File Under "Irrational Anger"

"You may at times be hit with waves of what seems like irrational anger," they tell you during the Afghanistan after-action outbrief. I didn't think it would happen to me; I like to think of myself as laid back and even keeled. But then the guy in front of me at Chipotle waffled for what seemed like ages over what kind of salsa to get, blocking my burrito's access to the cheese and sour cream, and I thought -- if this keeps up much longer, I'm going to fork you in the fucking throat.

***

I ran into a college friend at a bar and he welcomed me back to DC. "Glad to be back?" he asked.

"I am," I said, "but I'm really tired of talking about Afghanistan." A friend of his, clearly on his way to blackout drunk, only heard the word Afghanistan. "That's so cool!" he slurred. "What was it LIKE?"

I sighed, but it was lost in the thumping techno. "It was fine," I said. "I survived."

"Well, where were you? What were you doing?"

"It's not important," I said, trying to move away from him.  He put his arm around me, hand on my lower back, and then slid it further down. "You have a really nice ass," he said.

I was secretly pleased with that -- I had spent the summer cycling and a nice ass was one of the desired outcomes -- but I was annoyed at his pawing. "I don't think I know you well enough for your hand to be on my ass," I said.  He slid his paw to the front of my shorts, and I smacked it away. "Enough," I said firmly. He grabbed at my crotch again, and I grabbed him firmly by the forearm and leaned in close.

"If you touch my dick again, I'll break your fucking wrist," I said.

***

I went and got a library card in the hopes that the massive MLK branch downtown might have a CD of Anna Bolena, the first opera of the Kennedy Center's season. (They didn't -- they only carry it in vinyl).

Just outside the library, a homeless person lurched towards me, reeking of urine. He pointed a finger at my chest and said, "gimme a motherfuckin' dollar."

For whatever reason, my gut response was to snap back at him in Pashto, a guttural language I don't really speak but love the sound of. He stepped backwards suspiciously, broke eye contact, and spoke

pointedly into the air next to me.

"I SAID, gimme a motherfuckin' DOLLAR," he said, without much conviction.

Opening Sally

I met the pheasant hunter for drinks in Adams Morgan.

We didn't appear to have anything in common -- I like running and cycling and drinking white wine, whereas he likes killing game birds and other small animals.  But there's a certain appeal to having someone show up at my door with pounds and pounds of free meat ("ooh, a brace of pheasant -- you shouldn't have!"), so I thought I'd give it a shot.

He also seemed decently witty. "On a scale of queen to lumberjack," he had asked, "how would you rate yourself?" 

I agreed to a date at a straight bar with a good beer selection, figuring I could drown myself in Dunkelweiss if he was horrible.

***

He did all the talking, and all we talked about was hunting. He got a little wistful about trailing his father in frigid temperatures searching for good duck blinds, and assured me that if I hadn't had freshly killed grouse cooked in cast iron, I hadn't lived.

He only came up occasionally for air, when he'd toss out things like, "I've talked about myself a lot -- tell me something about you." And then he'd look at me expectantly. It wasn't the best conversation tactic, and I kept going back to hunting.

"So, on a scale of one to ten," I asked, "can you evaluate for me the accuracy of Nintendo's Duck Hunter?"

"Oh, it was quite accurate," he said.

"So, do you have a bird dog that laughs at you when you miss the ducks?" I asked.

"Huh?" he said.

***

"To be honest with you, I don't think I could identify a pheasant OR a grouse," I told the pheasant hunter.

"It's easy," he said. "Pheasants have white feathers on their wings, whereas the grouse you can tell more by sound -- they sort of go 'GOBBLEGOB-BLLBLBLBLLLL.'"

"Oh," I said. "Well. That clears THAT up."