What if the voices in my head are crazy?

Something occurred to me when talking to a friend who's voices take on the personality of a mouse in their head, telling them what to do. As they related  what the mouse had to say, and what whimsical direction it might point my friend from time to time, I thought "Huh, what if the voices in my head aren't just regular voices. What if they are crazy like hers?"

It's all well and good to have a fictional mouse telling you "Hey, see what happens when you put a sparkler in a pile of aluminum powder and iron oxide." We all KNOW that's sanity free. A mouse? In your head? Might as well just paint crazy on your forehead and call it a day.

The voices in my head usually seem pretty rational. The tell me about the events of the day, from all over the world, and sometimes they just entertain me with their crazy antics and stories. There are a lot of them, and some seem to change from time to time, but overall they seem pretty consistent and comforting. Most of the time, they just tell me about what's happening in Afghanistan, Iraq or even Mars - maybe somewhere in Europe if the Europeans are doing anything I should know about (rarely.) On the whole, the voices seem pretty helpful and not particularly demanding.

Which brings me to THIS time of year. Around this time of year, the voices start making demands. They tell me what to do, and they are ADAMANT. It goes on for weeks, and there seems to be no way to avoid their drumming insistence that I perform in the way that they describe.

They appear to require my help in supporting their world-wide efforts.

They appear to require a sacrifice.

They appear to have things... poorly described and apparently useless things -  that they will send me - but first I must send them money. They don't tell me exactly how much money to send, but they want as much as I can spare....

And one of them sounds like Carl Kasell.