You won’t like me when I’m angry.

Now, I really need to clarify this, because there’s really only one person that can make me absolutely lose my mind. I never lose my temper with my children. I never lose my temper at work, even though I’m a trainer who has to answer the same questions over and over again to people that sometimes just weren’t listening the first five times.

I have to teach people how to use our company software, and sometimes these people have never used a mouse before and just go around click-click-clicking the air. When these people fill out a questionnaire after every class, the one word that comes up over and over again is patient. Word for word–I have this in writing–over and over again: “Monica is so patient.”

So please keep that in mind, because it’s really hard to explain to people sometimes why my husband is so maddening. Sometimes it’s not his specific words or actions, it’s that smug little smile that comes over his stupid face, and only people who have spent a lot of time around Wanye (rhymes with Kanye) can really understand this. My grown kids understand, for sure.

My daughter says she loves it when we fight because it’s hilarious. And it’s true, someone always ends up laughing. It’s not usually me. When he does this to me, it’s like I have an out-of-body experience and I’m looking at his stupid face and I’m about to catch fire inside and I can’t control my words. 

For example, my sister’s favorite is the time I told him, “It feels like you’re stabbing me with a thousand tiny knives.”

My daughter’s favorite is, “I’m going to kick you in your fucking donkey teeth.”

Apparently everyone has a favorite, once you start asking around. But I honestly don’t remember saying either of these things.

Again, it’s really hard to explain what triggers this, but we did have a fun five minutes last weekend that almost explains how these things begin.

A couple of months ago, Wanye was driving my car to work, backed into a pole, and cracked my bumper down the middle. He came home and told me about it, told me he’d take care of it right away, so that was fine. Because I understand that accidents happen. 

Never mind the fact that two months later, it’s still not fixed. Even though he goes to body shops almost every day, because that’s literally his job. But this didn’t cause me to be angry, or even the tiniest bit surprised, because I know my husband, and I figured he’d do it sometime this year, or by next year at the latest.

And never mind the fact that if one of the kids—or I—had done such a stupid thing as to back into a pole, we would have had to draw a diagram, explain ourselves repeatedly, and listen to  one basic sentence over and over again, stated forty different ways:

“I just don’t see how you backed into a pole.”
“I just don’t understand what you were doing that you just backed into a pole.”
“I really can’t figure out how you didn’t see a pole behind you.”

And so on. Which are impossible questions to answer, because first of all, they’re not even questions. 

Still, you’re expected to answer. And there is no correct answer. Except, maybe, “I’m an idiot,” which he does not accept as an answer. (I’ve tried that one, and so have the kids.)

But Wanye is not an idiot. Wanye has occasional accidents. And those are completely understandable.

So anyway, the car isn’t fixed. And last Saturday, I was on my way back from a meditation retreat that was a two and a half hour drive away. The meditation retreat was awesome. I felt amazing driving home, kind of like a zombie but in a good way.

As I was driving down the road, a man in a truck and a woman in her car both started waving madly at me and honking their horns and yelling things I couldn’t hear out of their windows and gesturing towards the back of my car. They drove on past me, so I pulled over to check it out.

My bumper was hanging halfway off of the car; it had apparently been flying behind me like a flag. It wasn’t until I slowed down that it started dragging the ground and making a noise. 

I couldn’t pull the whole thing off because it was attached on one side; I yanked at it for a bit but that didn’t work. So I just had to keep twisting it until it broke completely in half so I could throw it into my back seat. 

This, by the way, is also not the part where I get angry. I felt pretty proud of myself for handling the situation, even though I had to do this in the freezing rain and someone probably should have taken care of this like a month ago.

I didn’t even mention it to Wanye until the next day. When I did mention it, first he had to say the obligatory, “What?” like six times until I finally got him to understand that my bumper was in my back seat. Then he just kind of mumbled something under his breath. 

I probably should have let it go. I probably should have never asked the dumbass what he was mumbling. But something inside me just wanted to know. So I asked him his own question: “What?” 

“That happening didn’t have anything to do with me backing into the pole, honey.” He smiled.

I thought I was losing my hearing. “What do you mean it didn’t have anything to do with it? It wasn’t fixed from before, it was cracked right down the middle, I was driving sixty miles an hour down the road, and it flew off.” 

He smiled some more. “Well, that didn’t have anything to do with me. Someone must have bumped into you somewhere else. Maybe at the meditation thing.” He continued with that calm voice, with that stupid smile, “See honey, there are these clips that hold the bumper on. I made sure the clips were still tight. So somebody else must have bumped it, and the clips came loose.”

The clips, the clips. The clips. He talked about the clips for a long time. During that time, I learned two things: 

1. I’m an idiot who doesn’t know anything about bumper clips.
2. I’m an idiot named Honey.

I felt it happening. I knew it was happening. “So you’re telling me that my bumper—which has been firmly attached to my car since 2013—flying off of my car is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the fact that you backed into a pole two months ago and haven’t gotten my car fixed?”

“Yeah, the clips something something something… Do you want me to go outside and show you the clips on the bumper?”

I started grabbing my boots. I think I said (but can’t be sure), “Oh, yeah, we’re going outside. But if we go outside, I’M GOING TO RIP THE BUMPER OFF OF THE CLIPS ON YOUR FUCKING CAR AND PUT YOUR BUMPER IN YOUR BACK SEAT.” 

He laughed. 

I did not. 

He continued to laugh, because that’s how he admits he’s wrong.

I continued to not laugh, because I was just getting started. In my mind, I still had a black Dodge Charger with a stupid-personalized-license-plate-that-doesn’t-make-any-sense-but-vaguely-refers-to-the-Oakland-Raiders to destroy.

You probably would have laughed, if you were there, because when I get like this apparently I look and sound hilarious. 

What would I be without yoga and meditation? What would I be without wine? Right now, I am basically the Incredible Hulk and will rip the bumper off of a car. Or at least I will believe I can–with all of my heart.

So maybe you would like me when I’m angry. Maybe everyone does, really.