You could say that I kind of blew my stack pretty bad the other day. Now that I am of sober mind and can look back on the episode like a distant and objective observer, I feel a little bad that it ever happened in the first place. How could I have allowed this to happen? Shame on me, I seem like such a nice down-to-earth kind of guy, but that can be deceiving. However, at the same time I understand what went wrong and believe that it was destined to happen one day sooner or later. That was just the day it was supposed to happen, always going to happen no matter what. All that energy and frustration building up inside, hot steam needing an escape, tension ready to snap and bring down everything else with it. Too bad I had to fork out a ton of euros for repair costs, even more to come next year when the glass people finally come by. That is my punishment. The law of retribution will always catch up with you and level you from behind, even if you do not expect it or if you are foolish enough actually to think that you can escape the throes of nature and its balanced ways of keeping everything even and fair.

You see, this is how it went. I was having one of those busy and frustrating days, feeling overly chaotic. Like I was not getting any where useful, kind of hanging around, but at the same time in continuous motion the whole time. How was this possible? Like those dreams where you are running a race and your two feet are stuck to the ground and cannot move. The day had been non-stop in and out and throughout, with so much to do and arrange, and even more to do after that. I had risen extra early that morning to get up and running while I could ahead of time. Check out all my emails and filter through the lists of potential employers, send off another handful of applications (only to get rejected again after a couple of weeks but that's life), clean the house and take care of the kids, fix certain fixtures over there and other broken objects over here, do the groceries. All the while that the wife and mother was away so that she could bring home the bacon. Sensitive subject, so I will not go into the details. Men are kind of weird in that regard. The perennial bringers home of good old bacon.

So what does my wife say when she gets home? I am not sure at the time if it is intentional or it just slips out, but that does not matter. It happens and that is enough to launch me into the land of no return. Some (snide) remark about how I have nothing else to do the whole day and why I had not done this and/or that also. Just cannot figure it out. Like here I am without work so I have so much free time to do everything and ontop of that even more than everything, including the stuff I just happen to forget about because I am caught in the spin cycle of chaotic incompleteness. I had kindly asked her earlier on a number of occasions to "please" not say that again because it upset me. Please think about it will you? But she had forgotten about the tinderbox of a husband she had been stuck with the last four months. She went on and on diatribing as if it were completely normal. "I just cannot figure it out..." she mumbled while she shook her head, "...you don't have that much to do."

As if slamming the front door wasn't hard enough to get my non-verbal point across, I decided to slam it a second time really really hard. As hard as I possibly could. Actually I was so enraged (almost crazed) that I could not have decided, it just happened. With one quick swinging arc of nearly one hundred and eighty degrees it just happened. The glass in the door shattered all over the place. The lock was all bent and messed up so badly that the door would no longer shut properly. If that had not happened and shaken me awake, I probably would have kept on slamming the door again and again and again. Hey Dad, what's that guy doing over there?! C'mon little Herman let's get out of here and go back home where it's safe.

The locksmith came this afternoon and fixed the door so that it can be shut properly. That was sixty-five euros down the drain what a waste. Before that, the guy for the glass came, yanked out the splintered pieces the best he could, glued a glass sheet ontop of the shattered shards just for safe-keeping, and hopefully by the end of January someone can come by and replace the mess. My wife told the kids just to say that someone kicked a ball there by accident. As if some kid's ball could generate such collateral damage. I tell them just to tell the truth, that their crazed father slammed the door too hard by accident. So what happened to the door? I guess I just shut it too hard (shoulder shrug).

So how do I feel about all of this? Not good, because it was a waste of time and energy and money. Bowing your cool is not very cool at all. Bad father, bad husband, shame on you. You must be alert and on your toes day in and day out so that you provide a constant role model for your children. Someone they can cherish and look up to. In that regard I failed, and my image was shattered just as badly as that glass in the door. And what do the neighbors think? To be honest, I could care less. I did get my point across though, but I could have done it a better more civilized way.

Too bad the kids still think that I am crazy. Maybe I am. All that broken glass all over the place.