Last night I got home (after a smooth ride in the Grand Prix) to find that I had no cable. This happens about 2 times a week, and it's annoying, but when you only pay 13 bucks a month what can you expect? So I get the cable company on the horn and I'm on hold for about 45 minutes. I use the speaker phone feature and while listening to hold music make myself a nice bowl of pasta, special spicy marinara sauce by Alex, melt a little goat cheese on top. I'm just about done with my meal when a (and I use the term loosely) customer service representive comes on the line. Barely able to understand what she's saying, because speaking clearly doesn't seem to be a priorty for her, I try to explain that I have cable on one tv, but not on the other, and this has happened before, blah, blah, blah. She goes through the obligatory "is your tv on channel 3? do you have a cable box? turn your vcr on, now turn it off, anything now?" this process takes about 20 minutes with all my "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" interruptions, now bringing my time on the phone with ComCast just over an hour. Finally I tell her that I know how to work my cable, but my cable isn't working, so it's her turn to tell me what she can do. She tells me she can have a service tech out to see me on Thursday between 9 and 4. Will that work? ummmmm, lemme think. nah, I should probably go to work. "well, you see, maam, the service techs work in a cycle of 5 days, so if you don't take this appointment tomorrow you'll have to wait 5 days." Now I'm starting to feel the blood pressure rise. Silence. I finally tell her that I'll wait 5 days. Silence. "hello?" Silence. "helloooo?" ahhh, there she is, trying to find a time on the computer. Okay, she can have someone out to see me on October 25, but she can't give me a time, so basically just anytime that day. hmmmmm. lemme think.... I tell her that I will need to speak to a manager. Silence. Continued silence. I hang up.
Then I started thinking about how mad I am about no cable, about the crappy customer service rep, about the car, about my job, about not being able to spend more time with Alex because of school, about missing my family, about the WideTrack. It was at that point I gave my most dramatic performance since the "chicken dinner fling" of '95 (which landed me in therapy for 2 years). I needed a release - stupidly, I gave my bowl (with the rest of my dinner inside) a toss. I know, you're thinking, meh, not so dramatic. Oh, contraire! That toss hit the edge of the couch just right, something about the fork still in there... that bowl burst. Unknown to me before that time, the bowl was glass. It burst into thousands of itty-bitty pieces, sending gemelli into the living room closet from under the door. Sauce somehow made it onto the wall behind me, as high as 9 feet. Small slivers of the bowl were found in the bathroom down the hall.
I like to think that it wasn't because I threw the bowl that it broke, I like to think that all the anger and frustration that I've been harboring for the past 2 years found it's way into the bowl and the bowl just couldn't take the pressure and it exploded. You know, like a sci-fi film.
I looked away when I heard the shattering sound and walked to the other end of the room. Alex was pretty close to the scene of the crime. I turned back to witness the horror that used to be our living room. "It wasn't supposed to do that." Alex and I chuckled, because it was funny and absurd and disgusting.
I spent the next two hours cleaning the couch and rugs and floors and bookshelves and walls and ceiling. It felt good. It was nice to have a problem I could solve. Sure, I can think of a million other ways that I could have blown off some steam. At least half of them would be less messy. But I have no regrets about the bowl. I think it was just what I needed; a bizarre action followed by a tedious consequence that made me really focus on something that was finally in my control.