Happy & Healthy
Embarrassing ANGER ATTACKS
Why do we have them, by Renske
We write in the dead of night. I had worked late, finally got into bed at 1:30 AM, but couldn't sleep because: way too hyper from working hard. That bothered me. Stronger; I was really eating myself up over it. Why couldn't I do it? It just had to work. Otherwise, tomorrow would be a disaster with eighty-six capital letters. Meanwhile, I was also hating the overtime itself immensely. I really have a huge hatred for (long) overtime. You can't say that nowadays but whatever; I hate it. By the way, did you know that we even work more overtime here than the global average? Eight to twelve hours a week. That's no joke.
Back to my hellish night. I kept tossing, turning, and trying really hard and felt very, very alone with my sleep problem (and while many other young Dutch women are dealing with this, as this piece on dokterdokter.nlshows). I tossed and turned even harder and wilder, so it was really clear to my partner that I COULD NOT sleep, and at half past two I thought: this can't go on any longer. And it was then that I realized there must be a stray sleeping pill somewhere. I tiptoed – you have to be a bit quiet at night – towards the bathroom, where I searched in the basket with excess beauty and pill remnants. I searched and searched and searched. I rummaged and fumbled and started getting more and more worked up about WHERE that nasty pill was. It had to be here somewhere. Meanwhile, I realized the ridiculousness of the whole situation. That I was here in the middle of the night looking for a sleeping pill that I couldn't find anywhere. And everyone here in the house was just happily napping. The arrogance. The hypocrisy! Well. Then something snapped and I threw my anger deodorant (which I happened to see lying around) with tremendous force onto the bathroom floor.
”And everyone here in the house was just happily napping”
Now, at such a moment, it really is purely and solely about the enjoyment of throwing and not about destroying something. But unfortunately, the deodorant decided to explode into a thousand pieces with a lot of commotion. Moreover, all kinds of blobs of cream flew out. Cream was everywhere. On the shower door, on the bath, on the floor, on the sink. Like: everywhere. I looked at the awful chaos, felt instantly guilty (and like a terrible maniac) and started scrubbing and cleaning while cursing and ranting.
”I want to emphasize once again that it was already 3:00 AM’
Long story short: the bathroom became beautifully clean again and luckily I suddenly remembered where the pill was located. Namely in a supersonically secured pillbox. I took the pill and went – still slightly hysterical from the scrubbing – back to bed. Hooray. I was going to sleep for a few more hours! All's well that ends well, you would say. But no. I still had to learn my real lesson. Because the next morning, when I was getting myself ready for a new workday, I realized, of course, that I had no deodorant. And there was none, I repeat none, spare deodorant. But going out the door without deodorant is, of course, an absolute no-go. And so what happened happened. I grabbed the trash can, traced a piece of the deodorant bottle that still had some cream on it, smeared it – broken with shame – under my armpits and then stepped out the door, as cheerfully as possible, towards the workday.
