Simmering rage

Cumulative rage has got Sophie White screaming at strangers, but they are definitely starting it, have been for years — now, she’s had enough

I“I was cycling so slowly I could glare into his face for at least eight seconds as I passed”

was going along happily enough one morning recently, just thinking my thoughts, when out of nowhere and quite apropos of nothing, a man passing by told me: “Cheer up, it might never happen.” Instantly, my day was ruined. I went from feeling low-key cheerful — though evidently not showing this on my face — to all-out homicidal, within seconds. Why is it OK for strange men to tell me to smile, but it’s not OK for me to murder them — the snarling thoughts in my head raged.

Eventually, the ire coursing through my body dissipated — presumably to lie dormant in my cells and fester into the illness that eventually kills me some years from now — and I moved on with my day.

However, my thoughts still returned periodically to the man. Would he ever tell another man to smile just out of nowhere like that? And why had it pissed me off so much?

I decided it all boils down to something I’ve dubbed ‘cumulative rage’. I’m not unreasonable, I can handle the odd man telling me to smile (though why on earth I have to still baffles me!), but it’s the fact that so many of them have, over so many years.

The mild irritation that sparked the very first time, back when I was 16, has now been joined by the irritation inspired by every incident of that ilk since. It has been such a long-running irritation pile-on that I finally vowed: the next smile-demander who decided to insert himself into my day was going to get a straight-up bollicking.

Enter the construction worker, who, for some totally unknown reason, decided he needed to usher me past him on the pavement by placing his hand on my back. Oh, he was randomly touching the wrong woman. I whipped around and barked, “Can you just not?!” at him before storming on. For eff ’s sake, do I need to get a sandwich board proclaiming, “I don’t need to smile, and I’ve been walking without the assistance of strangers for years now.”

The last straw was just days ago. I was cycling with my children in tow, safely secured in child seat and trailer, and helmeted, when a man sitting in a parked car shouted, “Doesn’t look safe, does it?” at me. It was a residential area, I was cycling so slowly, I could glare into his face for at least eight seconds as I passed.

I just about roared, “Well nobody asked you,” before it was too late, but it was unsatisfactory. I wanted to maul him. I immediately commenced cycling very erratically to deliver my kids to school and get back to him in time to eviscerate him with words and glaring. Alas, he was gone when I returned and I was deprived of a good healthy unloading of rage.

Simmering this Thai-inspired chicken dish certainly mellowed my simmering rage.