Ask Me About My Temper

(“Peri angry!”)

I applied for a job recently, and was asked the strangest question: What can you tell me about your temper?

I wasn’t sure what he meant. Did he mean my temper when my dog eats the couch cushions, or my temper when my husband spends the weekend watching the Golf Channel? Was he talking about the time I yelled at my daughter for writing swear words on the floorboards? Or how about the time I lost it when a Walmartian pooped on aisle 12 (true story)?

It made me wonder if I had this inner Hulk raging inside my soul. I don’t feel angry. I don’t think I get mad often. I decided to ask my family.

“Do I have a temper?” I asked my husband.

“Is this a trick question?”

“What does that mean,” I asked, giving him my best pissed-off wife glare. I guess that answered that.

“Do I have a temper?” I asked my daughter.

“Will you yell at me if I say yes?”

“Probably.”

“Then, nope. No temper at all.”

I tried calling my other daughters and siblings, but they had been forewarned and didn’t answer the phone. Even my dog wouldn’t look me in the eye when I asked him the question.

I think I have a much calmer temper now then I did 20 years ago. I haven’t thrown a pizza at anyone lately, and I can’t recall the last time I swore during a PTA meeting. But maybe that’s just repression. Maybe one day I’ll wake up, turn a brilliant shade of green, throw off the remnants of my shredded jammies and stomp through the city, yelling, “Who ate the last donut?!”

Good thing I didn’t get the job.