Saturday, August 05, 2006

I'm Mad

I yelled at people this past week. Yelling is not my usual style. My kids might disagree, but I do not really yell at them. It is just there are times I need to be loudly emphatic to get my point driven into their less than receptive heads. I mean, no one would blame me for getting a little loud when for the nine millionth time I have to ask the kids to turn off at least a couple of lights in the basement. Great Cesar’s Ghost, does it really cause too much strain in one’s life to get his or her lazy behind off the couch just long enough to flip a switch? Is it truly that difficult to think about the little things that make Dad happy and do them once in a while?!? (Huff, puff, pant, pant….sorry)
Most people would probably characterize me as a calm person and I have always prided myself on possessing a good amount of self-control. Self-control is what differentiates the outward manifestations of people who are angry. Everyone has their point of no return, their straw that broke the camel’s back, their line in the sand, their threshold when they become so annoyed that they finally blow their top, lose their cool, blow a gasket, or flip their lid. It may be caused by something as minor as a person using too many clichés to make a point. Others have to be pushed quite hard to elicit a display of out of control anger.
It is all a matter of priorities. Some value the image they project as one of calm control. They maintain this level of decorum even in the face of frustration and if they do lose control they feel bad about it afterwards. There are others who do not. The examples I think of come from my experience with the United States Basketball League. The head coach for the Dodge City Legend is Dale Osbourne. He is very calm and doesn’t even curse very often. When he gets mad he stomps a foot or claps his hands together. There was the time he slapped the water cooler at the Salina Bicentennial Center like it was a West Nile carrying mosquito, but he apologized for that over and over again. The other side of the coin is Bryan Gates, the head coach of the Oklahoma Storm. He has two assistant coaches. Does he have two assistant coaches to work more complicated offenses and more stifling defenses? Nope. Does he have two assistant coaches to work with the big guys and the smaller guys? Nope. He has two assistant coaches because then he has an assistant coach for each arm, so then can grab him and stop him from getting not only ejected from the game but also to avoid the assault charges as he “takes exception” to a call made by a referee.
Some people are quite entertaining when they get mad. When Bobby Knight has an anger fit it is shown on every sports network nearly as often as the Zapruder film was screened by Oliver Stone. Every one of us had a teacher in school we liked to torture to the point of entertaining anger displays. I’m not talking about the ones who got all quiet like they were about to cry. That wasn’t any fun. I’m talking about the guy who got the veins in his forehead throbbing so fast he was actually spelling out curse words in Morse code. Or the lady who would threaten with outlandish impractical punishments, like: “If you students do not settle down right this instant you will stay in your seats until the Moon spins off of its axis and plummets to Earth destroying all human life, allowing the cockroach to become the highest life form on the planet.”
Actually, there are times I wish I could really cut loose and get out of control angry. It has to feel good on some primordial level. Look at a two year old. When he gets mad about something he can really let loose. He yells. He stomps his feet. He drops to the floor and pounds his fists on the ground. All of this is because the pudding is butterscotch and not chocolate. Then three minutes later his is totally gleeful as he finger paints with the butterscotch pudding on the dog. Transfer that behavior to the adult world. Admit it; you would love to yell, stomp your feet, drop to the floor and pound the ground with your fists when the boss comes in and tells you the report you thought was due next Thursday was actually due last Thursday. It won’t make the report any less overdue, but you might get some pudding.

Christopher Pyle has promised himself that the next time he feels like yelling at someone he will stop, count to ten, and then poke them in the eyes like Shemp and Curly.

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