READ THIS POST!!!!!!!
I’m beginning to realize that I have a “rage problem”. It’s weird because I think if you knew me in person you would never guess that I’m just two steps away from enrolling in an anger management program.
I’ve decided to come forward with my problem in hope that I might help others who are suffering in silence from this same disorder. Maybe we can work together to find a cure, maybe those who suffer can offer love and support to each other, or at the very least maybe we can even come up with a name for this disorder.
Let me tell you how I began this long journey. A few years ago my friend started a neighborhood email group for the women who live in my development. It has been a wonderful thing. Through the magic of email we have been able to invite each other over to our homes for multi-level marketing presentations, pawn our crap on to each other, and even have some heated debates about how to handle the vandalism issue in the community parks.
One day one of the more prolific crap peddlers in the group sent an email with a subject line that said, “FOR SALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”. Geez, I thought to myself, I think I got the point after the 5th exclamation point. I wasn’t sure why but I turned the computer off with a slightly offended taste in my mouth.
A few days later this same woman sent another email that said, “FOR SALE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HURRY AND LOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” It was at this point that I knew how Bruce Banner felt as he was transforming into the Hulk. My anger just burst up to the surface and if that woman was sitting anywhere near me I would have punched her right square in the nose.
What ever flip got switched in psyche after prolonged exposure to CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! has left me a changed woman. Whether it’s rational or not I now feel that any time someone uses CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! in an email, blog post, or blog comment they are doing one of two things. They are either yelling at me or treating me like a troglodyte.
In pondering this problem I have decided there are several solutions: I can go through primal scream therapy for the next decade and hope to overcome this, or we can convince all of the CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lovers out there to be more sensitive and discreet in their usage of CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. Maybe we can work together on this. I will try to go to my “happy place” when I see too many CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if you promise to curtail your CAPS AND !!!!!!!!!!! usage.
HMMM WELL I JUST USE CAPS BECAUSE MY CAPS LOCK KEY IS BROKEN…. JUST KIDDING.
Comment by Jordan F. — October 22, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
Ah yes. I recently mentioned the inverse proportional relationship between the sanity/tolerability of a blog commenter and their use of all caps and exclamation points. I suspect emoticon usage ought to be included in that calculation as well.
Comment by Geoff J — October 22, 2007 @ 11:16 pm
wow, i don’t want to offend kristen j, so i won’t use caps at all, or exclamation points; in fact, just to be safe, i am going to avoid using periods as well;
maybe me should also not use the letter ‘eye’ as that letter looks like an turned examate; wow that be more problem than me thought.
OH SNAP!!! I JUST REALIZED I SOUND LIKE JAR JAR BINKS WITHOUT THE LETTER “I”!!!!!! CRAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
oh no, I’ve ruined the plan. oh well, guess I should get my dictionary out and look up troglodyte.
Comment by Matt W. — October 23, 2007 @ 6:03 am
Kristen, sometimes I go crazy for little or no important reason at all. It’s weird when stuff like that makes me so mad.
Comment by meems — October 23, 2007 @ 6:32 am
Matt and Jordan are trying to desensitize me to CAPS AND !!!!?
That’s really sweet of you thanks!!
Matt, I think I like your writing style better when you drop the letter I.
Geoff, I think you’re right on the money :}
Meems it’s nice to know I’m not the only one suffering from anger management issues.
Comment by Kristen J — October 23, 2007 @ 7:44 am
we feel hurt by your statement that when we drop the letter formerly put unto us as the letter ‘eye’, that somehow that enables us to compose prose better.
that was fun to cobble together. Don’t know whether we can keep up such a charade though.
Comment by Matt W. — October 23, 2007 @ 8:22 am
After a while, my take is that we all reach our limits of people treating us as the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. We can only take so much ….THEN BAM!!!!!!!!! Did you ever hear of Falling Down with Michael Douglas?
Comment by mondo cool — October 23, 2007 @ 10:26 am
tsk tsk Mondo, Falling Down is rated R… (and one of my favorite movies in high school)
Comment by Matt W. — October 23, 2007 @ 10:44 am
Geoff (#2),
I could have sworn that was me that articulated the correlation you mention and that I included emoticons in my comment. No doubt you figured it out long before I started blogging though.
Comment by Jacob J — October 23, 2007 @ 11:21 am
Matt W.
That’s why I asked “ever hear.”
I NEVER SAW IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare you the implication?
(:
Comment by mondo cool — October 23, 2007 @ 11:29 am
No, of course I’ve NEVER seen “Falling Down”!!! (Mom, I’ve never seen an R movie, I swear!) I have been known for being a bit of a teapot though. I simmer a long just fine and then I blow!
Comment by Kristen J — October 23, 2007 @ 12:10 pm
Dear Neighbor,
I am so sorry about the flood of email responses (was it 10,000 or 20,000?) to your “FOR SALE!!!!!!!!!!!” email. I was trying out a new email filter and the multiple !!!!! in the subject line caused the filter to get stuck in a loop sending those replies.
Sincerely,
Kristen J.
Comment by Daylan — October 23, 2007 @ 7:30 pm
Hey, I think that might work!!
Comment by Kristen J — October 24, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
I’m reminded of the opening scenes in a James Bond movie – I forget which one – where a North Korean army officer is kicking the cr*p out of a punching bag. Then he unzips it and a bespectacled man in a crumpled suit falls out.
“Get me a new anger management therapist,” the officer says to an aide.
Comment by Kyle R. — October 31, 2007 @ 4:37 am