Bookstores in NYC get ready for life on MARS with Speed Shrinking.
A gaggle of therapists sit at long tables, and someone on a bullhorn shouts, your three minutes are up, get lost. The next meshugga loser, go to your waiting shrink. You got a free three-minute session to rant about your high anxieties. Suggestion: Limit your problems to sound bites of 1.5 minutes, so the shrink can fix you up good as new in 1.5 min.
Of course, each Dr. has a pile of business cards and copies of their latest advice books at the ready.
This used to be called: Author Signing. I've done signings from coast to coast but never had to compete with a dozen shrinks and bullhorns. I'm filing a complaint with the author's unions and suing those shrinks for aggravating me in my advanced condition.
So I set up my own table outside the bookstore.
Who should come by? One of my former patients, Frida Fliggleman - with her pet goat. "I thought I already cured you of your angst and anger? Are you going inside for Speed Shrinkng with those quacks?"
Frida was full of attitude: "Your jokes ain't funny. You think life is one big joke? You always told me my goat, Falafel, is a figment. Falafel, as you see, is real. She hates your jokes and you made her so crazy she refuses to eat tin cans or garbage anymore. You know how much I have to spend on gourmet garbage for her? I hate you. I am here to get instant cures from speed shrinking," and she stormed inside the store. Poor Frida. The bookstore manager was wild when Falafel began to nosh on the psychiatrists' business cards and books. They threw them out onto the sidewalk. So much for sensitive understanding bookstore managers.
My first speed shrinking patient stood on the folding chair, waving his arms and tossing his head in every direction. He used up not only his three minutes but 15 minutes of the long line of desperate nutcases now waiting.
"If you call an ambulance, you will have to pay. I won't go to no emergency room where they take away my crack pipes and needles! I am 42 and my momma wont breast feed me no more! I tried soy milk, but that might make me pregnant. My seven sisters are all shrinks but they won't treat me. My four brothers smuggle illegal immigrants from Iceland, mainly 8-year-old boys who are forced to operate Falafal wagons in Times Square. Can you help me doctor?"
Since he could not afford to buy my book, I gave him a jar of my mother's chicken fat and the usual banana with chilli pepper sauce. The next 23 patients were all from the United Nations peacekeeping force. They all expressed deep anxieties about being totally ineffective and hated in every country they went to. In my wisdom, I knew instantly that my bannana cure wouldn't work.
My sage therapy?
"Go to the Vatican. Join the 28 percent of priests and the 74 percent celibate men in ugly dresses. It will take your minds off useless peacekeeping efforts."
When I saw Sarah Palin in the line, I folded up my card table and decided to go back to my Twitter Shrink blogs.
