Walton family murdered. This was to punish Wal-Mart for helping him. Their store was willing to sell him a bicycle, transportation he can afford, and either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or the Bush Administration want him to have transportation only on their terms. He must either ride the bus, which runs on their schedule, or buy a car, and every car he buys breaks down. In this way they keep track of him.
Toward the end, he said he was waiting to hear the little double click on his phone line that meant the FBI was listening in. He hopes I'm really who I say I am and not an FBI agent myself. I assure him that I am who I say. He chuckles and says, "I hope so." He'd like to believe that, but it's hard to be sure.
He called to say that his meal took half an hour to get to his table, but he wasn't complaining about it. It was only right that he tell us that one of our restaurants was now part of the plan to kill him, in case we might be interested to know. He wasn't desperate, or for that matter even worried, just resigned and certain that something bad would befall him soon.
I couldn't say with certainty that I had ever been in contact with anyone who had lost his mind. Then I spoke to a very nice, if long-winded, paranoid delusional from Utah, and though people find it funny when I tell them, it doesn't make me laugh. Not that it upsets me, either. It's fascinating, and a little troubling, but mostly just strange. I'm increasingly of the opinion that our minds aren't so much ours as leased to us, under terms that we are not going to be told and from someone we haven't met.
He's in late middle age, possibly older. He sounded avuncular, friendly, matter-of-fact. He opened by saying that, in his state of Utah, the Mormon church was into everything, and it pushed a certain agenda. This is not an unfamiliar opening; there are plenty of Utahans who don't like that they can't have an alcoholic drink at their neighborhood Applebee's. While they're used to it, they're still weary of having to follow someone else's morality because it happens to be popular.
For the entirety of the conversation, had you listened only to his tone and not to the content, you could imagine this was fishing he was talking about. It wasn't until the word "kill" came up that I started to think that maybe this call was going to run long.
"They sort of, you know, push an agenda onto people that maybe, well, and you know that they've, well, it's clear that they've had people killed when people, you know, when they disagree with the agenda."
Had he been in a rage, I could have taken this comment in stride, could have thought of it as sarcasm. What stripped my gears was that you could hear the resigned shrug. They kill people. Them's the breaks.
He visited one of our locations near his town, he said. He began to describe being seated, then told me that his time was short. "They've killed everyone who's tried to help me, you see. It's because I've said things. I speak out about them on, y'know, on the Internet. They're trying to, y'know, tear me down." it wasn't a tirade or even a lament. As far as I could tell, it was back story.
The reason his time is short is that they're poisoning him. They're doing it slowly. He has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He knows why. Slow food service, like he had at our restaurant. When his meal takes a long time to arrive at Applebee's, McDonald's, anywhere, it's because they've found out that he's at a different restaurant than usual, so they have to stall him while they rush over the poison and add it to his food. It's worth noting that I didn't consider until after the call that the man knows this and still goes out to eat. Suspension of disbelief was that easy-that is, suspension of disbelief that he was sincere. Still that even tone, rambling but not escalating.
His mother's fatal stroke back at the family home in Texas, at the age of eighty-seven, was likely because of something similar. I think he said that he suspected his brothers of being complicit in poisoning her such that it would appear natural..
The Mormons, or more likely Dick Cheney, had one of the Walton family murdered. This was to punish Wal-Mart for helping him. Their store was willing to sell him a bicycle, transportation he can afford, and either the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or the Bush Administration want him to have transportation only on their terms. He must either ride the bus, which runs on their schedule, or buy a car, and every car he buys breaks down. In this way they keep track of him.
Toward the end, he said he was waiting to hear the little double click on his phone line that meant the FBI was listening in. He hopes I'm really who I say I am and not an FBI agent myself. I assure him that I am who I say. He chuckles and says, "I hope so." He'd like to believe that, but it's hard to be sure.
He called to say that his meal took half an hour to get to his table, but he wasn't complaining about it. It was only right that he tell us that one of our restaurants was now part of the plan to kill him, in case we might be interested to know. He wasn't desperate, or for that matter even worried, just resigned and certain that something bad would befall him soon.
I couldn't say with certainty that I had ever been in contact with anyone who had lost his mind. Then I spoke to a very nice, if long-winded, paranoid delusional from Utah, and though people find it funny when I tell them, it doesn't make me laugh. Not that it upsets me, either. It's fascinating, and a little troubling, but mostly just strange. I'm increasingly of the opinion that our minds aren't so much ours as leased to us, under terms that we are not going to be told and from someone we haven't met.