by Thom Yee and Grace Crawford
Silver Linings Playbook images courtesy of The Weinstein Company
Thom: Mental illness is a serious and pervasive issue in today’s society and it behooves us all to take it seriously and to treat those who suffer from these maladies with respect.
Or so I’m told. As far as I can tell, mental illness has had no appreciable impact on any significant element of my life. No appreciable impact that is, except for almost every customer that walks into the A/V shop I work at once a week, mostly for the discount. For those that don’t know, I work and live in downtown Edmonton, and it seems like at least every other customer who walks into my store suffers from some chemical imbalance, whether it’s the old lady hermit who’s constantly buying different TV antennas and can’t stop complaining about having to pay so much to Shaw when she only wants to watch CBC, the guy who works at the nearby car wash who’s always asking to use the phone before buying another DVD player only to return it three days later, or the self-proclaimed “audiophile” who swears he can tell the difference between the cheap and expensive speaker wire (and as a commissioned salesperson, thank God for that guy).
