I have a bad habit of acting like a lunatic. When my household objects cooperate, I am as calm as a caffeinated toddler.  But when they don’t, my rage knows no bounds.

Yes, I am the crazed lady you backed away from before we made eye contact at the Red Box Kiosk last summer. Maybe you saw me fumbling around, trying to jam my DVD into the slot. Except it wouldn’t go. I shoved straight. I shoved at an angle. I shoved at a different angle. I tried concentrating. I tried relaxing. I tried snarling, “Goddamnit, get in there!” It still wouldn’t go.
I tried sliding the other side in first. 
“Jesus H. Christ, GO!”
I went back to the original side and gave it a hard shove. Still nothing. I was hot. I was hungry. I was about to incur another day’s worth of charges. I slammed the front surface of the DVD against the machine. “Motherf*cker, get in the box!”
I took a stealth look around, hoping no one I knew witnessed my crazy.  I kicked the machine. I wished I hadn’t worn flip flops. “Shit!”
I took a deep breath. I took a long blink. I asked a passing stranger what I was doing wrong. She kindly explained I hadn’t pressed the touchscreen where it says “Press here to start.”

I wish I could say that was the time I went batshit crazy on a thing, and laugh about how crazy I was that day, but that was just one of many times.  I am an equal opportunity inanimate object hater.  Perhaps Dan recalls the time I called him in tears about my closet doors. (At the time we were engaged, so he can’t say he didn’t know what he signed up for when we got married). The closet doors had a chronic condition that caused them to come off the track constantly. The root cause of their condition was no doubt, my dirt cheap rent. Totally tragic, I know. I called Dan after I had screamed every cuss word I knew, and before I had this conversation with my landlady.
Me: The closet doors keep falling off the track.
Landlady: I will have the maintenance guy come out again.
Me:[in  a severely bitchy tone] Um, who is the maintenance guy?
Landlady: My husband.
Me: [sheepishly] Oh, cool.

Other standout performances of unleashing my fury on defenseless things include Pam’s Low Back versus the Ten Year Old Pack and Play, The Tale of the Unruly MacBook, The iPad That Would Not Behave, The Mystery of the Nearly Impossible to Manipulate Bike Tire Which was Later Found To Be Inside Out, and the latest, The Night the Internet Wouldn’t Let Pam Copy and Paste Her New Temporary Banking Password Into the Password Field.

I’m not proud that I’ve verbally abused, kicked, hit, and jabbed household objects. I’m trying to control myself. Believe it or not, I am really good about taking a deep breath before I completely lose my shit.