Go Ahead And Get Mad

I shouldn’t be surprised when my kids display temper. They came by it honestly. When I was young, I had such a challenge expressing frustration appropriately that my mom developed a method for helping me get the beast back in the box. I had to count to ten. And not just count, but count slowly and clearly. Which would usually make me more mad than I had been in the first place. We had a blue-flowered couch where my counting calm-down was supposed to take place. And I learned to loathe those overblown blue flowers and that darn couch with all my heart--and most of my senses. I can still see the gradations of blue as the upholstery faded over the years. I can still feel the fabric against my cheek from when I would stick my face in one of the corners of the couch and holler to ten at the top of my lungs. And I can still smell the stuffing, springs and every-house-my-mom-has-ever-had scent of that torture chamber. I often thought then, even though I couldn’t put it into words for many years after, that I couldn’t understand why a person couldn’t just be angry sometimes. I didn’t know it as a child, perhaps only sensed it, but I was tapping into my still-held belief that complacency is useless. Sometimes you gotta get worked up. The Reverend Wilbert Awdry, author of Thomas the Tank Engine Counts to Ten, probably wouldn’t agree with me. That ticks me off.

http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Tank-Engine-Counts-Ten/dp/0679888799

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbert_Awdry