Temper, Temper

I was just thinking on the way home about the horrible temper I used to have. It peaks its ugly face out now and then but for the most part, it is confined (sometimes actively).
When I was but a lad, I did not know how to control it. One time after church a friend of my mom's grabbed me and threw me over her knee (just playing around of course) I have been told that I started kicking and screaming something fierce. It got to the point that by the time my mother made it there she had to tell the woman to go ahead and let go and then move quickly away. She had to shake me a bit until I was able to focus again. I was not just mad. I WAS RAGE.
Actually now that I think about it, once I started smoking it really helped me get a handle on this problem. With this beast inside me, I have shattered clipboards against walls, leapt into the air just to dent a metal slide with a punch and there are others but honestly, I cannot really recall them. The world literally goes red for me and I am gone. It's really rather scary.
One time when I was like, 19 or so I was out and about with two of my friends (Smith and Jones) and a tag along buddy Scotty. Scotty and I were in the back seat and I was wearing my trademark leather fringe jacket. Scotty had decided that it would be funny to tie this golf pencil into one of the leather strips on my jacket. I asked him nicely not to do this. I asked him many times. I warned him even “don't do this”. Finally, he was done and quite pleased with his work.
I was mad.
I then spent the next 15 minutes trying to untie this pencil from my coat (getting madder and madder as the time progressed). Once done, and I remember this vividly, I smiled at Scotty. He smiled back and giggled. I smiled back and held the pencil up as if to say “looky!” He giggled again. I then spun the pencil in my fingers and slammed it point down into his thigh. Calamity ensued and that was the end of that. Scotty moved over as far as he could from me and nursed his injured leg.
Later I had learned that a discussion had taken place up front about the incident, about who would have one in an actual fight. Jones mentioned to Smith “ZomB ought to be more careful! Scotty's a lot bigger then him and he wrestles, so he's got all that muscle” to which Smith replied “Yeah, true! Scotty has some meat on him but ZomB's crazy. Nothing short of knocking him out is gonna stop him and more then likely he would have tried to kill him.”
Jones thought about it a bit and agreed.

Why do I remember this so vividly? I keep it fresh in my head to remind myself of where I can go and where I don't want to go. Proud of it? No. Why would I be? Luckily, now days I have mellowed due to time, age, the aforementioned smoking, and my temper rarely rears its head.