Image by Desirade via Flickr
At a recent meeting of the Shrunken Shrinks Alliance, a radical splinter group of the National Psychiatric Association, keynote speaker Dr. Stanley Turdgarden passively-aggressively shocked psychiatrists by revealing how he first discovered the correlation between storm and psyche.
“… When news of a hurricane hits the airwaves, my phone never stops ringing, and quite frankly that depresses me,” said Dr. Turdgarden. “… Just knowing that I have to drive 30 miles to my office every day when I could be out lounging by the pool is a real downer.”
Afterward, Dr. Turdgarden told Headcase Daily, a weekly email subscription service, “The rise in patient visits can be attributed to lightning crashing into low hanging cumulonimbus clouds. It’s like hitting your head on a cabinet door that was left open. When the two fronts collide, they create an electrical imbalance in the air, as well as in the sensory area of the brain and then people don’t know WTF to think.”
He went on. “Many people struggle with thoughts like, ‘Should I be happy that it’s finally going to rain and turn all the brown grass in the yard green, or should I be sad that there’ll be more grass to mow?’ It’s natural for folks to be confused under such adverse weather conditions,” said Dr. Turdgarden.
“I, for one, don’t know whether I should be watching HBO or Netflix during a storm, unless of course there’s a blackout, and then I’ll be watching the insides of my eyelids,” he laughed, and then stopped to reflect for a moment before continuing. “That’s interesting. I said whether you know like the weather. I wonder what that means. It might have something to do with my mother sending me out to play during a blizzard when I was a kid.”
Dr. Turdgarden offered this advice to the public. “During hurricane season, folks should avoid listening to weather reports or any weather-related news and instead start drinking Mai Tais at 10 a.m. That way they’ll stay off the roads and out of the rain. A nice tropical island delusion works wonders in times of duress. Fantasizing about swimming in warm aquamarine waters during a tropical depression is like taking a psychotropic drug without all the side effects.”
Dr. Turdgarden is counting down the days to the end of hurricane season so that he can scale back his schedule and spend his time doing what he loves best. “In the fall, after the damn phone finally stops ringing, I can get out onto the golf course again and start hitting some balls.” As an afterthought, Dr. Turngarden added, “That sounds so Freudian.”
Members of the Shrunken Shrinks Alliance agree with Dr. Turdgarden’s findings and intend to publish a paper on the storm-psyche phenomenon later this month despite outrage from the National Psychiatric Association. When asked about the NPS’s reaction to the paper, one SSA spokesperson said, “We hope the whole thing blows over.”
HAAA! Blows over!
I always suspected weather was to blame for my mood swings! (-:
Does it make us dizzy as well? Just asking because I'm dizzy this morning. Must be the pressure. Haha, love the name Dr. Turdgarden.
Haha, awesome. I HAVE been feeling a little under the weather lately… I tried to brain storm to come up with the reason, but my thinking was clouded and I couldn't get to the bottom of the problem. But now I know, it was just a mild case of tropical depression. Thanks Lauren!
Teehee! My tropical depression is spinning out of control! I think it's from listening to so many people full of hot air. Maybe if I could look at those folks in the eye of the storm, I would have a good chance of disorganizing the intensity of the rhetoric….uhhh? did that even make sense? Thanks so much for the early morning giggle Lauren. I needed a breath of fresh air, even if it was full of a ton of salt! Enjoy the rest of your week(and wow! You wrote this with a job too)!
Unfortunately for the SSA, I don't believe this will all blow over. Perhaps some might say it's a tempest in a teacup, but I believe it is just the calm before the storm.
I was wondering why I was so depressed…it all makes sense now! 😉 And if you can do all this and have a job, too, I don't know how you do it, Girlfriend! (And congrats!)
Great work – I always laugh when I read your posts – my fave satirist.
Mrs. B: I blame the weather if I run out of gas.
Leeuna: You're either dizzy because of the air pressure or because a pungent cloud of smoke drifted in through your window.
The Snee: Thank you. You always make me giggle. 🙂 I agree. It's so difficult to listen to blow-hards. They dry out my contact lenses and muss up my hair.
In order to finish writing the post, I had to stay up way too late, which made me extremely tired the next time.
Nicky: Thanks for commenting. I think you are right. It very well might have something to do with the tea party.
Thank you Perry, uh, er. What's your name again? To quote George Bush: "It was hard work" completing the post. It took three days.
LOL! Ziva.
As usual, Lauren, you've got your hurricane eyes on the ball and hit the snail on the head.
Hum…..something's not quite right.
Anyway, I love storms!
RF: I think the rum drink called Hurricane packed a bigger punch then Earl. Btw, I love escargot. Welcome back! Hope you had a great trip.
This is too funny for words, Lauren.
Thanks James!!
At least I'll be suffering from a tropical depression and not one from Antarctica!
Greg: You bring up a great point. A tropical depression is way better than the Antarctica blahs.