On the Nature of Mental Institutions
Seeing my aunt and uncle again reminded me of this one time that I was hanging out with one of their sons, my cousin Mark. For some reason, Mark got it into his head (I don't remember the details) that I somehow disputed the idea that if he punched me in the face, he could knock me unconscious. So, he kept asking me if he could punch me in the face to prove it, and I kept saying "I'm sure you could knock me out, I'm not going to let you punch me in the face." Yeah. I know that "story" is boring but I find it interesting, because I used to be a very impressionable person when I was young, and I can't believe that I actually had the fortitude at such an age to deny my cousin's request to punch me in the face. What I want to know is this: how would world history be different if I had allowed Mark to punch me? I'm pretty sure that I would be the Emperor of Catalan at this point. Still, good for me for standing up for myself and saying "If you want to punch me in the face, you're going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: in the UFC OCTAGON!"
Just as seeing my aunt and uncle reminded me of that last story, that last story reminded me of this: as I said, I used to be very trusting and/or naive when I was a kid. Essentially, if you were older than me, I believed anything that you said. I guess I just assumed that older people (a) knew a lot, and (b) had no reason whatsoever to lie. On his latest album, Patton Oswalt has a bit in which he talks about how everyone has a moment growing up when an adult tells them something and they say to themselves, "I think that's fucking bullshit." My moment came based on something that my brother once said; I must have been around 8 years old, and my brother and I were joking around at my grandma's house. My brother kept saying that someone we were talking about needed to have a "full frontal lobotomy." After my brother said this a few times, I asked him what this meant, and he said that a full frontal lobotomy was when they cut your dong off. Yeah. I believed that completely. To this day, I have no idea if my brother actually thought that's what a full frontal lobotomy was, or if he was just messing with my fragile, trusting mind. It doesn't matter either way, because the point is, FOR YEARS after that I thought that I knew what a full frontal lobotomy was. That might not seem like such a big deal, but consider this: I grew up about 3 or so hours north of Williamsburg, Virginia, which is a quaint and old timey place to visit. Now, my parents used to love to take weekend trips there as often as possible; this was great in high school, because they would go down there quite frequently leaving me at home, which meant WHOOO, party at my house. But, when I was in elementary school, I usually had to go with them, because I was deemed 'too young to stay at home alone all weekend.' Which was BOGUS, but whatever. My point is this: I remember taking a tour of the sanitarium in Williamsburg, and learning that in the past, lobotomies were often used to treat mental patients. This was shocking news to me, and seriously, for a long time I couldn't hear that Metallica song (Welcome Home) Sanitarium, because it made me really sad, thinking about all of those poor people who had had their dicks chopped off just because they were sick. Honestly, I was terrified for a good long while thereafter of someday being committed to a mental institution, not just because being in a mental institution seems about as fun as shitting a bowling ball, but also because I really didn't want to have someone sever my schlong. I guess it never occurred to me to ask what they did to the ladies in mental institutions to "treat" them. Anyways, one day I heard someone use the word 'lobotomy' in a context that seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with genitals whatsoever; confused by this, I looked the word up in a dictionary, and realized that my brother was completely full of shit. I've been paranoid about the world ever since. There's a lesson here in all of this, but I'm not sure what it is. Oh yeah, I remember now: when in doubt, blame your siblings for your problems. That's advice you can take to the bank.
