Make Me Wanna Holler

I'm not going to get specific about my morning but it's already been very long and very filled with activities shaped from the womb to be incredibly annoying and soul-abrading.

Okay, one hint: No fewer than two separate organizations developed computer glitches which didn't show my last payment. Only after much sitting on hold (and being disconnected twice from one) was I able to prove that I was in fact not a scofflaw. There were other beatings to my dignity and my patience. It's only eleven o'clock in the morning. I am haunted by the idea that this day has up to twelve more hours of puckishness ahead of it.

The miraculous thing is how equable I was. If I didn't know better, I'd assume Consort doctored my tea with Diazepam. I didn't scream at either company who lost my payments. I didn't scream at every single person this morning who said something stupid -- and let me assure you, apparently today is Say Something Stupid Day because there is no other reason for the abyss of witlessness I've traversed. I kept my counsel. I bit my tongue. I endeavored to see the big picture. My reward is that I've now gotten credit for bills I already paid --which doesn't actually qualify as growth -- and talked to stupid people who still don't know they're stupid (and whom I was more than willing to inform of this fact had I been given the opportunity.)

So here's what I want. I want credit for not screaming. No, better yet, I want a create a holiday for honoring those people who make a slurry of their stomach lining rather than saying what achingly needs to be said. I want people to send me greeting cards that feature pictures of red-faced women methodically pulling the leaves off daisies with comforting captions like If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by. I want a sheetcake iced with the words "Congratulations on not killing any member of a large and indifferent bureaucracy". And then I want to eat the sheetcake while watching a The Golden Girls marathon and not have to share the frosting rosettes with anyone.

If you too haven't been given enough credit for the verbal beatings you haven't doled out in this life, please join me in celebrating. Let's declare June 15th National Not Screaming Day. Or better yet, International Not Screaming Day. Why not? They make greeting cards all over the place. If you want, you can leave an email about some recent event where you heartily deserved a good scream but nobly resisted the impulse. We'll all pat your hand and make room on the couch to watch Dorothy and the girls.

But the rosettes are mine.