In my 20s, I worked as a caseworker for an organization for mentally ill people. My job was to take four mentally ill people to work in a large warehouse for a department store.

My groups' job was to assemble cardboard boxes with floor staplers.

Richie, a rail-thin, obsessive-compulsive woman, could not stop talking. She obsessively worked at 128 percent of productivity. Richie followed me into the bathroom, and stood talking through the stall door. Asking her to stop talking didn't work.

Dale, a rock musician, had burned out his mind with drugs. Severely paranoid, Dale continually peered around crazily, looking suspicious and paranoid.

Dale had reason to feel paranoid. In the warehouse, metal trolley tracks ran up-and- down each aisle. Couches and large furniture were automatically lowered from the ceiling into the trolleys. If you stepped in front of a one-ton, moving trolley, you could be killed.

Our workstation was next to a giant, loud Shredder. This bellowing machine spewed paper and cardboard dust into the air, choking us. I was the only person wearing a face mask.

"Which one of us is crazy?" I though, looking around, fearful of the heavy, moving trolleys.

"How are you doing, Kathleen?" work colleagues asked, slapping me on the back when I got back to the office. Clouds of dust rose from my shirt and hair. I felt like Pigpen.

I have been around such people. Being the nice guy that l am (ahem), I would typically listen until I could listen no longer, then come up with an excuse to go. A few months ago I had one of these motormouths behind me on a flight home from Hawaii. Fortunately, I always bring earplugs on flights, so I was able to minimize the effect of the yammering. Yes, it does seem to be some sort of psychiatric disorder. I tend to think these people have very little self-awareness.

I found a can't-shut-the-eff-up disorder!

Logorrhea - pathologically excessive (and often incoherent) talking