They're all gonna laugh at me

So apparently I’m pretty effing funny when I get mad. And there is nothing worse than being pissed off and having people laugh at you, or with you, or both, because it really kills a good rant. That’s when I go slam a door or something, because people aren’t taking me and my anger seriously.

This week I was in the kitchen and my Dad, who goes by the assumed name “Dad” here in Story Hour, asked me something stupid. I’m sure it was a valid question to him, and he expected a rational answer. But to me, it was the dumbest thing ever, and it set me off in a major way. He didn’t know what hit him, at first, and he just stood there, pinned to the floor, debating between standing there and trying to talk me down off the ledge or fleeing out the back door in terror. He did neither of those, as it turns out.

In my defense, I’d given everyone fair warning that it was going to be a horrendously horrible, no good, very bad day as I was experiencing wicked bad tummy pains. They didn’t believe me, apparently. Stupid them.

And now I’m standing in the kitchen slamming dishes around and just going off on Dad. I don’t shout, though I do get a wee bit more vocal. I also tighten up the vocabulary and pull out the five dollar words as they convey my sentiments much more precisely than the fifty-cent words do. I imagine it’s pretty disconcerting to be raged at by a walking dictionary. You probably don’t know whether to fight back or stop and look the word up to figure out what I said.

Everyone in my family possesses an oversized vocabulary, though, so Dad knew what I was saying. And there, in mid-rant, I’d say about ten minutes in, I look at him and he’s laughing so hard tears are escaping him. He’s stopped clutching the door knob in terror and is now holding onto it for support to keep from keeling over from the belly laughs that have gripped him mercilessly while I continue spewing words at a thousand miles an hour.

I just shook my head and gave up.

Tonight though, I’m in one of the most exclusive of retailers – Tarjay (Target, you moron) – shopping with my Mom and I decide to relate the frustration I was feeling about not being able to go on a proper rant. Only I had to stop telling her because she’s leaning over the cart, clutching it for support and gasping for breath between the belly laughs that are now holding her hostage. I thought I was going to have to leave her there, sitting on an industrial sized bag of doggy kibble, or slumped over the cart, but she eventually pulled it together.

That “leave no man behind” crap is fine in Iraq, but in my family, you’re on your own if you’re just gonna laugh at me.