Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much

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It was in one of those big department stores in the 70s. The woman was seriously kicking a fuss.

She'd been "detained" by store security and was loudly announcing to the world that she was being unjustly accused.

Mom said, "she did it." I asked how Mom knew this. "She's protesting too much," Mom said. "If they stopped me, I'd just tell them to call the police and they could speak to my lawyer."

Ahhhhhh...

Ever notice how some people who have something to hide are quite vehement in denying they have something to hide? Not all people, certainly. And people who don't have something to hide aren't always a model of restraint.

Some people just overreact as a matter of course. You know what kind of people I'm talking about.

Ben doesn't accept criticism very well on Tuesdays.

But by and large people who do overreact do so because there's something else going on there. The folks who fly off the handle at a moment's notice and do it every time are, at least in my experience, incredibly insecure. They perceive everything negative as a personal attack.

Otherwise sedate and normal people can also explode over things that previously they would have shrugged off.

Unless you are someone along the lines of the Biblical Job, it's likely you've let off a few personal bombs one time or another. Job, I note, is remarked upon for his patience, which is a mistake to my thinking. Job was not patient. He constantly, up until the end of the book, complained. He did not fly off the handle. Whine, yes. Explode, no.

Unusually intense circumstances can drive all of us out of our usual zone of behavior. It happens to all of us. Happens to me. Happens to you.

Some women have nothing to fear.

"We cannot control our circumstances, but we can control our reaction to those circumstances"is a fine and dandy saying and a maxim which we all do well to apply. But "when you are up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember your original objective is to drain the swamp."

So do a cynical old journalist a favor wudja? Next time someone flies off the handle and it's totally out of character, how about back off a bit, then come back and ask what's wrong. You may get an insight into the person, you may get some news, and you may have the chance to lend a shoulder to someone in need.