Anger

Here is Plotnik's New Year's Observation about anger:

Angry people like getting angry and they love staying angry. It helps them define the world into 'us' versus 'them.' Us versus Them is the easiest human relationship of all to deal with.

It's a lot harder for an angry person to accept that his or her anger is at the root of how he sees any situation, and serves to pour fuel on any fire, and helps to take mild disagreements and turn them into conflagrations. "I'm a bastard, I'm not a nice guy, I don't take shit from anybody" is easy to say about yourself, because it allows you to just keep acting the way you always do.

The problem is the amount of shit in the air is constant. If you don't take any, that just leaves more for everybody else to have to suck up.

The West Indies can't come soon enough for Plottie. Six weeks and counting.