The other day, I was moving some furniture around and couldn’t get the one piece through the door like I planned. No matter how much pulling, wiggling or fanangling I tried, it wasn’t going to work without my taking it apart. I was mad.
“Why didn’t you just take it apart in the first place?” my wife said from the couch.
“Just be quiet and leave me alone.”
“You don’t have to be a jerk.”
“I just want to be mad for a few minutes, okay?”
I just want to be mad.
Earlier today, my wife was mopping in the kitchen when the bucket dumped over. Dirty water spilled everywhere. She had spent nearly all morning making the kitchen look nice and pretty and here she was with a huge mess.
“Want some help?” I asked from the couch.
“No, no honey, you sit right there. I’ll clean it up.”
“Hey, I was offering to help.”
“I know, I know. I just want to be mad for a while.”
She just wants to be mad for a while too.
Tonight, the little guy was in bed. He looked so cute laying there. At his feet was his kitty, Tiny, which is a shock in itself as during the night Tiny is usually finding the noisiest thing in the house he can play with and going at it until I hit him with a shoe or a brick or something. Tiny is a saint among cats. For whatever reason, he takes everything a four-year old will dish out, and he answers with a purr. Curled up next to the little guy was Molly. Molly is my dog that I’ve had for going on ten years now. She’s part beagle, part spaniel, and what she lacks in brains, she makes up for in smell. But she’s cute and lovable and generally nice to have around.
So here was the little guy sleeping on his bed. He rouses and starts yelling, which has me running over to see him.
“What’s the matter, bubba?”
“I’m mad.”
“Why are you mad?”
“I don’t know.”
Now, I know enough to know that he’s had a nightmare and instead of waking up scared, he’s mad. Maybe he dreamed of not getting something he wanted, or breaking a toy. Who knows? But the little guy is mad.
“Come and give Daddy a hug.”
“No. I doesn’t want to.”
At this, Tiny decides he can hep and comes up on the little guy’s lap for some petting/abuse. He got the abuse alright. The little guy shoved him off the bed. Molly was the next to go after she tried to lick his face.
“What’s the matter buddy? What can I do to help? Do you want some more brown [chocolate] milk?”
“No. I just want to be mad.”
He just wants to be mad.
I felt like the evil scientist who runs to the edge of the cliff and shouts into the night sky, “What have I done? Oh, what have I done?” All the while the scientist’s monster ravages the town below.
While I have having this moment of reflection, I heard a sputtering noise from beneath the sheets. My cute little grouch had what is known politely as a rectal gas emission.
“He he he, Daddy. I farted,” he giggled.
“Yes you did,” I replied with a chuckle of my own.
I guess it is okay to be mad once and a while. That is as long as you remember the golden rule that gas is funny.
I’ll have to try that the next time the wife is mad at me.
