Dear Psych Patient...

... Hi.

I'm First Name, Last Initial. Pleased to meet you. Sort of.

I'm going to be your psych tech for the day. I am hoping for a relatively taciturn eight hours with you, and I hope that you are hoping for a somewhat tranquil eight hours with me. It would be really great if you were asleep in your room for the duration of that time period, but I acknowledge that it is not particularly theraputic for you to be sleeping between the hours of 7am & 3pm, thus missing breakfast, and lunch (and two whole smoke-breaks.... eeeep!) and so, bearing in mind that you will most likely be awake for the duration of our time together, (maybe you'll go down for a four-and-a-half-hour-power-nap-pretty-please) it would be great if you could make a concerted effort to read and attempt to adhere to the following guidelines for an all-around awesometots day.

Please, dear patient, do NOT....

urinate where other people can see you.

use the bathroom sink as a receptacle for your feces.

ask me what time it is, what my name is, if you're going home every two-and-a-half minutes.

run at full speed down the hall like you are an Acela train. That scares people.

refuse to eat lunch, throw it out and then, five minutes later, ask for another lunch.

slice your skin open. All that red stuff belongs on the inside.

soil yourself. Come on, now. You're Jesus, you're not a one-year-old child.

vomit on the receiver of the pay telephone. Other crazy motherfuckers have to use that shit.

ask me if you can try on my wedding ring. That's creepy.

nucleafart in a 20-yard radius of me. The devil isn't in your brain, he is clearly up your ass.

have sex with another patient. We are required to physically pull you off if we catch that nast.

shit in the clothes dryer. Really.

Please DO...

sing. Because that is invariably, without qualification, entertaining. Especially when it's "Head, Shoulders, Knees, & Toes," and you're a crazy homeless, 56-year-old black man with a snaggle tooth, and you're touching your feet for "Head" and your knees for "Shoulders."

socialize with the other patients in the milieu. Because then we get to write notes utilizing the word "milieu" and that makes us sound intelligent.

make every effort to keep your hands off your genitals and the gennies of others.

eat facing away from me. Watching psych patients eat is harder than watching actors eat.

play "Tic-Tac-Toe" or "War" with me while I'm on hall duty. It passes the time for both of us.

write a complaint form when a staff member is inappropriate. I can't seem to get anybody fired here, but maybe you can.

your laundry. You smell.