This Must Be The Place and Other Stories

Who Am I, Henry? 🥈

Note: this story makes heavy use of MBTI types & Jungian cognitive functions.

My therapist sits, one leg thrown over the other, notebook balanced on the arm of his wing chair, pen poised to take down shattering insights into my problem. "Tell me a little bit about yourself," he says, a tight, professional smile on his face. 

"I'm an ENTJ with a jumper function to Se. In layman's terms: a fake ESTJ with a squeaky Ni that makes me take the wrong turn at Albuquerque when I'm not paying attention. Oh, and I don't spell well."

The smile doesn't get any bigger. 

We sit for about a minute in silence. I know that, because the patient's chair faces a digital clock on the wall with a ridiculous gold frame. I wonder if he got it on sale. 

"And how to you feel about that?"

"About not being able to spell well, or the Albuquerque thing?"

"About your personality." 

"I'd like to wrap it in duct tape, hit it over the head and drop it in the Grand Canyon, honestly. It's an annoying little jerk."  

"What makes you say that?"

Do I want to go into it? 

The leaves of the potted plants on the window sill are feeling up the window panes in search of more sun, and I've noticed the Kleenex box discreetly placed beside my chair is virtually full. Does nobody cry in here, or is this the third box they've had to put out this week? 

Do I really want to go into it? On the other hand, do I want to be paying prostitute prices for therapy and not go into it? I'm here to save Henry, after all. He's nothing more than skin and bones at this point.

"Fake-o ESTJs can't stand when things don't run like clockwork. Makes 'em tetchy. They don't like screw-ups and will seek out the idiot who created the problem and. . ."

Do I want to admit to this?

"And they will do what?" I think he was expecting to hear some revelation of violence and depravity, because he's starting to lean forward. The pen point is resting too expectantly on the paper of his notebook.

I sigh. 

"And then we'll do their job for them. Because we don't trust the idiot to do it right. So we have to march in, rip it out of their hands and do it for them. On Friday afternoon. And the idiot gets to skip off  home to play video games until his arms fall off, and we're still at work cleaning up the mess and fuming at 1 am. Either that, or we stand over the idiot TELLING them what to do like a drill sergeant until the idiot is a sobbing mess. Not pleasant. Not for either party. And it tends to lose you friends. Okay, idiots for friends, but still." 

"This is a reoccurring thing?"

"This personality is a bastard, doc. The only benefit I see in it, is that I'm the only person I know who can get thirty Christmas cards in the mail on time every year."

"Really? Well, that's . . . quite an achievement."

"Yeah, but only because I start around Halloween. How messed up is that?"

We look at each other. 

 "I swear to God, I can't have fun," I say, arching my eyebrows. "I'm fun amputated. The whole world is nothing but delicately functioning systems just waiting to run off the rails because some dork decided to text when he should have been paying attention to what was in front of him. Or her. See? I even have to be PC in my anger! I've got to police myself to make sure I'm running to societally accepted standards at all times. And if I'm not, I have to drop everything and scream my own head off."