Losing It

It's temper I'm talking about, recalling times I've lost it.  

Lost it a lot when I was a kid, had a short fuse.  My closest sibling, Gerry, 3 years older and much larger, knew that well.  He'd either hold me in a bear hug until I cooled off or run like hell to get out of range of whatever I'd throw at him.  He didn't run fast enough to avoid the barbecue fork, though; nailed him in the arm at 12'.  He'd pissed me off by snapping me with the wet dish towel when we were doing the dishes.

My most recent blow up was at a pickleball player.  He called me 'flak jacket' after seeing me wear a tan vest.  I told him what the term meant to me, that a flak jacket had saved my life twice in Vietnam.  It didn't sink in; he called me that every time he saw me.  

I finally lost it, reamed him out, reminded him that a real flak jacket saved my life, and that he should show some respect for combat veterans who'd laid their lives on the line.  Later, I apologised, told him Nam vets were treated harshly when they returned to the US, were sensitive about it, had a short fuse when disrespected.  He's a good guy, had no idea he'd pissed me off repeatedly.

Then, there was the time I lost it in Egypt in '83.  Once a month I had to sit down with the client (City of Alexandria) to review the US dollar invoice.  The invoice was huge, over a million $, and usually about 150 pages.  It had to be approved by the client before being paid by USAID, which funded the project.  The Egyptian guy who reviewed the invoice would go through the invoice page by page, asking me what each item was, took 2-3 hours.  

The approval procedure was well established, since the project had been in progress 4 years.  Omar, the Egyptian guy, ignored the procedure once, disapproved a few items, prior to the sit-down review.  When the invoice was returned to me, I wrote VOID on the front page in big black letters.  He didn't know what void meant, looked it up in some Egyptian/English dictionary, which said it meant 'silly'.  

He was quite unhappy about the void/'silly' thing.  I explained that void meant invalid.  He didn't accept that.  I told him again, using different terms - which didn't work either.  I tried one last time.  And failed. That did it!  I grabbed my briefcase, stormed out of the office, slammed the door as hard as I could.

Next day, my boss told me that Omar wanted me replaced - immediately.  Didn't happen.  I don't recall how the matter was resolved, but the invoice was finally approved and paid.  I never needed to write void again.