Have you ever over-reacted and later regretted your actions? This story gives a glimpse into my gene pool!!
It was a wonderful summer day. My brother, our friends and I were going to spend the day water skiing out at our beach place. In fact we had skied the night before. Our friends had already left to walk down the beach to 'The Point' where we always skied from. My brother asked our dad for the keys to the boat and told him he was going to take the canvas top off and leave it in the pram. Our dad told him to unhook it from the gunnel and roll it up and stow it on the dash like we always did. My brother insisted that we needed to remove it completely and leave it in the pram. This went back on forth for a few minutes and finally, to my surprise, our father angrily gave in to my brother's wish... but he warned, "You better not lose any pieces to the top." We carried the pram down the beach to the waters edge and rowed out to the bouy where the boat was anchored. Our dad followed to watch. Because the tide was out, we didn't have to row very far to get to the boat and more importantly, our dad was close so as to have an intimidatingly watchful eye on our doings. I wanted nothing to do with the top being removed from the boat. I smelled nothing but trouble that morning and really didn't want a front row seat to whatever was going to happen, but I had no other choice than to be front and center to watch a volcano erupt... and boy did it ever!
I stayed in the pram. My brother got in the boat and started taking off the canvas. Our dad stood at the waters edge with arms folded, scowling, watching and waiting for what seemed to be the inevitable... and my brother didn't disappoint! My brother finished disconnecting the canvas hardware from the boat and started to hand it to me in the pram. I noticed one of the end pieces was missing from the hardware for the canvas. I quietly told my brother that one end piece was missing and it was at that moment that my brother made the mistake of looking quickly around the inside of the boat for the missing piece... and... then... came... the... eruption! Our dad FREAKED. He started swearing and raging, "Son of a rassel frassel! I knew you would lose it!" Oh don't worry, our dad was a yeller sometimes but he never hit us... anyways... He walked away from us scanning the beach for something to take his frustration out on and he soon found it. It looked like a water logged branch that he was going to be able to give a mighty toss into the water to vent his fury, but tragically it wasn't. The 'branch' was heavier than he thought it was going to be. It was slipperier than he thought it was going to be and it was sharper than he thought it was going to be. Somehow our dad had just found an old rusty lawn mover blade to toss. As it flew from his hand he let out a yelp of pain because the blade sliced through his palm. So round 1 of swearing was quickly followed by round 2 of swearing. But now his swearing took on a much more personally level of pain and high pitch. We simply froze in silence and watch the train wreck continue.
Now our dad picked up his pace walking up the beach and as he walked he dragged his feet along so as to spray the gravel with each anger filled step. His cursing soon subsided to a low grumble. Then he climbing the steps up onto the bulkhead and saw what he thought was an empty 5 gal. bucket. We could see him squaring up for a field goal kicker effort on that bucket. We both knew that the bucket was about half full of rocks. We simply watched the train wreck happen. He kicked that bucket expecting it to fly through the air... but to his disappointment and horror, it only moved about 6 inches. Round 3 of swearing had an extremely high pitch to it. We watched our dad hobble up the stairs from the bulkhead onto the front deck. The door was one of those doors where the top and bottom are separate and the top has lots of triangular windows. He opened the door and enter the house and slam the door behind him so hard that all the windows in the door blew out. Suddenly there was silence. My brother and I had just watched a record breaking demonstration of Freak Out from our dad and we thought it was hilarious but we also knew we couldn't let our dad know that we thought it was funny. We quietly put the motor down untied the boat and tied up the pram, started up the motor and took off. All the while refusing to look at each other or say anything other than "quiet."
We rounded the point and deftly pulled into the beach. Then we recalled the events to our friends but they(probably like you) didn't think it was very funny. We skied all day. We didn't got back for lunch. We didn't go back for dinner. We skied until it was dark. Finally we went back to the beach, tied up the boat on the buoy and paddled into shore. We all gathered on the bulkhead in the dark. We were starving. We sent the oldest friend (Eric) up to get food, pop and matches to make a fire. When he entered the cabin, my dad told him to have everyone come up. Eric walked out onto the deck and called down to all us to come up. "Dad wants us all up." All our friends called our mom and dad simply mom and dad. I wasn't scared at all. I entered the cabin first because I wasn't afraid because I hadn't done anything wrong... this time. My brother and our friends were like the penguins from the Antarctic, they were all trying to get to the center of the group and not be on the edge. Soon everyone stopped moving and dad prepared to speak. He was sitting in his EZ Boy lounge chair. He had a few empty bottles of beer on the end table next to him. Both his left hand and left foot were heavily wrapped in bandages. He leaned forward, slammed down the bottle that was in his hand on the end table and loudly stated,"$1.29!" We all gave him a look of confusion. Then he said again, "$1.29!" Then he sat back in his chair and recounted the events of his day after the windows in the front door had blown out. First, he drove into town to the doctor, where he got a tetanus shot, 27 stitches in his palm, and all of the shards of his big toe nail that had been jammed up into his broken big extracted. Then he went to the hardware store and bought all the pieces of glass he needed to fix the front door. Finally, he went to the marina to buy the lost part to the hardware for the canvas that my brother had lost. "And do you know how much it cost?" my dad questions. "$1.29! I guess I over reacted." There was a long awkward pause in the room. My dad sat there stern faced. Then suddenly the room erupted into laughter as we all laughed about his story.
So whenever I feel like getting mad, I know I need God's help to not over-react to something that might only costs a $1.29.
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