No no, he's been like this before. Just give him some space. Uh oh, hang on a second ... "That's okay. Yes -- yes Thomas! It's okay! Stay in the corner, attaboy..."

Right, see, he built his own PC, you know, to save money. We don't really have a lot, Thomas and I. And, frankly, the problem is he opted to get some extra RAM instead of a toolbox, which isn't what I woulda done, but there's no getting through to Thomas -- he had to have his RAM, even if it meant sacrificing a screwdriver. So we get the parts, piece by piece, delivered to us over the course of a couple weeks. And the whole time, Thomas is screwing them, one by one, into the case ... but all he has is a butter knife.

Well anyways, it's all good, you know, because he has time to recuperate between each part shipment. But finally, yesterday, it was all put together and we turn it on and nothing happens. Nothing. The fan hummed, but the screen stayed black. So, clearly, there was some tweaking that needed to be done.

This morning he began taking it apart with the butter knife. The whole PC. You know, I headed off to my job at the bookstore ... when I came home from lunch, it was barely half-disassembled, and he was already gnawing on some sort of bone or something. I don't know where he got it. Looked like from some animal. But, when I tried to take the bent-up butter knife from his steely grey hands, he just growled at me. "You okay, Tommy-boy?" I said. "I got it, I'm fine, leave me alone," he answered. So off I went.

Well, I got back after work and I saw that half of the PC was put back together, and Thomas is nowhere to be found. I went around the neighborhood calling for him and found him over in the playground, glaring at the little merry-go-round ride, still clutching in his quivering hand what's left of the bent-up battered-up nicked and notched butter knife. "Thomas! Come!" I said, but he started scurrying off. I finally managed to get him cornered, then into a net, and finally back home -- pretty much in the state he's in now.

I was thinking, you know, maybe the first step to recovery is to hand him a screwdriver before I go to work tomorrow. I've had it for a couple weeks and I was saving it for his birthday, but you know, sometimes you gotta show a little heart, am I right?

[Victim idea submitted by GameSpy reader Reed Zirjacks]