The Rage

     I am generally a fairly relaxed person. My house is quite messy, my children go longer than they should between haircuts, I don't mind too much if the eight year old blondie slops a bit of milk on the kitchen counter. Very much a live and let live type of person, I accept that other people have the right to differing opinions and as long as they're not being offensive or hurtful about it, then that's fine. Go ahead, do your thing that makes you happy, as long as you are causing no harm.

     However, now and then, something happens to change my normal reaction of a shrug and a 'meh'. I call it The Rage.

     When The Rage comes calling, it's best to cover your hair and your eyes. Shield young children. Lock your door and bar your windows, because this is not going to be pretty. It probably won't last for long, but whilst it is here it is entirely possible that you will become so terrified you might just crap yourself so hard that you toot out your own sphincter. So traumatised that the rest of your life will be haunted by the memory of The Rage. So petrified with fear that you vomit up your own appendix (and maybe even someone elses, which would be quite a cool trick).

     The Rage is an unpredictable beast. I can never quite tell when it is going to emerge. Actually 'emerge' is the wrong word as it suggests a gradual entry into the world. The Rage is not tentative. The Rage is not careful. The Rage does not look down at the pavement to check it's not about to step in dog poo. The Rage bursts, fully-formed, into the world and by Christ, does the world get to know about it. The Rage reminds me of the John Hurt chest explosion in Alien in how it makes itself known. Any number of things can summon it, although I have discovered that the most reliable triggers are 1) facebook, 2) twitter, 3) other people and 4) pretty much anybloodything.

     The Rage usually gives me about a demisemihemimillisecond of notice before it arrives. And in that demisemihemimillisecond a mindblowing physical transformation takes place. Mild mannered, bespectacled Lucy Benedict is no more. My incisors lengthen. My stubby and unmatching fingernails are replaced with inch long talons. My eyes shoot sparks. My lungs gain an extra ten litres of capacity in order to take deeper breaths. My jaw develops the ability to dislocate itself, all the better to roar with. My hair is no longer hair but a mass of writhing, hissing snakes (exactly like Medusa in the Harryhausen Clash of the Titans, yes). I grow at least a foot taller and I drop my shoulders back, ready to square up. Finally, and most powerfully, I lose all inhibitions, logic, reason, rationality, memory, eloquence, articulation, propriety and common sense. It's a bit like the frenzy you sometimes get into during sex. Nothing and no one matters quite so much as this very second, and you couldn't give the tiniest little squeak about anything else.

     And then The Rage takes over. If out in public, the general sequence of events is as follows:

1. I am out with the blondies. Someone else (usually a complete stranger) crosses my path and does something that would normally make me tut and roll my eyes, maybe even mutter 'Twat' under my breath.
2. Split second of reaction processing.
3. The Rage.
4. The blondies cower as they know what is about to unfold.
5. I shout something. Incredibly loudly. Last time it was 'Look where YOU are GOing!' at the teenage boy who'd just ridden his bike into the four year old blondie. And when I say loudly, I really do mean it. I have a ferociously loud voice when required and can project it far and wide.
6. The stranger's eardrums bleed, they lose their sense of balance, fall over, drift out of consciousness. 
7. I step over their body, and carry on my way with two whimpering blondies. 
8. The Rage departs.
9. I giggle and ask the blondies if I scared them.
10. They reply in the affirmative.  

     If The Rage happens about something I've seen or read online, it manifests itself slightly differently.

1. I, against all informed advice, allow myself unsupervised access to the internet.
2. Something pisses me off.
3. Split second of reaction processing.
4. The Rage.
5. Person/people who have pissed me off squint at their screen. It's glowing slightly. They lean in further. The glow is becoming stronger. It's pulsing.
6. A four thousand word tidal wave of diatribe slams into their eyes. It's likely to be quite sweary, maybe slightly too personal in it's abuse, not entirely make sense, draw all sorts of unrelated issues into the argument, perhaps bring up an incident from over ten years ago, make lots of unsubstantiated allegations, and will definitely, definitely include the phrase 'for fuck's SAKE!' at one point.
7. I sit back from my computer screen, arms folded, self-righteously nodding to myself at the truly magnificent argument I have constructed.
8. The Rage departs.
9. The red mist in front of my eyes clears. My hearing returns to normal. I read again what I have written. Oh. Shit.
10. I frantically search for a way to delete/edit what I have written. Fail. The realisation dawns that I have made an utter twat of myself online. Again. I close the laptop and bury my head in my hands.

     But it's not just chance encounters with people that unleash The Rage. There are things that, simply by their very existence, give me The Rage. Here is a list of a few of them (the ones I can be arsed to dredge up):

1. Sex and the City 2. I can offer no better summary as to why than direct you to Mark Kermode's rant about it. Now there's a man who knows how to harness The Rage. I should learn from him.
2. Disney FUCKING Princesses. The four year old blondie is obsessed with them. They are everything I despise.
3. 'The White Masai.' Someone bought me this book for Christmas a few years ago. Someone hates me.
4. Lego. Not as a whole, but Lego on the carpet. Specifically, teeny tiny little bastard Lego bricks lurking, undetectable in the thick pile of the rug in the living room, snickering to themselves about my bare feet. Or perhaps they will attack when I kneel down. There is pain, and then there is Lego pain.
5. Shitty crappy glossy paper carousels you have to make for your four year old daughter. Two hours of my life this morning I'm never getting back. And it looks shit. And has already fallen apart. Twice.
6. DJs who talk over the records. Fuck off and die. If I wanted to listen to you, I wouldn't be listening to BBCRadio 6 Music. MUSIC. MUSIC. The clue is in the name, you pratt. Some DJs are fun to listen to - Radcliffe and Marconi, for example. But they don't talk over the records. Liz Kershaw does. Liz Kershaw should be feeling quite frightened.
7. Dust. Arsing dust. Dust can do one.
8. Kindhearted, well meaning people who give me writerly type presents. I feel that I have to use the stuff they buy me and it never ends well. The notebooks that A bought me are crap - the pages fall out, they're not spiral bound, they're too thick, the pages are too thin. But I still write in them. And then get pissed off and think bad thoughts about the people who bought them. And then I feel bad for being mean.
9. Should of/could of/ would of. HAVE. It's HAVE. HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE HAVE. << Look, there's some spare ones you can HAVE. 'Of' makes no sense. You HAVE a brain and you must HAVE used it at least once in your life. HAVE another go.
10. Beige. I think we've covered that before.

     I'm not saying The Rage is all bad. It does command a certain amount of respect from those who have survived witnessing one of the incidents. And when the blondies see the transformation begin, they know that if they're quick enough with a cuddle and a 'Love you Mum', they may just be able to wrestle The Rage back into the cage and survive. Again.