Have you ever gotten so mad at your husband (your kids, your coworkers, your friends… whatever) that you felt nauseous afterwards?

It doesn’t happen to me often, but this morning I hit the cracking point and felt my head and stomach fill with the kind of rage and bile that, if I was a character in one of those sci-fi super hero movies now, would transform me into a raging green monster bent on destroying all that crosses my path.

And what set off this monumental rage breakdown? My passport. And the kitchen.

I have been asking my husband to help me with the renewal of our passports, and the application of passports for the kids, since my friend Kelly and her family moved to Prague. For those keeping track, that would be almost 1 year ago. Two months ago, frustrated to the point of blindness by the lack of movement on said passports, I downloaded the forms and started filling them out. Immediately, my husband jumped into action (probably out of fear for his life), getting our daughter’s birth certificate and talking about taking the photos.

Did I mention that was two months ago? Now the completed applications are sitting on the counter in our dining room, waiting.

Waiting for what? Well of course you know the answer – waiting for me!

So I had Steve take my picture last night – before running out to re-record last week’s episode of Manic Mommies – then prepared to print out the pictures this morning. Only to have him tell me that I’m smiling too much in the picture so they probably aren’t going to work anyway. (And, oh by the way, why didn’t we just finish dealing with this last night?)

I don’t know if he realizes how close he came to receiving an Epson to the head.

At this point I entered what I can only describe as a rage spiral. Forced to swallow the bitter and angry things I wanted to say (because, let’s face it, I do want to remain married to him, and I didn’t want to scare the children), I proceeded to do the only thing I could do – clean and stew in my own juices.

Everywhere I looked there was something that needed to be cleaned. The kids’ bedrooms, the bathrooms, the living room, the kitchen table (which has been covered coloring supplies for 2 weeks) and… the kitchen.

The kitchen floor was disgusting, covered in dirt and cereal and other unidentifiable bits of crap. It was a veritable feast for the many ants that have begun infesting our kitchen – a problem that my husband choose to solve, not by cleaning the kitchen, but by setting out traps. Little packets of poison that I predict my kids will find and start using as hockey pucks.

I felt like Mount Vesuvius – ready to explode at a moment’s notice (which I did when my husband dared to step into my just-cleaned kitchen wearing his work shoes).

On the train to work this morning I had time to cool off, and reflect on what was making me so angry. Then I remembered a conversation I had with another mom this weekend. She said that in an effort to get her children to understand what it said to her when she found piles of laundry on the floor, or piles of plates in the sink, she placed sticky notes on each item that said “I put this here for my mom to put away.”

And that, I realized this morning, is what was making me so angry. By not helping me with the passports Steve is either saying “I don’t want you going away on the Escape” or “I’m leaving this here for Kristin to deal with.” By not cleaning the kitchen he’s saying “I’m waiting for Kristin to clean this room.” And by leaving out the vacuum for 24 hours (after I asked him to use it in the living room) he’s says “I’m leaving this for Kristin to put away.”

Or, I should say, that’s how I take it.

So now I’m in the down cycle of my rage storm, suffering from my rage hangover and hoping my husband will return my call so I can move on with my day.

I wonder if we have an Excedrin in the kitchen?