At The Top Of The Bell Curve Of Statistical Rages

I had an episode last night. This hasn’t happened to me in a while, but I am genuinely concerned that it happens at all.

What was supposed to be a low-key, fun night out with friends took a turn for the ugly. The Dutch brothel of a club was appropriately named ‘The Cellar’, probably for the aromatic impression one gets that someone’s grandmother was locked down there for the better part of two weeks with no food. We arrived early enough that the make shift closet of a coat check room was closed and unattended (I assumed to remove the neglected grandmother), so we had no other option than to put our coats down on the couch we claimed to ourselves. When large groups of inebriated people congregate in a dark room with music playing loud enough to make a dog’s brain bleed, it is customary for said people to dance in close proximity of one another, mostly alone, but occasionally close enough to accidentally rub crotches. “Oops, hey there, sorry about dry humping your leg, it’s crowded. Hey wanna dance?”. Of course, not many people in their right minds would subject themselves to such self deprecating acts of unnecessary physical exertion without the prerequisite three or four drinks to remove any left over shred of common sense. At this point in the evening I had aspired well beyond completing my prerequisites, so I was dancing. We managed to have a good time as we know how by being silly and pretending to be above the people who are actually enjoying themselves. One of my friends and I would eye each other from a distance, stare intently, walk up to each other menacingly in mock pre-fight intimidation, and just as we were about to throw down we would break out the fancy dance moves. We did this more times than anyone needed to see, well past the point of it being funny anymore. Being drunk is fun like that. When we found it difficult to entertain ourselves anymore, we figured this would be a good time to grab our things and leave.

My jacket was gone. There in its place was the shiny red plastic cushion of the couch which once served as our home base. Our base had been invaded, the spoils taken. I instantly go into panic mode at the thought of a lost or stolen jacket, because this is my only winter jacket, and it’s pretty new, and not exactly cheap. I really like that jacket damn it, and I was determined to find it.

The first logical place to check is the coat check, which half way through the night is now open. No luck. The attendant didn’t know of any large brown jacket in the coat check that resembled what I described to him. He would have been more convincing had he actually looked for it. Next up in questioning were the bartenders, who had perhaps picked it up from the couch and taken it to the back. They were too busy pretending to be busy taking people’s beverage demands. Finally, it was the bouncers turn. Surprisingly, they were the friendliest and most helpful. Then they became extremely helpful.

At this point, something happened inside me that I can not explain. I don’t understand the mechanism behind leaving my conscience self, but in this one flash of an instant I was no longer myself. I snapped. It was as if someone had pressed a big red “rage” button and instantly triggered the fury within me. I like to think that I was so consumed with the troubling idea that someone could be so despicable as to steal a precious belonging of mine. And I was. But that was not it. The prerequisites to having a good night out were now very quickly turning it into a bad one. Apparently, one good way to attract the attention of bouncers and security guards is to below obscenities at the top of your lungs. One bouncer was actually nice enough to come over and calmly ask me what the problem was. I was in mid sentence explaining my situation, and as if on queue, a rather large man with a backpack sits down on the couch wearing what appears to be my jacket. MY FUCKING JACKET. The bouncer man was wise enough to keep me away from the guy; “I’ll work on him” he said. Alright bouncer man, you go work on him. I will sit in the wings and observe how this plays out from a distance. This was a good plan until I stopped following it. I described to the bouncer the contents of my pockets, so that was the first thing he was going to check. As soon as I recognized the physical therapy diagrams he pulled out of the jacket pocket, I did my best Tasmanian devil impersonation and blazed my way over. When someone is consumed by irrational anger, they can sometimes do some really stupid things. Sometimes they can also say really funny things. I don’t remember what I said exactly, but one for certain is that it wasn’t comprehensible English. At least, not English spoken at an adult level. My phrases consisted of the words “how”, “why”, “steal”, “fucking”, and “my shit” intermixed with garbles of nonsense. The frothing at my mouth made annunciation a little more difficult. The next thing I knew the blood in my left arm had stopped flowing to my hand, and I was moving backwards against my will. Another bouncer with hands the size of a small dog had already convinced me to step outside. I pleaded my case, but the general success rate of arguing with a mobile refrigerator is fairly low.

At this point I was outside, pacing back and forth, patrolling the entrance. Luckily, no innocent passers by accidentally startled me, otherwise there’s always the chance of snapping their necks. The bouncers were taking their time with the jacket stealing bastard who was actually trying to convince them that my jacket, with receipts bearing my name in the pockets, was his. My friends who were still inside had the good sense to explain to the bouncers how to put two and two together. Finally relief, one of the bouncers comes out and hands me my jacket. Right behind him comes out the girlfriend of the jerk who thinks my jacket is his, and apologized explaining that her boyfriend has the exact same jacket, but she had checked his in to coat check earlier, so he mistook my jacket for his.

Then something funny happened involving the look on my face while shitting myself. The weight of the guilt instantly hit me like a ton of bricks. Her boyfriend comes out behind her, bouncers wisely separating the two of us as tensions are still very high. The best I could muster up of an apology was to shake his hand, very, very tightly, staring into his eyes unflinching, and say “it’s ok, it was a misunderstanding”. Despite crapping myself with a fecal brick of guilt, I still hated this man and felt intense anger towards him.

After we went our separate ways, the guilt was eating at my insides like a flesh parasite, but at the same time their explanation seemed to make less sense. Three things in particular didn’t make their case any more believable: 1. when I had checked the coat check, there was no jacket like mine in there. 2. Why would the guy defend himself when the contents of my pocket were pulled out? Does he not realize that now there’s suddenly new items that magically appeared in his pockets? Does this guy simply not put his hands into his jacket pockets ever? 3. Neither the guy nor his girlfriend had a similar jacket when they came out of the club. Did they think after this whole fiasco that it would be the wisest decision to leave that jacket unattended in the club? This all smells really fishy to me, but I’m not sure if the guy and his girlfriend were telling the truth. “Why would I take you jacket?!?” he had asked me. Funny enough, that’s my exact same question, seeing as you’re wearing it.

Regardless of whether the guy was stealing or not, I reacted very badly to the situation. Even if there was every shred of proof that he was a thieving prick, the situation was being taken care of by the bouncers. There was no need for me to lose my temper uncontrollably. I would have gotten my jacket back in any case, except this time I assumed the guy was guilty until proven innocent. What concerns me most is that I know I would not have reacted this way had I not been drunk. This has genuinely made me question and be more cautious of drinking in public. As rare of an occurrence as this is, it troubles me that it happened at all. Though this incident was certainly at the top of the bell curve of my statistical rages, I can only take so much solace in mathematical rationalization.