I Don't Get Mad

At lunch today we played Skip-Bo. It's the newest craze at work - A card game that everyone loves. (Only recently, I've been surprised by the number of people who don't know anything of this game I grew up playing with my family.) We're keeping Excel spredsheets for winners. This could go on all summer, thinks me.

Point: we were on break, happily playing when one of my co-workers who has some mild disabilities needed help with something. He didn't ask for help but I was aware that he needed it. So I abandoned the game, thinking my friends would alert me to my turn, to assist him. Instead they played my hand for me and I came back to the game table to find my turn mostly over. I gave them all "mean looks" and was accused of such by one of the players with a comment something like, "Looks like Katy's mad now!"

Then one of my co-workers just voiced her thoughts out loud, "Katy? She doesn't get mad."

It was a response I wasn't prepared for and I asked her then, while the game had returned to regular play, if that was her honest opinion of me. That I don't get mad. She said that basically yes, it was. In further discussion later I summarize the conversation as this: "I suppose I'm seen, even by people who interact with me mildly, as even-tempered. I don't have a short fuse." She agreed.

This is good. Especially when I feel like my whole world is about to explode, knowing that I can maintain a cool front is a good thing. There really isn't too much that gets under my skin, and I don't really care at the end of the day the my co-workers played my Skip-Bo hand. It's true, I think that I am not easily angered. But if there is one thing about that whole situation that did make me mad it is that no one else in that room seemed to notice the need of our other friend...who right now needs so much.