Mark LaFlamme: The Screaming Room

Strait Jacket

Had a visit the other day from a woman convinced there’s a conspiracy afoot to drive her mad. We sat in a small office at the front of the paper and she pulled her chair very close to mine. She clutched an armful of my columns as she spoke and she leaned in very close. An intense woman of perhaps 55, there was no preamble. She got right to it.

The conspiracy, she explained, involves her family, police officers from across the state, a few representatives, the DHS and Tri-County Mental Health. Each of them out to get her because she is a Christian. Fascinating, I thought. A bit unlikely, but strange things happen.

Then she told me about the shape shifting.

According to this severe woman, who would not let me interject at any time, the plot against her is even more baffling because the conspirators have the ability to change faces and forms. Her father came to see her recently, for instance, but it wasn’t her father at all. It was one of them masquerading as her dad.

“They can do all kinds of things with technology now,” the woman told me. “They can change faces any time they want to.”

It got stranger and more intense as the conversation progressed. I fidgeted and toyed with my coffee cup, waiting for the right moment to end the conversation. I deal with people with wild ideas all the time. It’s always entertaining, sometimes even informative.

This woman, though, went beyond fanciful thinking. This one, in my view, was of the clinical variety, a true paranoid schizophrenic who probably should have been visiting a medical office instead of a newspaper. I had visions of her hacking her poor old Pa to death with a cleaver because he was an imposter asleep in her father’s bed. Or burning down a house full of children to free the little ones from a life of similar vexation.

So the troubled lady left with only a few encouraging words from me and she went off into her delusions. I felt vague guilt because I had no help to offer her. I assumed she would forget about me soon enough and find a new ear to accept her rantings.

Apparently not. The switchboard operator tells me she called again that night, agitated and demanding.

“She wanted to know what you look like,” he said. “She wanted me to describe you or to produce a picture. She wanted your home number and directions to your house. She got really mad when I didn’t give her what she wanted.”

So, it appears the intense lady with an armful of columns has decided that I am one of them, too. It must have occurred to her shortly after departing the paper that I had been a little too friendly, a little too agreeable. Perhaps I was her father hiding behind a cheap reporter mask. Or the conspiracy leader himself, gathering final facts to complete her undoing.

It’s very sad, all of it. I wish the woman well. Mostly though, I wonder who she is sharpening the cleaver for tonight? Old Pa? Or the nice, young reporter with the crumpled coffee cup.

Rosemary and thyme not included

So, here’s a dude who is selling a haunted spice rack on eBay. No thanks, dude. I already have the haunted toaster. Swear to God, I put toast in it and three minutes later, it will jump right up out of the appliance all brown and stiff. Who needs it?

A toast to haunted kitchenware.

I purchased this spice rack at an old thrift shop a few months back and ever since paranormal and unexplainable things have been occuring. The first strange thing that occured was the sound of an elderly woman humming in the kitchen as if to entertain herself while baking, banging of pots and pans have also been heard.

Spices  I had set on the spice rack have rearranged themselves over night as if the individual haunting this spice rack didn’t like how I had them place. Whenever I’m in the kitchen I also feel like someone is watching me. I’m not sure of the history behind this spicerack but i’m pretty sure the person it belonged to sure loved spending time in the kitchen.

Trying to sell it in hopes that the spirit haunting my kitchen will follow along with the spice rack once belonging to them in there physical life. Serious inquiries only please.

Sarah Palin loses the elk vote

Political virgin with a lust for baby seal skulls? Republican shark with the female version of cajones to take on big oil? Slamming hottie who already has your vote based on her curve-filled power suits?

Her name is Sarah Palin, a former mayor in Wasilla and Alaska’s governor for less than two years.

McCain hopes she will appeal to women voters and men who cast ballots directly from their crotches. The democrats hope she will prove to be the proverbial shot to the Republican foot.

All I know of her is what I read in this e-mail forward. If it was sent out through the Internet, it has to be true. Right?

1,250 miles from Fenway

You waited for what seemed like an eternity until you had your first sexual experience but boy, wasn’t it a thrill? And then it was your first drink in a bar, your first marriage, the birth of your first grandchild. Yes, I’m sure it was very special. He’s an adorable kid and he’s got your nose. Congratulations, you old battle ax.

This though, this is big. This comes after 30 years of waiting, watching, wondering what it might be like.

I’m going to Kansas City. But more than that, I’m going to Kauffman Stadium, home of the Royals. A magical place of fountains and failures I’ve been dreaming about for three decades. So far away and wondrous is this strange place, I’m not entirely convinced yet that it’s real.

Two games, one at night, one in the afternoon. The first game, I’ll be on the first base side next to the dugout, a few feet away from the cogs that make up a machine I’ve been rallying behind, with little glory, since 1977.

To some, this will sound like only a simple trip to a ballpark. A few will appreciate the magnitude of it. This includes my oldest brother, a Yankee fan who responded to my initiation into Royal Nation by thrashing me soundly.

My wife who wears a Red Sox hat but knows the Royals lineup much better because she is forced to watch them five nights a week. No, really. Forced.

Randy Baril, the ardent Red Sox fan who is so perplexed by my long-suffering allegiance to the Royals, he no longer gives me grief when his team beats mine.

Randy Whitehouse, the gifted sportswriter, who is equally perplexed but more than happy to give me grief about all of my team’s shortcomings whenever the opportunity arises. Which is pretty much every day between April and October.

A few other Sox fan friends such as Sheila, who enjoys seeing a grown man cry.

I’m like an abused woman who adores her abusive spouse because she knows he really loves her. And someday, he’ll change. Really, he will.

Whatever. I’m going to Kansas City. And I know that bragging about the Royals is like bragging about a prized cow that hasn’t produced milk it a quarter century. Or about a hookup with a high-priced whore who doesn’t put out.

But I’m bragging anyway because a hook-up is a hook-up and brother, I’m overdue.