Cap'n Obnoxious

I've been in an odd mood the last couple of days. Not quite the usual black mood, but not exactly a happy, chipper, sunshiney mood either. Maybe it's best summed up as an anti-social mood; I don't particularly want to be around people, and when I am, I find myself antagonizing them without meaning to. It's that "without meaning to" part that gets to me; I mean, my friendship with PigPen thrives on our near constant, deliberate mutual antagonizism, but last night I found myself being what I can only describe as downright obnoxious -- it was only when I heard a bit of an edge in PigPen's tone that it dawned on me that I had slipped into Cap'n Annoying mode, and I quickly removed myself to the other room to keep myself from inadvertently pushing him to acts of violence.

It's been known to happen.

Let's take a trip back to Parker Hall, Spring semester, 1994. It was around the time that we were playing The Assassin Game, and everyone was walking around with faux weapons like stage knives, disc shooters, and, of course, water guns. The exact details leading up to the incident are hazy in my mind, but from what I can recall, I had been haning around in the first floor lounge, messing with Special K, swiping his gun, shooting him with it, being an all around pest. Special K told me to quit it, but I guess it didn't quite register with me how serious he was about it. Finally, I went to the "swipe the gun" well one too many times, as I grabbed it, took off running, and was almost immedatiely slammed into the tile of the Parker lobby by a flying tackle from Special K. At first, I thought it was all part and parcel of typical guy rough-housing, until Special K wrestled me onto my back and I looked up into a fire red face contorted in rage. I immediately stopped struggling and meekly handed over the gun. Special K headed to the stairwell, hollered over his shoulder at me "When I say stop, you better stop, punk!" and stormed upstairs while everyone on the first floor stared in shocked disbelief.

You see, Special K was a front-runner for "The Nicest Guy in the Dorm" award; and now suddenly, I was front runner for "The Obnoxious Jerk Who Managed to Piss Off the Nicest Guy in the Dorm" award -- not exactly my proudest moment. But it was one I would be forcibly reminded of for a few weeks as I discovered that Special K's tackle had bruised my ribs, and I was unable to take a deep breath without wincing in pain for quite a while. I apologized to him for being an obnoxious twit (by note, of course), and he apologized for losing his temper, and everything was copacetic, but the thought of that encounter still makes me cringe -- not because of the brief skirmish (which is, incidently, probably the closest I've ever been to being in a real fight) but because of how I was able to drive someone to such a rage without realizing it. I like to think I'm more perceptive than that, but there are some times when, for one reason or another, that section of my brain shuts down, and I wind up pushing my friends to the breaking point. Honestly, it's like there's a part of me that wants to pick a fight, which is insane, since I'm pretty sure I don't know a single guy who couldn't beat the ever-loving crap out of me if provoked, but there you go. As with many of my neurotic quirks, this doesn't happen as often as it once did, but it still rears its ugly head now and again, at which point I just have to shut my trap and sequester myself until it passes -- either that or let someone beat the mood out of me.