Irrational Anger

So, I'm not exactly what you would call a serene person. Nope. Not at all. In times of crisis, I can shut down my emotions to become more reliable, but on your basic day to day interactions with me, it should be made clear, up front, that I am in constant emotional turmoil. Not even from day to day, although I did have a severely grumpy day last week, but from second to second. Here is a partial list of things that have made me irrationally angry in the last couple of weeks, along with how my anger manifested itself.

1) One of my friends from high school, a wonderful woman I adore so much I agreed to be the maid of honor at her wedding, is organizing the tenth year reunion for our high school class (ten!). So she sends out emails to all of the people who have known email addresses, asking us to snitch and give her any additional contact information for other people in our class who don't keep in touch with her or the other members of the reunion committee. Whatever. I snitch. Then she sends out ANOTHER email with all the additional emails that she has learned, asking them to snitch, as well. But she just puts all the email address in the to line. Why haven't people learned to use BCC yet!?!? Seriously. I just about had an aneurysm.

There is about a 10% prison rate for my high school graduating class. I would really prefer if these people had no idea how to contact me. None. At all.

I fired off an email to her, suggesting that she learn about privacy on the web. I immediately felt better.

She is a web designer.

2) About a year ago, someone hit the passenger side mirror on my truck when I was parked in a parking lot. The casing for the mirror remained intact, but the glass shattered. Then, about three weeks ago, someone hit the driver side mirror on my truck when I was parked, legally, on a city street across from my apartment building (hey! I just got a parking space in our lot on Monday! yay!). Damn it. Now I would have to get the mirrors fixed. One bad mirror is okay, but two and you look like ghetto truck. Now, here's the thing. Neither time did anyone write a note and tell me that they were responsible for the broken mirror. Bastards.

Anyway, I didn't get angry about the mirrors. Then I called a couple of body shops. One quoted me $200/mirror and their regular labor rate. Another quoted me $600 straight to cover labor and materials without a breakdown of the costs.

Biker Boy looked it up online and saw that it would only be $20/mirror for parts and that it was really easy to install the mirrors. Let me just say that I saw red. (Not about saving $500 - I was quite excited about that.) It's total bullshit what car repair places charge!!! Seriously. Why are they charging me $200 for a mirror I can get for LITERALLY A TENTH OF THE PRICE. Okay, yes, I was yelling.

I thought I was calm and I just ordered the parts online and when they came, BB put them on for me (and man, I had completely forgotten how completely AWESOME it is to drive a car with all the mirrors!). But then one of the body shops called me back to "followup with your question." I totally yelled at the poor person, telling them how crappy it was for them to charge so much for parts and how the labor would have taken their service people all of ten minutes and of course they'd charge me for a full hour and how no wonder people hate taking their cars in when this is what they can expect, and then I lost steam, thanked her for calling me, but that I had done the repairs myself.

3) Oh, God. Sprint is my cell phone carrier. And they are impossible to get in contact with if you have a question. Their web site hasn't let me log on in months. Last time I called the customer service line, I waited for 22 minutes (22!) before someone answered and GOT CHARGED THE MINUTES I WAITED ON HOLD. This time, I was so frustrated that I couldn't get in contact with anyone and their stupid web site wasn't working, I slammed down my computer in righteous anger and paced up and down our apartment, with Biker Boy looking on in amused horror.

Note: cancel Sprint service as soon as humanly possible. Note: I have had Sprint for going on five years now. It was only when they merged with Nextel that all these bad things started happening.

4) I love Curel. Love, love, love it. See, it works. You have a dry patch on your upper arm? It lasts all damn winter, you say? You try lots and lots of products? You go to lots of stores and dab about a hundred different samples on your dry spot on your upper arm? And then one day you buy a bottle of Curel for $5 and you dry spot goes away?! That's right, folks!! Curel. A completely non-endorsed product placement. Indeed.

But the completely ludicrous pump on the big bottle of Curel doesn't work at all. Causing an already stressed out NGS (did I mention the weird rash I have?) to throw the bottle, across the bathroom.

Then I realized I could just unscrew the pump and pour it on my hands. Uh huh. I'm so smart.

5) One of my friends from high school, a wonderful woman I adore so much I agreed to be an attendant in her wedding, recently got pregnant with her third (3!) child. Okay, I have been out of high school for ten years (see #1), but three kids?! I frequently forget to floss! How do you remember the feeding? And the diaper changing? And the way more responsibilities than I can possibly deal with in a mature way? Anyway, in a discussion about 1) me not being dead on a bridge that randomly collapsed and 2) the baby will be born before my wedding - can it come to my wedding? - no, it can not, I was almost brought to my knees with ire when the following came out of her mouth, "I'm too old for any more babies."

Oh, dear Jesus. She's the same age I am!! I like to think that I am not TOO OLD FOR BABIES. Warning to all who talk to their childless friends about having children. They may wish for children at some point in their future. Do not tell them they are too old to do so. They may come through the telephone line and strangle you. Which is what I did, metaphorically.

6) Last, but certainly not least. Fonts. We fought for hours about fonts. For the save the date cards. And I officially hate the font we've chosen. Hate.

But I gave in. Because I get to pick the font for the invitations.