It’s hardly a secret that I am endlessly bitter. I’m also angry, very angry.

I have temperamental disorders for miles. Sooner or later a couple of them had to be professionally diagnosed, and so they were.

A very popular diagnosis that was offered to me as though off a tray of canapes at a cocktail party was depression. At that time when you went in doctors would just ask, as their second or third question, “Are you depressed?” Whatever you answered, they would send you home with free samples of at least one kind of antidepressant. Today was no different.

Not touching the box I said, “I don’t want these. What do they do?”

“Well, we’re not sure exactly. We’ll just have to experiment and see.” Dr. D. smiled hippocratically.

“But how do you know this is the correct antidepressant for me, if I am even depressed?”

“Let’s just start with this one. It’s as good as any to start with. If it doesn’t work, I have a dozen others we can try.” Standing up to leave the cozy little exam room overlooking Rittenhouse Square, the doctor said, “Anything else you wanted to talk to me about today?”

“Well, I came in because my knees have been hurting really bad and I have a rash on my chest.”

With feigned concern she cooed into my face, “Oh, really? I think that’s because you’re depressed. And you know what’s great? This ZakPro* can help with body pain, too. Try it. Here you go,” and she handed me a prescription. “For if you run out of samples. Call me in a month and let me know how it’s going, if you’re still depressed with knee pain. OK, you know where to go to check out, right?”

Back home I threw the ZakPro sample in my junk drawer and didn’t touch it until a week later, when my knee pain became worse. I hadn’t known or even wanted to believe that knee pain and depression were linked, but I just had to get rid of one or the other or both. So I started taking the pills.

After a few weeks of continuing mental torpor like that I had always existed with, I felt something shift. I felt stronger, angrier; less bitter, more righteous. My knees felt better. This was living!

_____

During this time I moved suddenly back to Michigan from Philadelphia. I didn’t think a place could make me more depressed and cause me more pain than Philadelphia did, but Southeast Michigan rose to the challenge and rubbed Philly’s face in the dirt.

My friend P. took me to a party shortly after I arrived. As we pulled up to the evenly boxed yard and modest boxhouse that surely is visible in the sea of them that you see from the plane when you fly over this part of the country, and parked, he warned me: “Oh, I forgot, I should tell you, these are total Michigan people. You might not like them.” Good timing.

They were. “You wanna know what”s (YWKWs) and “I know it!”s flew breezily and plentifully, vowels were flattened, “g”s were dropped with aplomb from the ends of gerunds. It sounded as though nose plugs had been handed out as party favors, the nasally midwestern accents were so thick. I was amazed, and asked P.: “Are they having a Michigan accent contest out there on the driveway?” Under the basketball hoop, a bunch of gals and dudes had gathered and were smoking, enjoying the fresh air.

When the host pulled out videotapes of himself driving a racing car and invited guests to watch it with him, I was midway through my very vocal tearing down of this party. I rolled my eyes and did exaggerated imitations of the local accent loud enough for the imitatees to hear. I loudly ridiculed the host, within earshot, for trying to make people watch such a boring video. I desperately wanted to leave, but was also reveling in my superiority, and to some extent didn’t want to drag P. and my other friend away from “their” party.

That’s when the host threw me out.

“Service,” he bellowed, “it’s time for you to leave. Get out of my house.”

“My pleasure,” I yelled back. “Your house sucks and stinks.”

P. and my other friend were taken aback at the turn of events, forgetting that not everyone was used to my style of partygoing (i.e., mega-sneering). The host followed me out to the front porch of his laughable, tiny white-trash ranch-style house to make sure I left. My two friends also came out.

The sister of the host tried to make peace. “What’s going on?” “Service is being his usual dick self,” responded the host.

The sister said to me with a nervous but hopeful smile, “Well, why don’t you just try to be nice for the rest of the night?”

What a moron. “That idea is terr-if-ic. Let me write it down. Just be a nice person, was that it?”

There were now six people standing on the front porch and when the sister turned to respond to me she lost her balance and fell off the stoop into a bush, breaking it at the trunk. Anyone would’ve broken it, it wasn’t just because she had a Michigan-sized ass. I couldn’t help cackling.

People helped her up and out of the broken bush. After telling me to leave again, this time more forcefully, the host said to P. and my other friend, “You guys, I’m not mad at you two. I’m really sorry.”

“You should be,” I said.

Amid a hubbub I was whisked away before things could degrade any further. I was furious at how I had been treated.

_____

So, that incident didn’t help my burgeoning social life in my re-adopted hometown.
A short time later I was standing in the express lane line at the grocer’s. I was next. There were a few people in line behind me.

But this guy appeared to my left, holding a couple of items he wanted to buy.
After looking over a few times and satisfying myself that he was doing what it looked like he was doing, to wit, TAKING CUTS, I said: “You’re behind me.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” he snapped.

“Well why don’t you act like you can see that,” I said in cold-rage throwdown mode.

“Whoa” was his response.

I’ve never thrown a punch in a fight, but I’ve been punched a couple times and it wasn’t really in fights per se. It was because I had said some… well, some things you can’t take back. One time it was for no reason whatsoever! Since I don’t know how to fight, I had some friends “take care of” that guy. He moved away.

But something, some thing, was making me bellicose, and it was exhilirating. I had the strength and the moral authority to want to see this town burned to the ground because of people like the host and the cut-taker.

The incidents started piling up. My boss held a meeting to scold me and two coworkers for being late all the time, and I told her sternly that it was because morale was so low at this place, and frankly she was lucky to have us and I think you should apologize to the three of us right now for taking us away from our desks and our jobs to try and belittle us like this in front of each other, like a bully. Apologize, I said. Right now.

I stopped by my friend L.’s house with another description of the way I had been treated that day and the way I had reacted with justice and equity. “I was right, right?” I asked. She looked down and then to both sides, paused. “You know, Service, I… I just don’t know anyone else that gets in this many fights with people every day.”

Like a shrink she patiently helped me isolate the variable that could be causing my warlikeness. In case you haven’t guessed, it was the ZakPro.

I’m on a different antidepressant now, ButWelltrin,* which was prescribed for sore throat as well as depression. I’m a total pussycat now, as I was before all this. The meds are working the way they should now. We can all breathe a sigh of relief.

Just look at this IM exchange I had yesterday with a potential suitor:

Them: so u really are going to ignore, just like that
ME: you’re not on ignore
Them: well then can you talk to me
ME: you seem like a dick, frankly
Them: me? are you kidding? Ive been trying to get your attention for a while now and you are exceedingly negative
ME: you should review your tactics. they’re exceedingly dicky
Them: it was joke
ME: oh, “it was joke”?
Them: but you know what… if you asked me out for a drink
ME: …which i would not…
Them: can I ask you out for a drink then?
ME: no
ME: i have higher standards than that
Them: than a drink??
ME: i can’t waste time with losers
Them: to meet someone?
Them: whatever.. .I am not a loser
ME: a drink. don’t make me laugh!
ME: fuck your drink

_____

*Names changed to protect big pharma and prevent me from being sued or sabotaged

Tags: Detroit, Internet Dating, Michigan, Rittenhouse Square