Recycling chairs...

Hypnotism crime

Apparently a common method used in crime in the second of my worlds is hypnotism. You know, the criminal hypnotises the victim so that they do not see the crime or cannot resist. In our town a guy was arrested by the police last year for stealing motorcycles. When he was released he walked through the police station in full view of a dozen police sitting at desks. He swiped one of the police helmets, in full view of them all, and none of them could lift a finger to stop him.

Recently a TV news station showed footage from a security camera at a convenience store where such a crime occurred. A group of 6 men and women came into the store and pretended to shop but in various ways they also tried to distract the cashier, asking where the bathroom was, asking for change, etc. While the cashier has the cash drawer open and her hands counting change right over it, you can see one of the guys reach over and take a large wad of bills right from under her nose, apparently without her seeing it.

Last year a city newspaper helpfully gave some police tips on how to protect yourself from hypnotism crime. Some of their suggestions included things such as:

- Believe fully that evil hypnotism cannot happen to people who reject it,
because all hypnotism is self-hypnotism where our fear is used by the
hypnotist.
- Beware of people who come up and befriend you because all hypnotism is a communication technique.
- Keep your thinking busy and don’t let your mind be empty when you are alone in a public place because when your mind is empty you are very susceptible to suggestion.
- Be careful when you feel sleepy, nauseated, dizzy, or have tightness in your chest especially when it comes suddenly for no reason because there may be someone using a telepathic forcing on you. Immediately decide to throw off that negative energy to the ground and pray according to the religion you believe.
- If you are suggestible, don’t go out alone or else get over your suggestibility.

I'll try to remember those suggestions the next time I'm out and about! :-)

Matchless Matches

One of the things that hasn't ceased to amaze me is the matches you can get here. They are small, even wooden matches and actually have very little material in the match head. But they light first time EVERY time! This box is nearly empty and the strikable sides of the box are still in pristine shape.

In the second of my worlds, there are several brands of matches but the best is Rainbow matches. Even so, they don't all light. Sometimes the head breaks off and goes sizzling off in some crazy direction. (My face or arms have been burned more than once by flying match heads.) And usually the sides of the box wear out from repeated striking long before the matches are all gone.

But then there is Brand X. In the village market, there are always a couple of guys going around selling three boxes of Brand X matches for 15 cents. They are very agressive, they shove the matches in your basket and hold out their hand hoping to intimidate you into paying for the worst matches on earth. These matches are a royal pain to have to use. I have more than once used over half a box to light one candle. They break, the stuff they are coated with is uneven and seems to be very fire resistant. A single match usually needs to be struck multiple times before it finally lights. In the process of striking, matches frequently break, and the rough stuff in the side of the box gets shiny (and useless) from use. Many matches never do light no matter what you do. Some do light but don't stay lit long enough to get a candle burning. I avoid Brand X like the plague. The only thing they are good for is tinder for a fire - if you light the fire with something else.

Dr. Quack-Quack

Maybe when I retire I should open myself up a little clinic. I can be Dra. Quack-Quack, which in the local language would mean ‘sort of like a quack but not exactly”. It shouldn’t cost much to set up. After all, quack doctors do not need any training. They have no boards, no licensing, and no annoying bureaucratic oversight. Why, I could set up my living room to be the waiting room. I could hire a friend to make snacks for people to buy while they are waiting. Another friend who is a master of detailing every bodily symptom and the minutest sensation – including ones you never thought even HAD any sensation - could sit there and write down a list of peoples’ complaints. Another friend does massage so she could work there too. And, we have a floor tile in our living room that sort of looks like some saint's face. I could hire another friend to sell candles so visitors could burn candles to it while they are waiting.

Yesterday a friend got a frantic text from her mother in the village saying that she needed $40 immediately because the quack doctor had told her she had a huge kidney stone and needed treatment urgently. At first I was breathless – who ever heard of a quack doctor charging that much for anything? In a country where the daily wage in rural areas can be as low as $2/day, that is phenomenally steep for a quack doctor. Usually they are paid only a small donation. As I finally began breathing again and oxygen returned to my brain, I began asking how she knew she had a kidney problem? After all, my friend had just been out there last week for New Years and she was fine then.

Turns out she had numbness down her backside and the back of her thigh. Now, it may have been a long time since I was in nursing school but the human body hasn’t changed and I’m sure that is NOT the symptom of kidney stones. In fact, sounds suspiciously like sciatica –pinched nerve in the back. I told the daughter to bring her mother to town. There is a real doctor, a neurologist even, who does charity work every morning and charges only $1. The mother argued a bit because she was apparently quite convinced by the quack doctor that she needed treatment. She said the quack doctor was going to operate on her and it was urgent! Operate???? Yikes!!!

Really, I could do better than that. For only 5-10 cents (I’d have to pay my workers) I could look at all their complaints, listed by my able friend, and any I couldn't help I could at least send them on their way in the right direction for help, whether to the massage lady, the pharmacy, the charity doctor, the appropriate specialist or the government hospital.

My friend put her mom’s name on the list to be seen by the charity doctor this morning and then met her at the bus terminal. As I suspected, he told her it is not kidney disease as she has no trouble urinating, no blood, no pain. It is a pinched nerve. All my friend had to pay was $4 for her mom’s bus fare, $1 for the doctor and $5 for medicine. Saved her a whopping $30 and everybody’s stress has decreased enormously!