What happened when the quiet, nice guy finally raged out?

My mum. We had what we now referred to as the Jerry Springer Christmas when I was seven or so.

One aunt hated her sister-in-law and just started screaming at her, then shoving started,

husbands got involved, and then it just continued to devolve from there. My mum went straight

into mediator mode and tried to calm everyone down, but it wasn't working. She decided to come

check on us kids and found my cousin and me holding each other and sobbing because we were scared.

The next thing I hear is her scary mum voice screaming over everyone, listen here, you mother

frickers, my kid is crying on Christmas

because her family can't keep their crap together for the one day a year that we all see each other.

You're going to march your butts into that room single file and apologize to each kid

individually. Then you're going to shut the frick up until I get them out of here. We're going

to go find and look at lights, and this family

better be the picture of God damn Christmas joy by the time we get back. My mom had never

really cussed in front of me before, and had only ever used God damn when things were really

bad. That side of the family didn't celebrate Christmas for a few years after that.

A colleague at work was getting chewed out by a customer about something completely

irrelevant. The guy was one of the most placid humans I've ever met, but he just snapped and

tore into this guy for about ten minutes until the manager came down and took him to one side.

Never saw him lose it like that again. I had a master sergeant at one of my units in the army.

The guy was half asleep most of the time.

I don't think I ever heard him talk more than once. One day, all of the guys got called into a large classroom and he was in there looking upset. He launched into a rant about how easy it was

to go number one in the toilet instead of on the ground in front of it. The guy was passionate

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