Taming the Anger Monster

A Professional Essay to Consider

Read the following professional essay. Then answer the questions and read the comments that follow.

Taming the Anger Monster （by Anne Davidson）

Laura Houser remembers the day with embarrassment.

―My mother was visiting from Illinois,‖ she says. ―We'd gone out to lunch and done some shopping. On our way home, we stopped at an intersection. When the light changed, the guy ahead of us was looking at a map or something and didn't move right away. I leaned on my horn and automatically yelled—well, what I generally yell at people who make me wait. I didn't even think about what I was doing. One moment I was talking and laughing with my mother, and the next I was shouting curses at a stranger. Mom's jaw just dropped. She said, Well, I guess you've been living in the city too long.‘ That's when I realized that my anger was out of control.‖

Laura has plenty of company. Here are a few examples plucked from the headlines of recent newspapers:

Amtrak's Washington–New York train: When a woman begins to use her cell phone in a

designated ―quiet car,‖ her seatmate grabs the phone and smashes it against the wall.

Reading, Mass.: Arguing over rough play at their ten-year-old sons' hockey practice, two

fathers begin throwing punches. One of the dads beats the other to death.

Westport, Conn.: Two supermarket shoppers get into a fistfight over who should be first in a

just-opened checkout line.

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