Sunday night.

Popcorn in hand, children placed firmly on couch.

The phenomenon to change a generation, and provide us with a tall order of life lessons to go.

You may as well confess; you know exactly what I’m talking about. In fact, of the 17 million some-odd viewers who added High School Musical 2 to Disney Channel’s growing list of “I can’t believe they pulled that off. . . AGAIN!” specials, I know you were sitting down right next to your 5-year-old, virtually on the edge of your recliner in anticipation. (Why, yes, Kevin Federline, I do believe I am staring directly at you.)

. . . So, who else LOLed at the sight of Zac Efron loudly proclaiming his current frustrations on top of a choice golf hill?

The truth is, while you were giggling uncontrollably at the thought of the spectacle that dear Zachary would have made of himself had it not been a closed movie set, strutting his little dance and throwing sand in the wind for dramatic effect, there was something in you calculating which end of your local golf range would be most ideal to give it a go yourself. Why is this? Simple; people want to yell.

You may be sitting there clicking the comment link as this essay continues, typing something that closely resembles “Now, what is it you mean when you say ‘People want to yell?’ Is this some strange piece of wisdom that you have found true in your long seventeen years that you feel should reach the masses? Do you even have your braces off yet?” Well, to answer in an orderly fashion, ‘I’ll tell you in a minute; yes; no, but I do in spirit!’

All unnecessary jokes aside, the simple meaning of ‘people want to yell’ is, actually just that; that all adults and teenagers and in-betweens of the current world desire – and need – to have their aggravation known. As children, we are often reprimanded for yelling out of term, sent to our room for temper-tantrums, slapped with a ‘no desert’ penalty for crying over eating vegetables - the list goes on. Yes, it seems like a good thing to do as a parent, to teach children manners and to save a few ear follicles for the terrible twos and the teenage years; however, there comes a time in a person’s life where we ourselves must break this ongoing mantra of being ‘ladylike’ or ‘more like a gentleman’ for the sake of mental well-being.

Okay. So the next question coming; “Say you’re right, and everyone at one point needs to sacrifice the idea of dignity for a little while to scream out loud. What’ll that do?” Why, my dear friends, it will do nothing! It will not finish your homework, it will not baby-sit your children, it will not save your computer from 20,000+ threats a day, nor will it pay your mortgage – but it’ll sure make you feel a whole load better. What is yelling, after all, but a release of energy, a letting go of what’s what? Sometimes, things will be how they are, regardless of what we want, and sometimes there’s something we can do about it, and sometimes there’s not. However, letting go of our stress and our aggravations can bring us that much closer to acceptance, or a possible change of action. But, don’t get me wrong just yet – there’s a method to this ‘yelling’.

I want you all to try something now. It seems a bit cheesy and. . . weird, but bear with me. Think back to the first job you truly, truly hated. You’re now down on your luck in the worst way. You’re in a pretty bad apartment (which may or may not be mama’s basement), your significant other is losing interest, you don’t even know if they have a word to describe how far below minimum wage your salary currently rests, you don’t get off your shift for another 4 hours, and the weird kid who works with you keeps announcing the time in Swedish at every five-minute interval. All of a sudden, your boss walks in. You remember her, now, don’t you? She’s the one who forgot to put you on the work schedule for all of last week and keeps ending all of her sentences with “Capisce?” Yeah, I don’t like her either. At the present time, she’s here on business, making sure everything is in order so that she can screw it up and leave you with the mess. She presently reaches over you and opens the register you’re standing in front of, making you jump from the suddenness of it, and goes through to make sure the 10’s and 20’s are all in the right slots, and that you’re actually giving correct change, that you haven’t treated yourself to a 5 here or there. . . and then, she turns to you and, after stating rather pointedly that your pants are more of a mountain emerald rather than the army green your uniform includes, says “By the way, I can’t really stay tonight. You’re going to have to stay three more hours to cover my shift. Capisce?” To which you nod politely and smile until your cheekbones hurt.

Now, I’m not suggesting, in any way, that you should stand there and let fly every curse in your vocabulary to describe why, in fact, those three hours don’t fit in your schedule at the moment. In fact, I’m not even suggesting that you be mad at this woman, the kid with the Swedish, or anyone else. But what’s the harm in a good, healthy scream in the backyard before finally getting to bed? No words, no accusations, not even any one person or event in mind; just one, long, satisfying yell to dispel the constant activity in your mind, all the tension in your muscles. . . you’d be surprised at how refreshed you feel. And, it is actually quite amazing just how much better your week goes just from screaming into your pillow routinely.

I learned this little life tip fairly recently myself, just over two days ago. I was sitting at work all day with my boss (who I, unlike the imaginary aforementioned terror of a woman, love like you have no idea), just lounging around and yawning and wondering where all the bloody customers were. As I work at a massage spa, my job is usually the epitome of relaxation – however, this day was just not working out for me. Really. It wasn’t. I called a few friends to disperse the utter quiet now and again, wished a happy birthday to my friend as he walked past the store on his delivery route. . . but really, I was just in a very foul mood for no particular reason, one way or another. It was then that my friend casually mentioned to me on the phone that my Speech and Debate coach of three years, who I consider one of the most decent, loving, trustworthy people I have ever come to know, was finally forced to leave the school in search of a higher paying job.

I stared. One minute, two minutes, three. . . just stared.

He was the tenth person to leave my school in the past two years, I later calculated, most of those losses attributed to the same reasons; a couple retirements, a maternity leave here and there, but in most cases, it just came down to the money. And honestly, in my mind, it just did not seem fair, by any stretch of the imagination; when you come out of college dedicating the rest of your life to helping people make something of themselves, don’t you at least deserve the security of knowing you’ll have enough money to make it through? In an ideal world, yeah – but things don’t work that nicely. I was just so infuriated, so tired, so lost for words that these people couldn’t stay at our school, where they taught and laughed and loved. . .

And, this is where my story ties in; I screamed. No words in particular, no thoughts; just screamed in this numb kind of sensation – which, in hindsight, probably didn’t do much for the Zen of the spa.

But, it was only after screaming my mind out and letting my voice go dry and my body grow tired from the effort (and, on a side note, assuring my boss that I was in no state of physical distress) that I was granted a new prospective. Who was I to feel sorry for my coach? Some preppy Catholic school girl who was probably more concerned about my Speech team than him? Pretty much. Truth was, I was in no position, in any light, to feel anything but utter happiness for the man – after all, he had gotten another job (one that deserves him better and pays much more), was working closer to home, and was only days away from becoming a father for the first time. Sure, it is hard to leave a place like a school, after working there for so many years – but honestly, who could feel sorry for that in comparison? I knew I couldn’t – and I don’t.

So, then, if I’ve now turned your opinion on the statement that “people want to yell”, I want you to go home and go for the trial period. I mean, honestly, what’ve you got to lose? (. . . actually, I’m not going to answer that.) But, seriously, you may just surprise yourself on how true this may or may not be. You may be a bellower, a scratchy head-voicer – and hey, who knows; we may have a few internal screamers here. Just give it a go. When you’re feeling a little troubled, or if your stress level is slowly rising to one you don’t particularly care for, grab a pillow and have a nice, long yell.

But, uh, make sure you use that pillow – it may be a tough one to explain to the neighbors.

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