Funny because it can be set off by the most trivial, stupid thing. Your shoelace comes undone, you don't have the cash to pay for dinner, you drop a pack of cigarettes. Stupid trivial little things that, on any other day would only make you pause for a moment before retying your shoe, busting out the credit card or picking up the cigarettes; but on that one day, that very specific instant, something inside you breaks. And what starts as a stupid little thing starts rolling like an avalanche.
It picks up speed and gathers up all the stupid little things. Your bills were a day late. You missed "30 Rock" this week. It's been a year since your last apple pie. Your boss is an ass. The people you work with are idiots. You roll up all those stupid little things and get one big terrible ball of frustration and rage and jaw tightening, hard eyed, Dirty Harry, piss-in-your-face, anger.
It's moments like those, when that white hot anger inside of me is screaming, that I really start to think about what separates me and the pissed off, no-holds-bar, monster I might become. It's all those little opportunities for spitefull assholery that I pass up on a daily basis. Chances and encounters where I could easily do hurtful things to make everyone around me just as miserable as I am.
I close the door behind me just as a woman is walking up. I decide to card the guy who's buying the beer and then tell him to march his five little friends in from their car, just so I can card them too. Don't tip my waitress. Cut off the jackass in the Hummer. Don't refill the toilet paper roll. Curse as much as I damn well please in public.
After a while all these feelings pass, but at the time all I can do to keep myself from screaming is set my face and speak slowly, counting every syllable until I can sneak off to some dark place; alone and away from the world, and shout my throat raw in defiance to a world that has pissed me the hell off.
A few hours pass and I smile and laugh and make jokes and pretend that everything in my life is just dandy.
Until next time.
What I'm Listening To As I Write:
- Push It By Static-X
- White Knuckles By Five Finger Death Punch
- Down With The Sickness By Disturbed
- Float On By Modest Mouse
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