a girl mad as birds

The mood swing from hell is still not going away. I am thisclose to giving myself a frontal lobotomy and locking myself away next to Jack the Ripper, because it is so very unpretty in my head right now. I am getting sworn in this Friday and I can't be this manic then or S will thwap me across the head with a chair*, so I wonder if there's anything more useful than evening primrose oil for mood swings. Fruits? Dietary supplements? Tranquilizer darts? I am open to suggestions.

Speaking of insanity, I remember having promised to write about a friend of mine who was locked away in a mental asylum by mistake - a true story, even though it sounds like the plot of a telenovela. This friend of mine - I'll call her BD - was the type of friend you need to have at least once in a lifetime, the one who has so many outrageous stories that you half-doubt that they're true ... but knowing them, those stories probably are. For example, she told us once about a bee that had gotten itself trapped in her ample cleavage - BD is quite well endowed, so that would have been entirely feasible. When it finally freed itself, she told me and BA, our other friend, it flew away in a zigzag - I think it was giddy from being suffocated between my breasts.

I think that was the first time I ever laughed so hard I cried.

There were other stories, no less hilarious, but I can't tell all of them. Well - I have to tell one last one before I get on to the asylum story, because it's priceless. Prior to my dad's office - she was working as my dad's secretary, which is how I met her - BD worked in the Australian Embassy. When the new officer-in-charge of her division arrived, fresh from Australia, she decided to be friendly and give him a few suggestions as to what kind of Malaysian cuisine he could try for lunch. On one occasion, he asked her for suggestions on local Indian food. You can try banana leaf rice, she said, and told him of a nearby place that offered a good sample of that particular dish.

Fast-forward to after the lunch hour, when BD saw her boss strolling back into the office. How was it? she asked him, and he smiled and nodded.

It was quite good, he answered. The rice was tasty, the chicken was quite juicy ... but I have to say, the banana leaf was very tough. A little difficult to chew.

BD burst out laughing: Oh, that's a good one! Gradually, as her laughter died down, she became aware that her boss was not laughing, and was in fact looking at her quite quizzically. Oh my gosh, she gasped. You're not kidding. You actually ate the leaf, didn't you?

I still pull that story out whenever I have to discuss cultural adjustments, and it brings down the house every time.

At any rate, BD was a wisecracking, fast-talking sort of female - pretty, witty and confident, with the slight touch of arrogance that came from being a member of a rather prominent family in KL. She had one of the smartest mouths I've ever seen on a human being - a mouth that landed her straight into the insane asylum one day.

I'm not quite sure how the story starts - I've forgotten some of the details - but it starts with her being wheeled into the hospital emergency room. She was groggy and feeling miserable, and kept on drifting off to sleep as they wheeled her into an examination area. The nurse kept on waking her up, as per standard practice: first, to keep her awake until they had determined she was not suffering from a concussion; and second, to ask her for her personal details for her hospital file.

For some reason - BD wasn't very clear about this part, since after all she was groggy during this period - the hospital had gotten their records mixed up, and according to the file the nurse held, BD was the pregnant wife of a rubber tapper. Understandably, then, the nurse was confused when she asked for BD's name and BD gave a name that was completely different from the one on her file - so she repeated the question several times. Miss, what's your name again? I'm sorry, that's not what's on the file ... are you sure that's your name? Miss, miss, your birthdate isn't consistent either ... miss, please wake up, I need to make sure I have your name!

By this time BD was tired, frustrated, sick, and irritated - she wanted to go to sleep, but couldn't because the nurse kept on waking her up and asking for her name. The next time the nurse asked for her name, the poor thing - pushed beyond her limits - snapped I'm Princess Diana!, rolled over, and finally got to go to sleep.

A day later, she woke up in five-point restraints. That poor thing, she overheard a nurse say to another, in passing. Not only is she pregnant and abandoned, apparently she's gone a little off her rocker - she actually thinks she's Princess Diana. It took another three days of constant screaming about how VERY NOT CRAZY she was (which was difficult to prove, because of course no lunatic is going to admit that s/he's crazy) before they finally allowed her to speak to a nurse who jotted down her real personal details, then contacted her mother, who assured them that her daughter might be a little mouthy, but she wasn't any less sane than the average man-on-the-street.

There, said BA severely, when BD had finished her story. You see? That's what you get for being such a smart-mouth.

There is a lesson to be learned from this, namely that clean underwear is not the only thing you need to have on you when you are wheeled into an emergency room. You also need a valid ID and an emergency phone number for the hospital to call, so that you don't get mis-identified. Most importantly - if you are anything like BD - you need a gag to save yourself from making smartass comments that will land your butt in an insane asylum when you're not even insane.

* She already has carte blanche to kick me tomorrow during our briefing session with Personnel if I start doing strange things. I expect to come away from that briefing session with very bruised shins.