Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear. Does it ever get any better? Nobody could possibly say that I’m Under-treated now – I treat myself! But, the hypo rage still keeps rearing its ugly head.
There was an ambulance in the street, just past my house. One-way, narrow street. Nobody could over-take, so a long line of cars built up behind. And, of course, being French, one of them started honking. There’s always one. And they know it’s not going to make the traffic move, but they still feel compelled to do it. It went on for ages. It upset my dog. He started barking uncontrollably – that incessant ‘woof woof woof’ without any variation in tone, that indicates distress – I couldn’t quiet him. I was afraid the neighbours would complain. I know they’re not happy about my dog…
So… in the end, I got up and went to the window, and… Well, all I can say is that it’s a good job I wasn’t on the ground floor or I might have attacked someone with a hammer! Or an egg whisk, or whatever else came to hand. I screamed my rage so loud that people in the bar opposite came out to look.
The two young men, in the car below, that I was screaming at, started to giggle. And the more I screamed, the more they giggled. The honking continued. The dog continued to bark. And then, the two young girls in the car behind started screaming with laughter – that loud, grating laughter of the loud and insolent young. I glowered at them. I glowered at the people on the pavement opposite – I was all screamed out by then…
And then the traffic started to move. And the honking continued. And I realised, to my horror, that it hadn’t been the two young men at all! It was the two girls honking their horn, and deriving great pleasure from the misunderstanding, and from my distress. And at that moment, I would have cheerfully strangled the pair of them! Little cows!!!
So, then, they all moved off, the ambulance and the two young men and the two young girls and the long string of traffic in-between and behind, leaving just me and the jeering crowd on the pavement, that I had to stare down until they all went back Inside – no way was I backing down!
Oh, but I felt such a fool!!! I’d made a complete idiot of myself. I just completely lost control. I didn’t mean to start shouting. I meant to just glare at them in the hope they’d hear the dog, take the hint and stop honking. But… the best laid plans, and all that. And now, I don’t know where to put myself, I’m so embarrassed! I suppose I’ll laugh about it one day, but until then…
So, when does it stop? What is wrong with me? Too much testosterone? I very much doubt it! Before, I thought it was due to too little T3, but that can’t possibly be the case, now. So, what is wrong with me!
But don’t run away with the idea that this sort of thing happens all the time with me, because it doesn’t. The bar across the road has been a source of problems ever since it opened. Cars coming and going at all times of the day and night, people shouting and vomiting in the gutter, drunken teenagers fighting on the pavement, and the police doing nothing even when they’re called.
But l’m not like my ex neighbours, out there shouting the odds and ‘telling them off’ – as if they’d even listen! And I’m not like the little, old lady who lived on the top floor of the house next door, who would totter down three flights of stairs to the street in her nightdress, in the middle of the night, and wave her umbrella at them. If I were, I wouldn’t be writing on here, I’d be writing to the papers. Me, I just installed double glazing and ignored it all.
The only time I went down there and got involved, was when a pet rabbit got loose, and they were all chasing it in circles trying to catch the poor thing. So, I had to go down there to direct operations until the rabbit was safe. And I did it without raising my voice one single octave. I’m usually pretty Zen. Which makes it all the more frightening when I do lose it. It makes me feel like I’m weird or something…
Mind you, there are a lot of weird people around here, and a lot of strange things happen. And I couldn’t be any weirder than the owner of the bar. I think he has some weird version of Tourette’s. He’s a compulsive Sweeper. When he’s swept through his café, he sweeps the street, the road, anything that doesn’t move! Whilst all the time shouting stuff like “it isn’t him it’s me” or some obscenity, over and over again. Today it was ‘we’ve all got a pineapple’, whilst walking from one end of the road to the other, and back. Or he will just set up a high-pitched whine and rock backwards and forwards. And, other times, he seems quite normal. But once, he pulled a gun on his customers and threatened to shoot the lot! Mind you, there are times when I’d happily shoot his customers myself! They have some very nasty habits. And then there’s his brother…
So, I suppose we are used to odd-balls round here. I just didn’t think I was one of them. Now I officially am.
Bright Side of the Butterfly 