YOU SPIN ME ROUND AND ROUND

It's a nice, quite, snowy Saturday. I thought I'd take this time to tell another on-the-job tale. (Remember--I tell this story with no malice toward the mentally ill. I'm right there with the clients I serve--crazy. Have a sense of humor and leave your PC at the door. And, the photo is from megpickard on Flickr. Makes me wanna puke on the merry-go-round.)

On the Mental Health-related job, I have been faced with many situations (um, mostly focused on client activity, but some because of staff behavior—it’s a fine line between staff and client): a naked client living in a port-a-potty; a young man wearing nothing but a washcloth (strategically placed) in the emergency room; a client purposefully shitting all over the bathroom walls and floor; telling someone he needs to wash his very stinky butt crack. But, I don’t think I have ever been as traumatized as I was the day a client got stuck on the merry-go-round at the area amusement park.

Why I agree to take a busload of clients to Great America in the first place is a mystery to me. I loathe Great America, with its crowd, hot weather and high prices and long lines—and, that part is only after surviving a long, painful school-bus ride with whining about wanting to stop and smoke and fill up on cholesterol. Imagine standing in line waiting to ride Batman while hearing voices and experiencing paranoia, then imagine spending your week’s allowance on lunch. But, that’s what they want to do, so that’s what we do.

I volunteer to stay with the “don’t-want-to-ride-the-rides-I’m-just-here-to-shop-and-eat-I’m-too-overweight-to-walk-far-got-developmental-disabilities-along-with-mental-illness” group, as I figure this to be the simplest use of my time and it would be the most fun. Of course, I never imagine we’ll never get beyond the park’s front entrance with the two story carousel, but that’s a different story.

Our first stop is—as always--the bathroom because everyone’s bladders are demanding attention. On the way to the bathroom, Mary announces she wants to ride the merry-go-round; I tell her we can do this after we shop a little and eat lunch. She asks again and again as we walk slowly to the bathroom; I continue to assure her we will ride the carousel as scheduled. Mary looks mad but she keeps walking to the bathroom—a good sign, as she could have thrown a huge hissy fit instead of following the group and refused to go to the rest room. She is still muttering about the ride as we enter the john. No sooner than I sit down to take advantage of my time in the bathroom, Mary starts screaming that she can’t get her pants untied without staff assistance (another case of polyester pants with a tie at the top, waistband pulled up to the boobs), even though she lives in an apartment by herself and has worn these pants for the last forty seven years of her life. Mary isn’t asking for help—she is screeching at the top of her lungs from within the stall, voice reverberating off the cement walls of the bathroom. I zip my pants up and go to her stall, assuring her I am right outside the stall but she insists she cannot get the knot out of her pants and thus can’t get her pants off to go to the bathroom. Patrons are staring at me, so I politely smile and whisper, “she has a disability;” they smile back with sympathy and stop staring so much at me and the stall with screams blaring from below. Mary announces loudly, “I have my period” and that she needs help with her Kotex. No, no, no. I got my master’s degree for this? I admit I roll my eyes and swear under my breath. I don’t have a god-blessed Kotex with me. Mary opens the door and I have no choice but to untie her pants and to try and calm her. She is already sweating—probably from all the yelling—and she’s got herself quite a knot in the pants. She tells me I have to stay in the stall while she goes to the bathroom; I politely decline but she insists, yelling that she needs my help. By now, we’ve cleared out the bathroom, which actually is to our advantage—no long lines, no problems finding a stall for anyone, no worries about getting to the sink. Mary pulls down her pants and I’m almost knocked unconscious with the stench that wafts my way. What is it with my clients and their polyester pants, unchanged underwear and poor bathing habits? I ask, “Mary, when is the last time you took a shower?” and she says something under her breath about last week. I believe her. I turn and gasp for air, backing slowly out of the stall. “Don’t you leave me,” she cries. I assure her I am just giving her privacy and breathe surreptitiously through my nose. I figure this will be the worst part of the trip—a fatal error—and wait for her to complete her duty. She hands me the used Kotex—my god, my god, why have you abandoned me?!—and announces she is done and needs help pulling her pants up. For god sakes, she knows how to do this and thus I refuse. This pisses her off but for some reason, she indulges me and doesn’t argue about it.

