Anger Management

I'm sorry.  If you are here to read about Charlie Sheen's most recent foray into acting out his life in the public eye, this is the wrong place.  However, I am going to tell you a FAR SADDER story about how anger can get the best of you, so you might just want to read on.

See, today is my birthday.  Forty-six, since you asked.  Yes, knocking on 50, when I am going to act out the "I"m FIFTY!" skit made famous by Molly Shannon in some enormously famous place, just to see if I can do it and crack people up.

If you don't believe me, ask my brother's family (or mine, for that matter), what I do when stuck in the longest line in America, waiting to park to go to Disney World.  There's no shame here.  None.  Because everyone was laughing and totally forgot they were in the grip of the world's most annoying situation.

My birthday started with coffee Mike brewed and poured into a cup that Nickels found and convinced him to buy, a Wizard of Oz mug that says "Oh.  You are the best friends anybody every had!" with a picture of Dorothy, Scarecrow, Lion, and the Tin Man.

And, if you know my love of that movie, you know that made my heart smile.

The Facebook post wishes were coming strong and so were the texts and phone calls.  It was, in a nutshell, the beginning of the perfect day.  I was happy, life was good, I felt blessed.

So, in this state of mind, I left for the few errands I had to run.  The last landed me at the gas pump at Costco.  I had been on the phone with my uncle, catching up on the comings and goings in his world, when I found myself in an intense part of the conversation that I didn't feel I could interrupt.

Being sensitive to the potential nature of sitting and finishing the conversation vs. holding up a line, I checked my rear view mirror.  The person behind me was finishing up and someone had just pulled up behind him.  I was good to go for a moment.

At least I THOUGHT I was.

The instant the person in the car pulled to the gas pump he started griping at the person attending the pumps.  Literally, I could see this guy gesticulating toward my car and yelling.  Instead of continuing to be screamed at from 10 feet, the attendant choose to come stand on one side of my car and look in my window.

At this point, I was clearly confused.  I wasn't blocking anyone from getting gas.  There were open pumps all around me.  I wasn't playing loud music.  I was simply finishing a conversation.  I shrugged my shoulders and gave him a "What's the problem look?" and he walked away.

Once I hung up, I realized that the ranting had not stopped.  I exited my car and the yelling at me started.

The beef?  I was talking on my cell phone sitting at the pump.  Now, mind you, not blocking any one, not getting in any body's way, just sitting there not hurting a fly.

I felt my blood pressure rise through the top of my head.  And then he crossed a line:  he had the gall to say "YOU ALWAYS sit there and use that phone and don't care about other people."

Oh.no.you.did.unt.

What issued from my mouth next was nothing better than an angry tirade, meant to shut him up with my volume.

It was my birthday and my 70+ uncle had called and I felt bad cutting him off.  And, oh yeah, shame on you for judging me.  You don't know ANYTHING about me.

And there you have it folks.  The point of the lesson.  He didn't know a damn thing about me and I didn't know a damn thing about him.  And we were standing there yelling at each other in public over a situation that was stupid.  And, trust me, other people were looking at us.

When I shamed him, he turned away and started pumping his gas.  I don't know about the state of his body, but mine was shaking all over.  I was furious.

I take pride in being courteous to people.  I especially do my best to go out of my way for my elders and the elderly.  I try to be consistently aware of my surroundings and try my hardest to be accommodating, even to people who don't really deserve it.  And here I am, being JUDGED FOR BEING RUDE?  On my birthday, for crying out loud?

It didn't take five seconds for me to remember the sermon last Sunday was on anger.
It took another second to realize I needed to apologize.

And, thanks to the fact that I was driving the Prius and he was driving a Lexus, I finished pumping my gas well before he did.

And I walked straight over to him, pulled my sunglasses off, looked him straight in the eyes and apologized for being in his way and yelling at him. His response about blew me out of the water:  "That's OK.  You weren't in my way."*

I realized, as I looked at him, that he had these amazing blue eyes.  Really dark pupils surrounded by light blue.  He looked like he had borrowed those eyes from an Alaskan Malamute.  They were simply beautiful.

I explained it was my birthday and I was on the phone with my uncle who I hadn't spoken to in awhile.  He smiled a huge smile and wished me a happy birthday.  Dentures have never looked so good to me, all pearly-white and perfect.

And, in that moment, I just felt he needed a hug.  Or maybe I needed one.  I don't know.  But, I bent over and gave him a good hug and said "God Bless You".

I don't know if he even responded because, in that moment, I just felt this huge sense of relief that I had accomplished what was supposed to be done in that space of time.  I had learned the lesson on my proverbial knees.  Sure, I had sinned.  But, I at least had the correct response in fixing the sin on the spot.

Hopefully, next time, the anger won't even come out of me.

If I could return to the scene, I'd spend a few more minutes with that man.
I'd ask him why he had such a negative response to my cell phone.
I'd ask him about his family.
I'd ask him to join me inside to share a piece of pizza for my birthday.

But, I think my shame caused me to move away from the situation too quickly.  After all, I had never, in my life, responded so negatively to an elderly person.

In the car, I broke down.  I asked God to forgive me and help me overcome my tendency toward anger.  I asked him to heal the parts of me that want to explode.

I'm a work in progress.  Forty-six years in I still have lessons to learn.  And, I expect, forty-six more years from now there will still be hurdles to overcome.

But, for today, I am grateful that I was blessed to be part of that man's day, as strange as that may seem.

Because if I've learned anything in the past few years, it is that out of the most painful situations come the best lessons.  And, I learned that I am capable of admitting fault to perfect strangers and extending the hand of friendship to the unlovely.

What a beautiful birthday gift, if I do say so myself.


*In retrospect, I wish I would have asked why he felt the need to yell then.  I might have heard a very interesting or sad or inspiring story.  Who knows.