I suppose this shouldn’t be funny, but in a sick, perverted way, it really is funny. I recently filed a claim with Cingular because a phone I carried insurance on bit the bottom of the lake. While chatting with Ken P. yesterday, I reported to him that I had a ‘destroyed phone’ to turn in to the insurance company. He replied that it must be the next post. Nope, nothing unusual to relate. But today, that all changed. I have an almost insane desire to delve into human emotion, why/what/when, what’s the bottom line, how long did it take before you flipped out, what triggers your passion, what did you do to make yourself get into that mood, how long has this been going on…and a few zillion other little intriguing twists that combine to form the recipe for what we are. There’s no reason behind my insane search, just curious, and in viewing all of those around me, at times I find a small curtain lifts where I glimpse a part of myself that I’ve kept veiled and didn’t want to air out.

Well…the phone really did get destroyed. Not the one that I chatted with ken about but one that was a ‘second’ replacement phone for my son, Darian. If you’re familiar with a Nokia E, you’d be amazed to see it bent in half, looking like an ‘L’ shaped caricature of something that should have been a cell phone. This phone is not insured. It died the death of a rag doll. Witnessing the event was probably priceless but at the time I wasn’t in the mood for it. Looking back on it…it’s funny as hell. Darian had left the house (yes…I’m still on Hyman Place because the coach is still in lock-up at Wheeler RV), I called him asking about a house situation (the air conditioner decided to go South…ugh!). He had to return to the house to pick something up and in the meantime, his phone pissed him off. He’d dropped it more than once while trying to use it and it was the straw that broke the camel’s back…don’t forget he’s going through single parenthood and working with a lot of issues; financial, emotional, and life in general. Back to the phone, he pulled up at the house, opened the garage door, stormed in, told me where whatever it was that I had called him about was, and snorted, “Right where my phone is!”

About that time I saw his phone, bent in half, as he stormed out of the house, to the garage and threw his phone on the concrete, grabbing a sledge hammer and smacking the shit out of it. It blew into pieces and flew in several directions. (Damn I wish I had it on video right now…totally awesome to watch!) He chased down the bigger pieces and smacked them with the sledge hammer, until I finally intervened and gave him the threat of slapping him if one of the pieces flew up and chipped the paint on the Silver Steed. He was a very unhappy child, stressed out to the max, and I gave him the verbal spanking about controlling his temper, blah, blah, blah. He went off to work (acid staining and flooring, etc.), and I went about my business for the day.

The picture of him just slamming the phone down on the concrete and grabbing the sledge hammer has jumped into my thoughts many times since…and I’ve chuckled each time. Ok…I’m a sick bitch! That’s exactly how I felt when I was playing UltimateBet yesterday, Omaha 8 or Better, I posted out of position, look at 10-4-3-Q. The Flop was 10-10-4, one player and me, he bet the flop, I raised, he raised, I raised, he called. The Turn brought a King, he checked, I bet, he called. The River brought an Ace, he bet, I called, he showed A-A-4-4. Get fucking real. Two cards in the deck and he caught one…so I’m sick of it…give me the sledge hammer because I need to smack the Card Fairy. The bitch is on my nerves. But watching heat/rage take over a person is part of what I do for a living. It’s one thing to be able to get up and kick the shit out of something that fries your brain, it’s another to have to swallow all of your emotion and maintain your cool while you are dealing with a business relationship and income related issues. That would bring us to P-O-K-E-R, P-O-K-E-R, P-O-K-E-R! You can never let them see you bleed. You may want to eat the deck. You may want to break their fingers for putting chips in the pot with the worst hand and getting there. You may want to win the WSOP. Whatever your reasons for playing poker, you have to be able to control the beast that rages within.

Right this minute – I say get a bigger hammer.