They Walk Among Us...

This afternoon I had to make a trip over to West Vancouver to do some shopping, so I caught the bus across the Lions Gate Bridge. There was only one seat left, next to a very pleasant looking, well-dressed woman. We exchanged the usual banter about the weather -- or rather lack of sunshine -- and sort of chit-chatted for a few minutes. And then she turned to me, looked at me very earnestly, and said, "I have five locks on my front door, but last night the CIA broke into my house and stole my make-up bag."

Hoo-boy. I knew it was going to be a long ride.

She went on to say that the CIA has taken over the RCMP, and they have bugged her phone lines. She was on the phone the other night negotiating to buy a boat, and as soon as she hung up, a fire engine and a police car went past her house, pretending to go to a house fire down the street, but she knew the fire had been deliberately set so they could spy on her. She said she used to work for the CBC, but she could no longer work because she was disabled by the spray that had been used on the gypsy moths. And the spraying wasn't really to get rid of the gypsy moths, but was actually to get rid of all the people in Richmond. After 15 minutes of listening to this, I finally got off the bus a few stops early, it was so disturbing. Clearly this poor, unfortunate woman needed serious help -- now. As I stood up to leave, she grabbed my arm and said, "Dear, only speak to people you trust..." I guess she must have trusted me, because she told me every secret about the CIA, the RCMP, the West Vancouver Police, and Goldman Sachs. Oh, yes, Goldman Sachs had taken over Vancouver.

After a successful shopping trip and a bite of lunch, I caught the bus back to Vancouver. A very nice, well-dressed gentleman in his late 40s sat down next to me. We exchanged the usual pleasantries. And then he turned to me and said, "You know, you must never trust the government. There is a secret underground government, and they run everything, and the government are just puppets. The planets are aligning and there is a huge planet out there heading for our solar system which is going to throw all the orbits out, and NASA knows about it but isn't telling us..." "At the centre of our galaxy is a huge black hole, and we're all going to disappear into the black hole. The world is going to end, and they're not telling us about it."

What in goodness name are they putting in the water over there in West Vancouver? These folks weren't raving street people, they were well-dressed, regular people. Has anyone -- friends or family -- noticed they just might possibly need some medical intervention of some sort for this aberrant behavior? Does anyone care? When I got off the bus, all I could think was how these people were suffering needlessly -- believing they were being spied upon, the CIA was breaking into their house, bugging their phones, and the world was coming to an end. The real transgression here was not their behavior, but the clear fact that other people around them are powerless to help them. I guess it's their "right" to go through life being paranoid and unnecessarily terrified.

I tell you ... it made me feel absolutely normal. Now, where did I put my make-up bag? It was here just a few minutes ago ...