The Salvation Army has reported a higher than normal number of Christmas bell ringers going mad this holiday season.  Every year there are always a few who go loopy from the constant ringing of their little hand bells and the stress of keeping up a smile and good spirits while having to stand outside in one place in the cold for hours while mothers with their snotty brats walk buy making rude remarks and cars splash filthy mud over them.

Scientists at the Social Leeches Research Center For Finding Obscure Psychological Ailments And Getting Government Grants For Studying Them have determined that the incredibly boring and demeaning job has been made more difficult due to the bad economy.  Not only is the person ringing the bell faring worse due to not having the funds to keep things together but also customers are giving less which means less money for the volunteer as well.

Researchers have also noted that eardrums in dissected volunteers (they were not cut up by the researchers to begin with, they were volunteers who had the misfortune to be working in bad neighborhoods and were found cut up before the researchers ever got to them) were irritated and swollen, especially on the side of the body that the person was ringing from.  The scientists theorize that the constant hand ringing of the bell is causing the inflammation of the ear that leads to the madness.  Volunteers afflicted have shown erratic behavior, such as peeing into the money bucket, intentionally hitting themselves in the face on the back swing of the bell ringing, spewing loogies at passersby, coming to work naked, acting out the role of Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dam, and grabbing food out of peoples bags and eating it deliriously before their eyes.

Once the bells are taken away from the afflicted volunteers they seem to improve.  Some have been given a congo drum to beat instead which seems to be more soothing and has also led to some pretty cool improvisational drum circle happenings in front of supermarkets across the land.