Like M*A*S*H: the reality series.

In a SD internet chatroom about 1:30 A.M., theres someone with a screen name i recognize begging to get someone to talk to / listen to him. a suicidal Iraq / Kosovo vet in Chadron NE, about 150 miles from me, is having flashbacks of his house being bombed.

Am I catholic? Please call the Bishop Cupich via the cathedral. I get a recording natch, if its an emergency (and Rusty says he's friends with the bishop, he'll know who I am) Call this other number. The groggy priest says the bishop is out of town and the only number I have for him would be the office number down the hall. Okay, Rusty typed, any priest will do. Can i have him call this number, Father, Can you call him?

Quote: "I dont know what good it would do."

[Internal screaming : UH YOU'RE A PRIEST, it's your ****ING JOB. Bless him, calm him down. Spritz the phone with holy water.]

I give Rusty that number, he calls it, the priest, I think says "there's nothing he can do" and HANGS UP.

Vet Center, an underfunded support group, recording says if it's an emergency, call Ft. Meade VA (Sturgis, SD, about 20 miles away) hospital. I suggest that. Why would he call them, he goes to Hot Springs, SD hospital (about 90 miles away) when he needs help?

Sigh.

I finally call Behavior Management, formerly West River (SD) Mental Health get an operator, explain the whole thing (again) and he takes Rusty's phone number then my number and says he'll have Candy deal with it. Naturally, a few minutes later, Candy calls ME instead.

So I have to explain things time #3, (as Rusty keeps desperately typing have you got help for me yet. Can you call him? Legally, I probably can't. He has to call in and ask for me.

The last I hear/read from him, I call him to tell him to look at the computer screen for the number to call, he tells me to phone his mother at 8 AM to tell her he's had "an episode," since often doesn't remember having these freakouts.

I finally fall asleep after tossing and turning about 6 AM.

His mother answers at the convenience store, asks what time, and was he drinking? He has these more when he drinks (I would certainly drink after I had them) ... the last time he had one of these, he either threw himself out of a or through a PLATE GLASS WINDOW and wound up in the hospital.

So that was 8 AM. I woke at 10 AM, to meet someone and I don't know since what's happened. She said she'd go check on her son.

And thats how the I dislike the catholic church even more than I might have already, a plate glass window, and Kosovo story works.

Let's have The Groundings or Second City improv on it:

Okay audience, we need a place ... a chatroom .
whats going on there ... Kosovo bombing flashback.
name an unusual thing to through yourself at: plate glass window.
and a hated group of people: catholic priests. And GO!