megan & jake

During my last two years of my undergrad degree I worked as an intern for a mental health agency. I received a great amount of priviledges throughout my time there but none as great as really learning to know, love, and accept people for who they are as they stand before me and not for what they've done or where they've been. I spent a lot of my time in group day treatment sessions and dual diagnosis for different "levels of functioning".

The people that went there for treatment, they just needed love, and I truly believe that through and through. They were good people and no diagnosis or label stigmatized with the "mentally ill" could ever convince me otherwise.

They were damaged but not broken and they certainly weren't crazy. I've met more crazy people outside the agency than I ever did in it.

For example, and I'm sharing this because Jake thought it would be funny to:

My room gets and stays around the 90's in the summer. Bless my geriatric parents' hearts, they don't believe in turning on the air conditioner. I have a hard time sleeping when I am too warm. Before Jake moved in I slept on the spare bed in the patio room during the summers. Since he moved into the patio room, we moved a cot and an inflatable mattress in there for me but it makes the room super cramped, as in you-can-barely-open-the-door cramped. Kira likes to sleep stretched out on her side but can't if she's in here. The room is simply not big enough.

To maximize floor space, we've been shopping for bunk beds lately. My parents saw one at a garage sale this morning and told us to check it out.

So we got there and it's this horrendous piece of crap from another generation, as in, I think I saw it in In Living Color and I was waiting for the Wayans brothers to come hammer dancing from around the corner. It was this bright blue metal death trap, if you will, and it was priced at $75 when it was barely worth 10. And it didn't help that it was a double either, which wouldn't do that much to free room space, but it would have a little, so we were like, whatever.

I explained to the owners that we have room constraints and weren't looking for a bunk bed that size. However, I told them if they couldn't sell it and wanted to get it off of their hands and were willing to reduce the price when their garage sale was over, to give me a call. I left my phone number and took off.

About an hour or so later I got a call from the police department. Lo and behold, yard sale lady accused me of stealing her purse that happened to be under the table near the notebook I left my phone number on.

After a few exchanged phone calls I was thankful to find out the police officer was light-hearted and easy going and it appeared he thought crazy lady was as crazy as I did.

"So do you still want that bunk bed?" he asked when I picked up during one of our exchanges.

"Ha ha, I, um, I'm not too sure right now, not too sure."

And our phone call ended with something along the lines of, "You don't still want that bunk bed do you?"

"I don't think I do."

"I didn't think you would. Unless that bunk bed is THAT important to you."

"It's not, trust me, it's not."

"That's what I thought. If they try to call, I wouldn't want to have anything to do with those people again."

"They might have and left a message. I don't know though. I have one of those friends that calls and leaves a thousand voicemails just telling me she'll call me back later. It would be stacked behind one of those." (I still love you.)

"What do you think really happened to her purse?"

"I'm not saying that this is the case, but MY mom loses her purse all the time, just saying.

"Like lady, please, don't you think she would have seen me bend over to pick up her purse if I did?"

I really wanted to say, "I don't know but maybe that lady should be more responsible for her crap!"

So I checked my voicemail after I was done talking to the officer and sure enough there's a stack of "Hey Megaroo, how's it going, it seems like I missed you, I'll call you back in five."'s (Again, I still love you.)

And then,

and this is the funny part. I get this message, and I WISH you could hear her voice.

"MEGAN, NEVER MIND ABOUT THE BUNKBED. CAN YOU CALL US BACK OR STOP BY WHEN YOU GET THIS?"

Um, okay. Officer My-Friend-Not-Yours said not to talk to you people if so help me god I can help it. But I gotta say, I took great pleasure in imitating her voice to Jake when he asked what the message said. She was so angry and its hilarious!

And then get this, I get a call from these people at 1:30 in the morning. Um, hello Harassment,
and no, I didn't answer.

Oh yes, lady, I really wanted your yard sale money that much.
That's why I left my phone number. So you could report me into the police.

Not just a swift criminal but a considerate one as well ;)