I have developed nasty new little emotional tic... rage. Nothing to be proud of for sure - but I have this new boiling point (or broiling - which one is hotter?) that rises to the surface more and more often these days. My husband aptly named it tonight: Dutch Madness. Let's classify it as a verb and define it loosely for now.... say when lots of little annoyances of the village combine into one combustible moment and you start to see red. Not to be confused with March Madness or anything remotely Shakespearean. No, Dutch Madness whops you on the head quickly and with alarming force. Here is how it presented itself today...
Running to the store in between torrential rain showers (first annoyance) Lola and I were almost run over by an aggressive woman on a bicycle ringing her bike bell (#2) like it was time for Sunday mass. Apparently when you ring the bike bell all bets are off for traffic safety, because she nearly mowed us over in a crosswalk. Not having the vocabulary to yell something offensive (and appropriate) angered me even more (#3) and since I am closer to 40 than 20 - the universal sign of the middle finger just seemed so wrong. At the grocer an old lady cut in front of me in the bread line (#4) and that got my heart racing yet again (and I usually have a soft spot for little old ladies - not today!) A quick stop by the butcher had me relieved to see that the rain had kept everyone away - but then when I was tying Lola up to the dog post out front another woman cruised up on her bike and ran over one of her back paws (#5) which had her yelping and me again looking for some strong Dutch profanity. All of this in the span of 15 minutes! Back home while unloading the groceries the neighborhood children decided to play the "ring the doorbell and run" game (BIG #6) - which put Lola into a barking frenzy (#7) and me into full on Dutch Madness.
But there is a happy ending to this story. I took my raging butt out to the park to walk the dog (and sweat out the rage,) gave my Mom a call - and 30 minutes later I was good as new!
I feel the same way every evening during my hourly drive home. Dodging numerous near accidents is routine - the other drivers seem not to notice (or care about) the other drivers on the road. I typically yell obscenities at these irresponsible and dangerous drivers the whole ride home. Unlike you, I DO often find myself using my middle finger to express myself. My biggest worry is that one of these days it will be someone I know in one of those other cars because SF (just like Adam) is a village.
ReplyDeleteWouldn't it be more effective to respond in English so THEY don't know exactly what you say but know by the tone it wasn't nice? lol
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