Anger Mismanagement

---

I’ve been working on my anger. I casually mentioned this to a friend a while back, and he seemed surprised.

“You don’t seem angry,” he said.

“Sure, not right now, I don’t. But you’re not a telemarketer. Or a politician. And you haven’t sped up behind me so that I can’t switch lanes. And you haven’t said anything philosophically irritating, like ‘Everything happens for a reason.’”

No! Everything does not happen for a reason.

“Those are the things that make you angry?”

“Those are just top of mind. The list is much, much longer.”

“I’m listening…”

It’s rare that anyone outside of my wife or my therapist asks me to itemize the things that turn me from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde, and because I’ve been working on releasing the pressure valve, it seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. So I let it rip. A stream-of-consciousness tapestry of all the things that boil my blood.

“People who talk on speakerphone in public make me wish I owned a gun. Tailgating should be a capital offense. Bullies should be chemically castrated—and yes, that includes female bullies. I hate anyone who doesn’t have the grace to say thank you to waiters, waitresses, or busboys.

And if an asshole claps when a bartender accidentally breaks a glass, I typically say a prayer, asking that God smite that person with a plague of pubic lice.

I loathe shitbirds who attempt to defend Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA—it’s the worst song ever written, and I’ve heard my share of the Insane Clown Posse. Speaking of cults, they frost my flakes, too. Political cults, religious cults, multi-level marketing morons, conspiracy theorists, crypto bros, the Girl Scouts. ‘No, Tabitha, I don’t want a box of Thin Mints, and tell your dad to shove a Peanut Butter Patty right up his ass—your Christmas lights are still up and it’s fucking September!’

Also, flags. I hate them. The only acceptable flag to raise is a flag that says, ‘All flags are lame, including this one.’

And then there are deadbeat dads, teachers who became teachers for the summer vacations, coaches with a win-at-all-cost philosophy who use youth sports as therapy. Whoever dreamed up HR departments, fuck you. Every man who has ever tried to muscle my wife in business, fuck you. The kids who tell my kids they’re going to hell while they have a bible verse in their bio and a prescription for penicillin in their back pocket, fuck you.

The royal family, fuck you. Kanye West, fuck you. Silicon Valley, Congress, HOAs, lobbyists, corporate culture, cancel culture, virtue signalers, Disneyland admission prices, fuck you. Mr. Rogers, fuck you for being dead right now when we need you most.

And while we’re at it—me. Yeah, I said it. Me! Fuck me! Fuck me for not being better in any number of ways! Fuck me for being such an asshole that I have to go to therapy! Fuck me for being the kind of prick that makes big, long lists about other pricks!”

At this point, I ran out of steam.

Anger is exhausting.

“Wow,” my friend said.

“Yeah.”

“I’m not gonna lie—”

I shot him a look. Those sort of preface fillers really chap my khakis.

He said, “You’re gonna add that to the list, aren’t you?”

“It’s already on the list.”

“What I was gonna say is that you missed one.”

“That was just a sample. Like I said earlier, the actual list is much, much longer.”

“Sure, but do you mind if I add one?”

“Go ahead.”

“Cyclists and mountain bikers. They piss you off.”

Gah! He was right. I hated most things on two wheels. More so since I moved to the canyon where these entitled turd nuggets ride wide on the winding roads, forcing you to veer across the double yellow to get past them, generally putting our entire community at risk should one of them cause a car accident that sets fire to the tinderbox that is Southern California.

This thought triggered a more specific memory. A while back I was forced to endure the regular company of a cyclist for a few months. My daughter briefly dated a boy whose father was an investment banker, and he blew off steam on two wheels. He also made passive aggressive remarks about my creative pursuits. “Wow,” he’d say, “I could never do something so…unserious.” A passive-aggressive, investment banking cyclist—that’s the trifecta of smug so thick you could spread it on a bagel.

Bankers and smarm, like babies and pacifiers.

I took a big, deep breath as the memory lingered.

“You all right?” my friend asked.

“No, I am not all right.”

Since this conversation, I’ve started hiking early in the mornings. Longer hikes in the park, anywhere from five to seven miles. Something about the quiet, the live oak trees, the regular encounters with bucks, does, and fawns—it’s delivering some peace to the Gaza Strip that exists between my ears. After a few miles, I’m able to enter an entirely different reality, one that is calm and meditative, unencumbered by dark fantasies fueled by contempt for my fellow man, twisted fixations that play out as Looney Tunes-inspired savagery and barbarism.

This is an accurate depiction of my morning hikes.

It’s best on the weekdays. Less people. Saturday and Sunday, though, bring out the tourists. This is a good thing. My newfound tranquility needs to bump up against some fuckery. And that’s exactly what happened last week.

I don’t generally listen to music on my early morning weekday hikes, but like I said, the tourists fill the park on the weekends and they bring a lot of bad ambient conversation. So I’m coming down one of the more picturesque trails, one where there is little sign of the modern world, except for several sets of New Balance footprints wobbling down the path. As I get to the end of this trail, I don’t hear or see anything, but I do feel something. Probably a result of all the zen work I’ve been doing.

I step to the left side of the trail and pivot to the right. A “man” on a bike is sliding toward me, a plume of trail dust kicked up about fifteen feet behind him. His crash ends right at my feet. In fact, his handlebar hits my calf muscle just barely, almost imperceptibly.

He came at me just like this.

I’m about to ask if he’s okay when he starts cussing me out from the ground. He’s screaming that he was coming down, and I am the asshole for not getting out of his way, which forced him to lay his bike down and leave a good swath of his DNA smeared across the trail. At least, that’s what I think he is trying to communicate. What I mostly hear is this: “Fuck fucking mother fucking fuck fucker so fucking fuck fucker so motherfucker fucking fuck!”

These animals are more creatively profane than Mr. Fuck-Fuck.

This is what I think but do not say: “You’re even worse at profanity than you are at riding a bike.” And this thought that I do not say makes me grin. And grinning does not help this situation at all. The fucks come louder now and at an even quicker and more aggressive clip. He seems to be suggesting that he’s right and I’m wrong, though I’m still fairly confused as far as the argumentative context goes.

He gets to his feet and starts dusting off his tight little shorts. And then I have this thought, which I do not say: “Once you slip into spandex, you sacrifice any moral high ground that you ever had.” And this thought that I do not say makes me snort. And now this fucking guy is really pissed. He continues his abuse of the word fuck, makes a move like he’s about to hit me, then thinks better of it. Maybe he realizes how big I am, or maybe he registers the disquieting calm of a man who snorts in the face of your temper tantrum.

He picks up his bike and starts to limp away, not unlike Steve Martin in Parenthood after he falls off the horse. And now my snorts turn to laughter—audible laughter. Which the limping, spandex-wearing bike rider, whose use of profanity is its own crime, answers with a pair of middle fingers.

As I finish my hike, I break out in spontaneous fits of laughter all the way home. I’m not sure whether this means I’m going crazy or becoming less angry. Either way, I’ll take it—one less thing on the list.

Lori has begun radiation, and she’s back at home, which has improved her mental health considerably. Steps in the right direction. If you haven’t yet, please watch the Cobles’ story and consider supporting. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

---