You ever feel like your own brain and mouth suddenly decide they’re not on speaking terms? Because that was me—front row seat to my own mental mutiny. So I was trying to talk to Miranda and Mikey, right? I had something I needed to say—some guy came in during their lunch break and did something weird. I don’t even remember now what it was because my brain went offline and my mouth went into panic mode. All I could get out was: “Uh… uh… om… om… mmm… huh…” Over. And over. And over. Five whole minutes of verbal buffering. Five minutes of sounds tumbling out like my voice was glitching in real-time. Miranda kept saying, “Use your words, Caleb.” I wanted to scream—I’m trying. The words were there. My brain was yelling them. But my mouth? Radio silence. Then Mikey started cracking up. And I cracked up. Because that’s what happens when you’re overwhelmed and can’t fix it—you laugh. You spin out. It’s like a feedback loop of frustration, humor, and internal chaos. The more I laughed, the more ...