Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re being completely irrational, and you know you are, but you feel so angry and the anger becomes explosive and you just say and do things you know are ridiculous?

Yeah…..that.

I had been to the doctor for another shot in my knee.  I’ve learned that the hours following a shot are very uncomfortable for me.  I experience a significant amount of pain and soreness for about five hours afterward.  For this reason, I schedule the appointments for the late afternoon, then come home and ice my knees.  Prior to the appointment that day I asked Dan to handle dinner.  I would be arriving home right at dinner time and I didn’t want to deal with cooking and waiting on everyone while trying to manage the pain.

If I’m being completely honest, I was a little emotional before going to the doctor.  I wasn’t looking forward to it.  The shots hurt.  And in hindsight, I think I just wanted my family to take care of me, instead of being the one who takes care of everyone else.

So, I get home and no dinner is being prepared.   Dan is sitting on the couch with the kids.  I’m starving, sore and starting to get pissed.  I asked him what he planned to do for dinner and he said he was going to order Mexican food.

Fine.

I get my ice pack and get settled on the couch with my knee propped up just so.  Thirty minutes later, Dan is still looking online for a restaurant.  He makes a comment about how he wishes I liked this one particular place that has always been his favorite.  We never order from there because I don’t like their food.  I said, “We can order from there.  I’ll just order something I know they can’t screw up.”  The last time we ordered from this place my dinner was horrible.  And I should mention, that it’s almost become a joke in our family that when we order food, if any order gets screwed up, it’s almost always mine.

So I ask Dan to order me a chicken burrito, with mild green Verde sauce.  Just a basic chicken burrito.  He triple checked my order before he completed the online transaction.  Now he’s super psyched that he gets dinner from one of his favorite places.

By the time the food arrives it’s been over two hours since I got home.  I’m starving and in the throes of my knee pain.  I’m really looking forward to this chicken burrito.

I hobble to the kitchen because it hurts to put full weight on my knee.  I start sorting the containers and handing out food.  The meal Bryce ordered is much smaller than we expected, so he finishes his dinner before I’m done handing out food.  I can’t find my food.  There are two wet burritos.  One with a red sauce, and one with an orange sauce.  Dan ordered the red sauce.  We both realize that my order is wrong.  Typical.

My anger starts to simmer.

I open the lid and dip a fork into the sauce to see if it’s edible.  Holy shit!  It’s orange fire sauce!  I start choking and gagging as the liquid fire slides down my throat. I involuntarily cry out, “Motherfucker!”  Even Dan, who LOVES spicy food, agreed this sauce covering the burrito was almost inedible.

Dan offered me his burrito in exchange, but I hate red sauce.  It tastes like starch and yucky things.  He gets online to contact the restaurant to tell them they made a mistake and get me the correct burrito.

In the meantime, Bryce is asking for more dinner.  He’s still hungry and there is nothing else in the order that he can eat.  He says he would like some plain pasta.  I look to Dan, expecting him to make the pasta so I can go sit down with some ice, but Dan has his burrito and is on his way to the table where he casually sits down to eat.  He says the restaurant is sending over a new burrito for me.  And he starts eating…

My anger kicks up to another level at this point.  Like, I want to start yelling, but that won’t help the situation, so I tamp it down.  I’m taking deep, calming breaths.

I start hobbling around the kitchen, making another dinner for Bryce.  I don’t say anything.  I can’t believe he just sat down to eat his dinner and is watching me limp around the kitchen, cooking, which is exactly what I asked him to help me avoid this evening.  I’m so pissed.  But if I lose my shit, somehow I feel like the asshole.  So I suck it up and make pasta for Bryce.  I have left-over sauce in the fridge, he just needs fresh pasta.  Simple enough.  Except that my knee is throbbing, and I can actually feel my heartbeat in my knee.

I finish making and serving him dinner, and clean up the mess.  At this point, everyone else has eaten, except me.  I go sit down with my ice.  Another 45 minutes later and my new burrito arrives.  And guess what….

It was the same goddamned orange fire sauce burrito they sent me the first time!  I waited over an hour for them to send me the same fucking inferno-burrito!  It’s like this burrito was made in hell, and Satan keeps sending it forth to taunt me!

I yelled.  I cursed.  I slammed cabinets as I limped around the kitchen, re-heating left-overs that I could have eaten over three fucking hours ago when I got home from the doctor.  All I wanted was for someone else to handle dinner so I could sit and elevate my knee and deal with the pain.  I was out of my mind with anger and resentment.  I sat at the counter, eating my shitty left-overs, hating all of them with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

When I was done, I limped back to the couch.  It was 8:30pm.  I wanted to cry.  I wanted to yell and throw shit.  The anger was a physical pain in my chest and I had no outlet to get rid of it.  I wanted just one member of my family to pay attention to me and care that I was upset.  I looked at the three of them sitting on the sofas.  All of them had their faces buried in their technology.  All of them content, happily fed and taken care of.  I flipped each one of them off.  A prolonged, middle finger stuck in the air, pointed in each of their directions.  I didn’t even care how inappropriate that action was.  Not one of them looked up.  Then I said, “Screw you guys.”  No reaction.  They hadn’t heard me because they were all so self-absorbed with their iPads, iPods and computers.  I think I hate Apple products now.

So I left the room.  Not one of them noticed that I even got up.  I limped upstairs and put myself to bed.  I laid there hating the whole world, lamenting the injustices of being an unappreciated wife and mother, and vowing from the depths of my soul to never wash their dirty underwear again, until I fell asleep.

A few days later we were having dinner with another couple.  The husband starting telling a funny story about how he and his wife got into a ridiculously intense argument over an apple pie crust.  It was in the same vein as my sad tale, so I said, “I completely understand.  I lost my shit over a chicken burrito the other night.”  As I was re-telling the story, Dan had no idea that I’d flipped him off and basically told him to go screw himself before leaving the room.  As I retold this part of the story, he burst out laughing, grabbed me by the face and kissed me at the table in front of everyone.  Then he said, “THAT’s why I love you!”

Apparently he likes his women like he likes his burritos.  Fiery!  😉