Six Flags over Crazy Town

I should have known. I should have known that the woman I was going to meet was slightly off her rocker. The fact she made me think her boyfriend had been killed in Katrina should have been a red flag when we first spoke on the phone(Red Flag #1). I was desperate for appointments, desperate to meet my quota for the day. The red flags just passed by me looking a shade of light pink.

I arrived at this independent counselor's office thinking that maybe I had caught her on a bad day when I had made the appointment. Independent counselors are paid by parents to help their kids get into prestigious schools. Usually these people have years of counseling experience, loads of connections and know-how, but this lady just had a load of full blown crazy person.

A woman in her early 60's answered the door looking a bit disheveled. She was in a baggy sweater and some sort of stirrup leggings that looked a bit weathered. Her hair was all mashed to one side that suggested that I had just woken her up from a nap. From underneath her sweater ran a long white cord. My first thought was that it was a bit of her worn sweater that was unraveling. In short, she looked like a mess.

As we walked back to take a seat, she noticed the cord and apologized for the wire hanging out of her sweater. She explained, as normal as possible, that she was getting electro-shock therapy in her back (Red Flag #2). I smiled calmly as if that was a treatment I too was going through and understood her pain. I sat down in the chair next to her and proceeded to retrieve the materials that I had brought to talk up the college.

I went into my normal, well-versed presentation about the school, starting with our locations. She quickly interrupted me, and I was hoping that maybe she would at least ask some pointed questions and shed her crazy person first impression. "Us women in the North hate when you Southern women say yes ma'am to us," she remarked. "Because of slavery," she continued (Red Flag #3).

Slavery? Was she kidding? "Well, I'm not sure about slavery, but we are taught in the 'South' that it is polite to say ma'am to those you are unfamiliar with or who are your elders. It is not about slavery, it is manners," I retorted.

"No, I'm quite sure it is about slavery. We here in the North...we hate slavery," she stated as plain as day.

Well then, I thought, I best be getting on the phone and calling down to my plantation and tell the the slave hand to let go our cotton pickers. I sat there stunned. First had this woman ever been down to the South? Secondly, last I checked I'm sure she was never alive during slavery...call me crazy (oh wait...no that is her name!). How was I supposed to reply to this woman? I had to maintain some sort of cool because the last thing I needed was some loony calling up my boss and saying something about how I endorse slavery. Calmly I informed her that I live in a predominantly African American city and that in no way do we condone "slavery." This whole time I can't believe I was having to explain this.

"Moving on...At our school we have three different types of scholarships," I awkwardly transitioned.

"My dad was a very famous doctor who saw very famous patients including (insert a bunch of supposed celeb names either just from Chicago or too old for me to know)," she interrupted yet again (Red Flag #4)

Yet another completely unrelated comment from the resident kook. Now you must realize that in no way was I ignoring all of these red flags. In my head I was trying desperately to organize an escape route. Maybe if I gave her electro-shock cord a tug she been instantly rendered incapacitated, and I could bolt for the door? Maybe I could pretend to get an emergency phone call...art school emergency...the artists are refusing to be creative. Nothing seemed to be feasible.

"Oh," I weakly replied. What else was I to say? I tried to turn it back to business, but I knew it was a lost cause.

"He received letters from many of the famous people. There was one that I read when he died from a very hunky male movie star, and I think this man was in love with my father. One day a couple years later I saw this man on a sitcom, and I threw up," she continued as if I wasn't even in the room. (Red Flags #5)

"Well that is a strong reaction," I commented. Now this is getting ridiculous. At what point could I just walk out of the room, and she would think it was normal. Maybe I could blame it on being southern.

"You would have that reaction too if you thought of your father having sex with another man!" she snapped in a bit of a raised voice (Red Flag #6).

This was not talk of college or art or scholarships, this was nothing that would ever make sense no matter how much I tried to bring it back to the topic at hand. Yes folks we were not in Kansas anymore, and I needed to get the first train back from crazy town.