The Fourteenth Floor

Hello my dears!  So sorry I've been out of touch the last week or so.  There's been an awful lot of stuff happening all at once here at the facility.  Last week, everybody on my floor caught the stomach flu and overloaded the plumbing.  What a mess!  Of course the chefs caught it too, so we got our meals late which we couldn't keep down anyway.  When we started getting better we were told we were moving all the way up to the fourteenth floor.  That was fine with me since all the floors are pretty much the same and I'd heard that the view of the local land fill is spectacular.  Some of the gang got a bit twitchy, but most of us were too worn out from the flu to mount a genuine protest.  So we all packed and said goodbye to our favorite plastic chairs.  Monty couldn't find his imaginary baboon and we all looked so he'd stop crying.  The big chef found it in the mop closet and Monty was all smiles again.  It seemed like such a lot of trouble for nothing until Dr. Idiot told us why we were moving.  Turns out the state closed ANOTHER maximum security psychiatric facility and all the patients had to be moved to the FEW that are left!  Very irritating!  Thankfully, our fourteenth floor was totally empty and available.  That wouldn't be the case except for poor planning going WAY back.
 
You see, darlings, the fourteenth floor was intended for the most violently dangerous and hopelessly psychotic people our country manages to produce.  There were some of that type up there until some years back, when the last one got really old and died.  He was all alone up there because for many years the state has been sending a lot of the truly dangerous psychotics to prisons where they can be properly stored.  But only the ones who break a big law while they're being truly crazy.  I suppose that makes sense.  Then there's that other little mitigating factor; most dangerously psychotic people kill themselves.  That's REALLY easy in the USA because we have lots and lots of GUNS.  So the number of seriously insane people that wind up in prisons is becoming bigger and bigger and the number that are stopped in time is getting smaller.
 
The TVs are still off and the computer was too until this morning so I just found out about Sandy Hook.  Even psychotics like me cry when children die.  Dr. Idiot wanted to give me a shot but changed his mind.  I've just been sitting here with wet eyes wondering why that sick young man had lots and lots of guns in his house.  How did that happen?  How come NOBODY was smart enough to snatch that guy up and put him on the fourteenth floor?  There's a bunch of people blogging about mental health care and intervention on the Sandy Hook stories.  Everybody should read that!  From what I can tell there's a LOT of folks with violently disturbed kids who can't find help for them.  Now THAT is INSANE!  Everybody should have help when they need it!

WHY ARE THERE LOTS AND LOTS OF GUNS BUT NOT ENOUGH MENTAL HEALTH CARE?  I'm crazy, but I'm not stupid.  There is no logical reason for the gross imbalance between available guns and available mental health care.  I can tell you one excuse.  Nobody wants to deal with it.  It's fine to yap about too many guns, but nothing is done.  Mental health care only gets talked about when people are murdered and then the talk dies down after awhile.  Believe me, I get it!  Mental health is such an uncomfortable subject.  It leads people to think about all the scary things they'd rather not.  Even when they're quite aware of a sick person in their midst, people don't like to talk about it, much less take action.  Meanwhile, the guns are out there and so are the untreated mentally ill.  It takes a story like Sandy Hook to get people wound up, but will it change anything?  Can that even happen in this crazy world?  Crazy doesn't just fix itself!  Period!  The guys who get to run the country are looking pretty crazy themselves these days.  And THAT is what gives crazy such a bad name.