Re: The laughing-like-loons bit.
I arrived early, as is my practice, and entered the waiting room. Just inside the door leading to the receptionist and all the dental rooms, a tall young man wearing an odd winter cap with ear flaps was talking freely about the trouble he had been having with his tooth and I figured someone out of my sight was the recipient of that description.
I sat down. I immediately became aware that he had migrated out of the office area back into the waiting room...and that he had not been talking to anyone.
I became his audience.
I was informed of many things. He is articulate, intelligent and slightly odd. I thought perhaps he might be autisitic, but was later told he was simply "a bit off."
The things I learned:
He wants a family and a home and he wants people to know that he can live an independent life. He wishes everyone would believe him.
He lost his virginity at age 18. He's not a virgin any more but he has been celibate for three years. He wishes he hadn't lost his virginity because he considers the young woman with whom he had coitus (if I may borrow a bit of dialogue from "The Big Bang Theory") to be untraceable and he worries if she wondered where he was or if she had married or if she has been traumatized by the experience.
I then learned that Northern California attracts an odd lot of people, some of whom are into hemp production. He then bluntly said, "Marijuana!" To which he added, "Marijuana is fine for some people who need it for stress release or pain control. The trouble with marijuana is that people who use it make friends with people they wouldn't ordinarily be friends with."
Happily, one of the staff arrived and he was off and running about his tooth again.