I stay with the remainder of the group while they use the facilities and take my eyes off of Mary for the moment. When I’ve counted my little group—all five are present—we turn to go shopping. Wait a minute—all FIVE are present? I had SIX when we came into the park. Mary. Mary is missing. With a heavy sigh, I tell everyone we are going to the merry-go-round, as I am sure that this is where she has gone. We stand staring at the ride, watching the horses go up and down, lights spinning in a circle, round and round and round…but, I don’t see Mary. It’s kind of hard to see as we are basically looking into the sun, so I figure we might have missed her. I instruct the group to go stand by the exit, as she’ll have to get off when the ride is over and we can meet her there. The ride stops, the people get off….no Mary. The ride starts, we stare at the horses, the ride stops, no Mary. After the fourth ride completes and everyone exits, I decide to ask the attendants if they have seen Mary, describing her in the nicest, most politically-correct-manner possible. The two young men laugh and point to the second level of the ride. “She’s up there,” they say, as they allow me on the ride. “We can’t help patrons—we can’t touch them.” I stopped to stare at them—what on earth are they talking about? “She’s stuck, says she can’t get off the horse,” the younger guy adds. “We can’t touch her—policy rules.” I’m incredulous. How does someone get stuck on a merry-go-ground horse?

Sure enough, I walk around the circle and there she is, on a white horse in the inner ring of the ride. No wonder we couldn’t see her from the ground. “I’m STUCK!” she screams. She is crying and sweating and her nose running all over her face. “I can’t get off the horse,” she adds, as if I can’t tell what she’s doing. She stands up on the horse, death grip on the gold pole. She sits immediately back down and begins screaming again. Parents are directing their children from the area. I go over to her and ask her to calm down and listen to me. “I can’t get off I can’t get off I can’t get off” she laments loudly. I tell her if she can get on the horse, she can get off the horse. I ask how she managed to get up there, anyway, but she has no answer. Mary is only focused on getting off the ride. I scratch my head, as she is indeed rather stuck. I am not strong enough to lift her off the horse by myself and the attendants can’t help me. I tell her to stand up and I step toward the horse—unfortunately, her crotch is directly at my nose level when she stands. I gag noticeably and my eyes automatically water. Jesus H. Christ! This is one smelled-up girl. I can barely hear her screaming any more because I am too busy just trying to stay conscious. I feel the room spin, then realize it’s just that the ride has started again. Now Mary is going up and down and is truly worked herself into a froth. I ask her to sit down and just wait for the ride to end. What the hell am I supposed to do? What seems like three days later, the ride ends and I begin to work frantically. I tell her to stand up; she does, then she sits right back down. I tell her to stand up and stay standing; she does and as I move toward her, I am gassed. I put my arms around her waist, bringing my face right smack dab in the danger zone. I tell her to lift her leg; she says she can’t. We do this THREE MORE TIMES; finally, by the grace of god or some other being, her leg makes it over the saddle and her weight falls on to me. I groan and my knees buckle but I’m so happy her crotch is no longer in my face. She hangs on to my neck and squeezes tightly. We work our way off the ride and meet her waiting peers. I am in no mood to talk to anyone and instead just point toward the parking lot.

After a two hour ride home, Mary announces she needs a ride home. I am fed up to THERE, irritated that Mary somehow has overlooked the need for transport home from the office. I tell her she can ride in my car and so she hops in the back seat. While driving, Mary complains of a smell in the car. I bite my tongue. She complains more, “this car really has a smell. What is that smell?” I open the windows and bite harder. I think my tongue is bleeding. The fourth time she says something I scream out, “IT’S YOU!” That shuts her up. It’s a very quiet ride home after that…until we pull up to Mary’s apartment and then asks if she can go to Great America again next year. I’m not sure what happened after that—I think I blanked out and hit my head repeatedly on the steering wheel......