Oddness
From
your station in an aisle of your uncle's grocery store you
watch him take care of the customers. He can ring up prices
and give directions all at the same time; you can barely
keep track of the items to which you've already attached
price labels. Your mind tends to drift off, and you find
yourself standing in the middle of the floor with your price
gun pointing aimlessly at rows of cans. Mothers pull their
curious children around you, shushing them.
Every
so often a customer asks you a question, and you try not
to bungle it. Lately a lot of kids have been asking you
whether the hamburger is kept with the hams or with the
burgers. You tell them that they are with frozen foods and
that you don't think they have ham in them. The kids laugh,
so maybe that's the wrong answer?
This
excerpt may not be reproduced without written permission
from the publishers.
Fifty Signs of Mental Illness: A Guide to Understanding
Mental Health
Yale University Press / New Haven and London
Copyright © 2005 by James Whitney Hicks
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