Charles Barsotti has drawn a robber on a therapist’s couch. Next to him is a huge bag of stolen money, and the therapist is sitting in a chair. The robber/patient is talking happily.
There’s always a temptation when captioning a Barsotti cartoon to reference his classic drawing of a piece of pasta saying into the telephone, “Fusilli, you crazy bastard. How are you?” It’s usually best to resist this temptation, but that’s not possible with this cartoon because of the setting. I therefore considered, “I’m not as crazy as that bastard, Fusilli.”
The robber here is not just crazy, of course. He’s also rich, so I came up with a few variations on the title of last year’s surprise hit, “Crazy Rich Asians.”
- “I’m not Asian, but I am crazy and rich.”
- “I’m not Asian, but two out of three ain’t bad.”
- “If I were Asian, I could star in a romantic comedy.”
Because therapists urge their patients to forgive themselves for past transgressions, I next came up with these two captions:
- “I forgave myself right away.”
- “The question is whether the cops will forgive me.”
Then I thought of how the robber might respond to the traditional Freudian question, “How does that make you feel?” “Well, I guess it makes me feel happy and rich.”
Many people seek a therapist’s help to address feelings of guilt, but this obviously guilty patient seems remarkably content:
- “As long as I get away with it, I can deal with the guilt.”
- “Of course I feel guilty. I am guilty.”
Finally, I imagined the criminal seeking help with his defense:
- “I’m thinking of pleading insanity.”
- “I’d like to plead insanity.”
- “I need your help pleading insanity.”
- “My lawyer says you can help with our litigation strategy.”
Now let’s see how you did:
There were a lot of jokes about the robber’s need to ensure that he could trust his doctor not to disclose any part of their conversation:
- “Tell me more about this doctor-patient confidentiality.”
- “Doctor/patient confidentiality is a thing, right?”
- “Tell me again about doctor-patient confidentiality.”
There were almost as many entries highlighting the different meanings of the word “withdrawal.”
- “I’ve withdrawn from society.”
- “I find myself withdrawing from society.”
- “I’m having withdrawal issues.”
- “I still have withdrawal issues.”
Several of you saw a connection between bank robbers and therapists:
- “We both tell people to lie down, and then take their money.”
- “$500 an hour, and I’m the crook?”
Some therapists ask patients to explain how their friends would describe them, and one of you had a clever response to that question: “My friends would describe me as white, about five-foot nine, stocky build.” The only problem is that such a description would probably be offered not by the robber’s friends but by witnesses to his crimes. Still, I like it.
The next seven captions don’t fit neatly into any category, but they’re all good:
- “You said I should take something for it.”
- “I need to get away.”
- “I’ll talk but I really just need to lay low for an hour.”
- “Actually, it does compensate for that.”
- “I can’t believe how easy it was to cure my depression.”
- “I want to be less guarded.”
- “At work, I feel like I’m wearing a mask.”
The following caption made me laugh out loud for a long time: “I like to wear nylons.” Still, it’s not quite as good as my choice for this week’s best: “I finally feel wanted.”