C'mere So I can Slap the Stupid off Ya'

So there I was, standing at the crossroads of my career, and I thought to myself, "Damn I am angry. A lot. Angry like a mean drunk coming off of a three day binge kind of angry."

Photo available at:
Dave Kommel - dkommel@autoimagery.com
www.autoimagery.com


My wife used to joke about stapling me into the sheets and setting the bed on fire. Last week, we were at Lowe's and I couldn't help but notice a professional staple gun, a case of staples, a gallon of lighter fluid, and some of those cool "strike when wet, burn in a hurricane" matches that you can usually find in the camping section or from military surplus stores. I also found it an odd time for her to be so interested in whether or not I was current on the life insurance premiums. I guess the joke is up, time to do something different.

I am already trying to cram too many things into a day, but now that Stern has gone off of terrestrial radio (and perhaps even further off his rocker), that frees up the 30 minute morning commute. So, I cashed in my Blockbuster Movie Pass (after they temporarily delayed their pending liquidity crisis by jacking up their monthly fees to customers, but that is another story), and signed up for a membership with Simply Audio, kind of a Netflix for audio books. One of the titles I put high on my list was some kind of How to on Cooling the Flames of Anger or some such... better to cool the flames in my Pontiac than be bar-b-qued in my Serta. (For some beautiful photography, that I was afraid to borrow for fear of serious lawsuit, check out the work of Karen Kuehn).

Day 1 - The audio book is narrated by the Dali lama of Fargo, North Dakota. He says mindful breathing a lot, which is cool because this sounds like Jedi Knight kinda stuff. I tried to fast forward to get to the Jedi mind tricks, because that kinda thing can come in very useful against the weak-minded... clients, judges, other attorneys, my boss. No such luck, must be on another disc.

Day 2 - This clown wearing the orange toga who narrates this audio book, there is something about his voice, just cannot seem to put my finger on it; some strange, sensual feeling, like being reunited with a long lost lover... but different. He also talks alot about mindful eating and organic chickpeas and eating milk. Pretty soon, he is going to start talking about mindful urination. I still haven't heard anything about Jedi mind tricks, which pisses me off, because I have this big contested hearing I haven't prepared for out of reliance upon the use my newly found Jedi skills.

Day 3 - Spend most of the day under the custody and control of the U.S. Marshal. Apparently, when I mysteriously waived my hand at the federal judge, and told him, "You don't need to hear evidence weak-minded one, just grant my relief, commend me on my advocacy skills, and send me on my way", that somehow crossed some kind of line of decorum. I went from contemptuous to out and out contempt. Notably, my underdeveloped Jedi skills do not work on the U.S. marshals either. They tasered me a few times, and left me alone. No CD player though, so I didn't get to listen to the Dali lama. I discover that being tasered REALLY pissed me off.

Day 4 - I am starting to doubt the Dali lama's wisdom. His teachings on mindful eating nearly made me vomit in the car. 20 minutes about chewing 50 times, mindfully chewing, turn your food into liquid and it is already half-digested. Before I decided to stop being angry, I would use this time in the car to shut off my emotions, to check the security of the wall between my soul and ghoulish siege army waiting for me at the office. This morning drive is kind of essential, and my stomach is often tied in knots as a result. I suspect this is the same process an exorcist goes through each morning on his way into the office. The last thing I need while steeling myself for the day's adventures is the visual image of some bald guy in an orange robe with liquefied chickpea and milk dripping out of his face while he mindfully breathes.

His advice ain't that practical either. Lunch usually consists of whatever leftovers I can scrape together as I am running out of the house in the morning, or some leftover from the refrigerator in the office. Regardless of source, it is generally eaten in about 5 minutes, in between client phone calls, returning emails, and furtive, stolen glances at my bookies' home page to see if he has put out a contract on my life yet.

Can't do this half-assed, so I try 50 chews per bite. Lunch takes three and a half hours. My face is swollen, and my taste buds are on strike (not a New York Transit kind a strike either... a strike with some commitment to the cause). I have liquefied Chinese take-out all over my shirt, and my intestines, overwhelmed by the onslaught of liquefied mush has me running to the bathroom every ten minutes, just so my backside don't look like my frontside. My boss, seeing my distress, and checking his web cam to gauge the length of my lunch, yells behind me that anyone who takes a three hour lunch and comes to work soiled shouldn't expect a Christmas bonus; and the cost of an exorcist was coming out of my next paycheck. I attempt to waive my hand mysteriously at boss to initiate a Jedi mind trick, but I can only raise a middle finger at him as I sprint to the sanctity of a once clean porcelain nirvana.

Day 5 - My children are afraid of me, and wife is practicing with the staple gun. She can spit lighter fluid with more dramatic effect than Gene Simmons. I have had it with Dali lama. That strange feeling I had when I heard his voice? It was the same ingratiating anger that used to well up inside me on the rare times that wife #1 would pretend to get calmer the angrier I got. I waited until I saw a motorcycle cop on the side of the road before I ejected Disc one out the window like a throwing star being shot out of a bad Jet Li 3-D movie; aiming for his sidearm, I must have hit an updraft, because the disc shot suddenly upward, hitting him in the helmet and waking him from his Krispy Kreme induced slumber. When he finally managed to pull up beside me, we were screaming at each other, throwing epithets back and forth as we weaved in and out of the slower traffic.

Oh Joyous Rapture, the release of anger! The cleansing sensation of seething rage, the catharsis of catatonic hate! He finally pulled me over, and as he yanked my out of the car with one hand and started wailing on me with night stick in the other, my intestines (the Dali lama of Fargo pronounces that in-test-i (with a long i) -nz) opened up, and I fed off of the anger now washing through the suddenly soiled and besotted officer beside me.

Day 6 - The audio book club had me served with process in the civil suit today. The process server had to talk their way past the line of cops, media and clergy trying to get into my jail cell. Soon as I get out, I am going to Fargo to find that Dali lama, going to take him a case of liquefied whoop ass and a year's subscription to... Formerly Living.