Have you ever felt yourself recklessly careering towards a baffling moment of volcanic anger that goes beyond understanding? I’m not talking about some senseless, unprovoked act of pure violence. Just a microscopic episode of rage which triggers a series of truly bizarre events. A brief rupture in our “ground rules” that causes a “why?” moment.

Mine involved a guy shoving a poop bag with dog shit into my letterbox. You can understand why I got fixated on the “why”?

I was sitting out the front swilling a G&T, on one of those late days in March when the south westerlies had finally given up the ghost for the summer and there is a warmth and glow about the afternoon. I happened to glance up at the precise moment a man walking past my house with a woman and two pooches, hastily poked something into my letterbox.

There was something about his lingering, sneering smirk that instantly made me think, this guy isn’t inviting me to join Neighbour Watch. He had the look of man that was delighted with his effort. His swaggering smugness told me everything.

The second I spied the poop package I bolted after him with a combustible storm consuming every sinew and muscle.

“Hey, mate, why did you shove dog shit in my letterbox?” I bellowed again and again. My haranguing pleas elicited nothing. 

He finally raised his right arm in an arrogant display of contempt and told me “to put it in the bin yourself”. At no point did he turn to face me.

A great fury sprung from nowhere. The dismissiveness of his gesture summoned a hopeless anger that rarely reveals itself. I delivered up a series of profanities and insults that would’ve confused comedian Lenny Bruce.

He came to a sudden halt. I had no desire for this to erupt into violence. It was clear the guy has lost his moorings.

He looked like someone that would do my tax.  

He timidly shoved his chest against mine, like a confused Emperor Penguin trying to have sex for the first time. Sigmund Freud believed anger was an important emotion, which related to, you guessed it, the anal stage in our development. So in turn, we should direct our frustrations at our parents who failed to potty train us. It also might explain why some of us are weirdly repulsed by the thumbs up emoji.

The guy kept shamelessly thrusting his body into me with his arms by his side. It looked like he was doing a Riverdance mime. His bullish confidence was his minor failing. I wasn’t too sure if the grunting and slurping noises he was making were meant to intimidate me, or he was having a mild stroke. 

He had the awkward stance of someone who spent much of their youth hiding in cupboards at boarding school, trying to avoid getting beaten up by the captain of the rugby team.

He could sense I was seeking the pleasures that comes with redemption. I had the uncontrollable urge to thrust the pooch poo bag down his throat.

I could see the headline now:  “A man in Fremantle is in a critical condition after a plastic bag containing dog droppings was removed from his airwaves. “Witnesses say an ape-like person was seen limping away from the scene. 

“Animal Rescue has yet to trap the escaped ape”.

I walked away, just as my son came bursting through the front gate as if suddenly noticing my absence.

Any attempts to disguise my disgust from my son would be futile. He innocently thought it was an early April Fools’ joke. It was an easy out.

I bunkered down in the back room with my uncontrolled mind thumping with anger.  

Anger is a curious beast. Everyone has their triggers. Everyone’s moral code has been breached. (Actually come to think of it, would anyone be overly delighted to come home and find Fido’s faeces in their letterbox?) The aggressive gene is part of our DNA. It’s our ancestors’ fault. It wasn’t long ago that most hunter and gatherer societies were riddled with bloodshed.

Archaeologists believe that because of the scariest of food and resources hunter and gatherers waged war on neighbouring tribes. Then the vanquished probably dined out on their neighbours.

I have another less plausible theory.  As our dim-witted descendants hadn’t developed the art of agriculture yet, everyone was cooped up in a cave all-day long with bugger all to do. They were bored shitless and hated each other.

Even a brainless, prehistoric nomad can only endure so many cave paintings. “Oh look, Torg has drawn another Woolly Mammoth.” Yay. “Come outside Torg, I want to show you my new hunting club”.

I was trying to recover some equanimity but I just couldn’t digest why a person would do such a disrespectful, dreadful deed? The velocity of my confusion kept accelerating to the point where I thought, maybe “mailing” dog shit is some strange and uncanny TikTok craze. I even Googled it. (Don’t Google it, you will lose faith in humanity) I was becoming increasingly irrational when I heard a rattle on the flyscreen door.     

I could see a figure fidgeting in the dark. I knew it was the guy.

He put up his arms with the urgency of a soldier wanting to surrender. His contemptuousness had evaporated. He knew he fucked up.

Again, I asked the simple question ‘why’? He said he was embarrassed and humiliated and offered up no excuses, other than repeating ‘sorry’.

Depositing a full dog shit bag into my letterbox was borne out pure laziness. He seized on the opportunity.

His contriteness and vulnerability were sincere and authentic. He then apologised to my son. I didn’t have the appetite to make him squirm any more.

He shook my hand like a politician on a failed campaign trial. That was all I needed.

The next day an expensive bottle of wine turned up on our decking. No note was needed.

The man has not walked past out front gate with his two dogs since. If I did see him, I would probably grin and give him a wave.

We all make mistakes. We all get angry.