Irritated without a cause

Does this happen to you? It happens to me all the time. Most of the time I am a nice, compassionate person, but then I become irrationally angry, bitter or frustrated for no good reason and it reminds me that, deep-down, I am a bitch. Now I know you're thinking, oh, she can't be all bad, blah, blah, blah. But I know it's true. Let me write you a little diddy about how convinced I am:

1. My mother-in-law sent me a perfectly nice email this week, after I did my good deed of sending her pictures of my son. I swear that every damn sentence ends in an exclamation point, with the cherry on the top of this particular sundae of irritation being her sign off, "Love ya!"

Let me tell ya, that lady Doesn't love me. Doesn't with a capital 'd.' Over the course of my 5 year romance with her son, during which he has been estranged, I am fairly certain that the blame from that estrangement lands right in a fat blob at my feet. I am know this after the 7 month period of her not contacting me when I was pregnant with her grandchild, failing to come to my bridal luncheon because she was "too busy," and behind-the-back conversations with her extended family about my controlling nature over her son that lead his aunt to comment that he needed to "put his foot down" with me. This allows her to absolve herself from any guilt that the estrangement might be possibly due to leaving her 8 year old son in Denver for a month at a time when he was sick. Nothing.to.do.with.that.at.all.

All of this is to say that what most people would find to be a perfectly nice email makes my skin crawl and creates a black smudge on my heart when I see those damned exclamation points.

2. My co-worker, a dear friend, is pregnant and has most recently had some minor complications. This prevented her from fully devoting herself to a whole day of new employee orientation that required me to fill in. Clearly she couldn't help this, but I feel like it's always something. Illogical anger erupted in my soul. How hateful can one person be, anyway? Looks like I'm trying to find out.

3. People who don't think through their own thoughts to make educated opinions. My husband can be like this, I, of course, lay this at the feet of his parents. On "Top Chef" this week, taking place in Washington D.C.(yes, I am a reality tv junkie), we saw a flash of Nancy Pelosi's face.
Him: "Ugh. I hate her. Why would they put her on? She's worthless."
Me: "Why? What about her makes you have such a violent reaction compared to other politicians?"
Him: "She's just terrible."
Me: "I know a lot of people don't like her, but again, why is she worse than the others?"
Him: "I just don't think she's done anything for the country."

I'm pretty certain this means he doesn't really know what she's done. Or hasn't done. But more that his highly educated sports radio commentators bash her, so it must be true, right? Think for yourself!!!!!!!!! Why are you so stoopid to believe someone else's prejudices and swallow their opinions as your own? (That's me screaming at him on the inside. I didn't actually yell.). See, illogical anger?

4. I sincerely hoped for my sister to be at least somewhat miserable while pregnant. Sincerely. I don't hope this for all pregnant women, just her. Her because I know that she thought I was milking my nauseated misery for attention or effect. I know that because she thought that of her other miserably nauseated friend. That's why I was kinda hoping for her to see that no one most people don't actually want to puke their brains into a Wal-Mart bag or at least consider that as a viable option for survival.


And this my friends, is why I easily gather internal righteous indignation and illogical anger. Most it just means that I am a bitch. A bitch full of illogical anger.