Don't Dare Get Them Angry

Let someone get angry and you will often find the silliest response. Not to the P.O.P. (pissed off person), but to those who stand and watch. The P.O.P. thinks it's (a) the right response, (b) justified, (c) and will show them a thing or two.

-- An intelligent person I know, who gets junk mail via the Post Office: He sends it back, perhaps with something heavy, in the return envelope. Does not indicate his name with a "stop sending this," but simply makes life difficult for the company. Somehow, he feels this accomplishes something.

-- A retired person who hung out at a local diner: He kept getting underfoot in the kitchen where he did not belong. They finally asked him to stay in the dining section. He got angry and went around telling people what a dirty, unsafe place it was. I told him to just get over it and move on, but he's too angry.

-- A middle-aged guy who had a sharply ideological program on a radio station: When it ideologed over the line and he was told to pull it in or else, he quit and is now trying to get the station's license revoked.

-- An outwardly religious person: She plays religious music all day. If you cross her, or do something that offends her, she will never speak to you again.

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All these make me wonder what I do when I am the person who gets angry over something. I don't know; really don't. It's got to be something I can justify, the right response (in my mind), and shows them a thing or two. After all, I can't be that much different from anyone else. This could be an interesting exercise, like crawling into a cave and finding out what's in there. ...woo-hoo...


Everybody has a story.
Paul Shelley died the other day, locally. He served in the Navy onboard the USS Missouri during World War II when the peace treaty was signed. After serving in the Korean War, he was in the Vietnam War and was in Saigon when it fell.