An Inauspicious Beginning to My Day

The human brain is fascinating. Creativity, logic, and sentience are miraculous when considering that, at their core; they are just coded electrochemical impulses. I think they all pale when compared to emotions. I love my wife more than is reasonable, but it’s elusive; there is no why. Perhaps that is because love is a complex emotion having to do with facilitating a state of community that has some evolutionary/survival benefit. Rage is simple. I don’t see the benefit of rage. I felt rage this morning. I was trying to make my breakfast and lunch at the same time, and I didn’t get enough sleep last night. MJ read me an article the other day about how quickly we become stupid with even the slightest hitch in our sleep cycle. I was planning on marinating some yard bird. I got out the chicken, I got out the Dale’s, I got the last plastic freezer bag, and I commenced to marinate. I heard what I thought was a fizzing, which I found strange because Dale’s isn’t carbonated. So I picked up the bag and found that there was a hole in it, and the Dale’s was gushing out. I still don’t know what the fizzing was. Dale’s is thick, black, and greasy – kinda like Randy Jackson (that ain’t even right) – and was spewing all over the white counter top, down the white cabinet, and onto the red floor. Not only was there a huge mess, I was filthy, and my chicken wasn’t going to taste right. It’s seven thirty in the morning and lunch is already ruined. I Hulked out. All I wanted to do is smash something. Fortunately, my logic center was up to the task of reminding me that there was nothing I could hit that wouldn’t break my hand, sever an artery, or both -- not to mention cause possibly thousands of dollars worth of damage. The severed artery wouldn’t have bothered me so much. Yeah, the CSI guys would laugh at me, but if I only broke my hand I would have to answer MJ’s questions about a broken hand and broken stuff, and I would still have to clean up the mess. So I elbowed the freezer, it hurt (me not the freezer, it’s stainless steel). But it didn’t hurt enough to cool my rage. I couldn’t do anything except fall to my knees and curse everything from the big bang until now for ruining my day. Yes, I literally fell to my knees. I couldn’t even yell because CG hadn’t left for work yet, and I didn’t want to explain why I was going apeshit at seven thirty in the morning over some spilled sauce. She probably would have had me “Baker acted”, and I didn’t have time for a trip to Maclenny and a psychological review. I had a 9 o’clock meeting. I calmed down for the moment. I cleaned up the Dale’s, went to option B for my chicken, and went back to making my fried egg and cheese toast. I cracked the egg, dropped it into the frying pan, and the yoke was broken. Mr. Rage, it’s been almost a minute since I saw you. How have you been? This time all I could do was laugh.