Catnip for Crazy

Last updated on: August 22, 2014 at 3:49 pm by Rebecca Frech

Catnip for Crazy 2014-08-22T15:49:30-05:00 Rebecca Frech

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I have recently come to the inevitable conclusion that I attract crazy. I send out a signal like a homing beacon and draw it to me.

A few weeks ago when I was couch shopping, this woman sat down next to me on the sofa I eventually purchased. I was just waiting for the saleslady to bring me the total bill including delivery when this voice next to me said “Do you see the guy I’m with? I know everybody thinks he’s my first husband, but he’s not. He’s my second. He’s the twin brother of my first husband which is what confuses people.” She went on to regale me with the tale of how she’s unsure which brother is the father of her 10 year old son, but could I please not tell her husband that? The new one or the old one, please….although she’s not sure where the first one is as he went to Mexico 10 years ago and never came back………and it got weirder and I just kept hoping for the saleslady to return so I could leave.

But they find me, the crazy people…we’re weirdly drawn to each other. Like last week when the two little boys and I went to the preschool playgroup in our neighborhood. There were 15 moms there, and probably 12 of us had driven over (it’s 100+ degrees out there, I’m driving everywhere). I was sharing my story of the furniture store when someone started beating on the front door. Not knocking y’all, beating. The hostess looked out her front window and exclaimed “How weird! That’s my neighbor. I’ve been living here for 3 years and he’s never even said hello to me.” (That’s because he’s crazy.) She had barely opened the door when he started yelling “I’d like to know whose black SUV is parked in front of my house! You need to move it because I never said you could park in front of my house!” Clearly a lunatic. Also, clearly my car. 12 women parked on the street. What’re the odds that I’ll be the one in front of the crazy man’s house? 100%

Everywhere I go, I get the waitress who decides to share the intimate secrets of that thing she did last week that she didn’t even tell her best friend...in explicit detail, or the man who was abducted by aliens on Tuesday and shares the details with me as we’re standing in the grocery checkout line (btw, eyeball probes do not sound fun). I encounter the person who drank poison and lived to tell the tale, and the woman who swore to me that she’s a psychic and I’m the reincarnation of some French Jewish woman she knew in WWII and the birthmark on my head is exactly where her friend was shot. (fabulous.)

I’m not sure why the crazies come to me. I try to avoid eye contact with anyone even slightly strange lest I hear more about their one night stand with the ghost of Elvis than I ever wanted to know. It doesn’t matter. They tap my shoulder to get my attention and then launch right into it, and my mama raised me with too many manners to just rudely walk away no matter how bizarre it gets.

My husband read some post apocalyptic novel a few months back and mused out loud how unsafe the world would be with unchecked craziness on the loose. He can worry all he wants, but I know we’ll be just fine. The crazies love me. I draw them in like bugs to a porch light and they adore me. Other people can fret over what ifs, but if that ever happens the loonies will come to me and I will be their queen.

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