You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry

Story Sent in by Kevin:

Carole and I met online, then met for our first date at a sushi restaurant that she picked out. I had never been there, but she raved about it.

Everything seemed fine: we met outside, went inside, then sat down. We ordered sake, talked, looked at the menu, and then when the waitress came over, Carole asked her, "Do you still have the Seattle maki?"

The waitress said, "No, we don't make that one anymore. We recently changed the menu."

Carole took a deep breath, then said, "All right. I'll just have the tuna roll, then."

The waitress jotted it down, took my order, grabbed our menus, then left. Carole had her eyes closed and was doing some heavy-duty breathing, like she was trying to control her rage.

"Excuse me for a moment," she said, then stood and walked out of the restaurant. From where I sat, I couldn't see where she went, but that didn't matter, because a second later, I heard:

"Aaaaaaaaaagh!" a shattering scream, followed by the loudest string of expletives I've ever heard. Every head in the restaurant turned to the front. It sounded like Carole to me, so I stood up and made my way to the door, thinking that she had been attacked or hit by a car or something else.

As I made it to the door, she entered and asked me, "Whoa. Where are you going?" Her hair was a mess, and her mouth was wet with spit.

"Are you okay?" I asked, "What happened?"

She replied, "Oh, just getting the angries out. My therapist said it was a healthy way to release anger. I'm fine, now."

A man, who I guessed to be a manager, came up to us and asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," Carole replied, then smiled and said, "Just don't get on my bad side!"

We sat back down, and I asked her, "You were... you were that mad because they didn't have that roll you liked?"

She said, "If we talk about it, then I'll probably get angry again. Better just to forget about it, you know. Better than being physically violent, right? Yelling hurts nobody."

Dinner was subdued, but otherwise normal.

The next day, she emailed me to let me know that she had a good time and wanted to go out again. I wrote back a polite response, basically telling her that I was probably going to keep looking for someone. Whether she screamed her guts out at that or not, I have no idea, nor do I want to know.