One day shortly after engaging the services of an anger management therapist, the writer and humorist Joe Queenan was nearly bowled over by a skateboarder on Park Avenue in Manhattan. "The old me would have elbowed the SOB," Queenan later reported. "But now that I was dissolving all past issues in peace and grace, I sidled to the right. He almost killed me as he whipped past...

"The better part of me already understood that anger was a blind alley, a dead end that led only to more anger... The pink cloud was really the way to go here...

"I got out my pen, entered the relevant data about the skateboarder in my Anger Log, and then grabbed a cab. We passed the diminutive scuzzball six blocks down Park. I got out a block ahead and waited on the corner for him to pass. Because of a crowd outside the Regency Hotel, he had to dismount. I came up behind and gave him a hard swat across the back of the head.

"'The f---?' he said.

"'I accept myself completely as I am, though I recognize areas for improvement,' I said, reholstering my workbook. 'I process my anger in healthy and healing ways, and release all pain and sadness from my heart in peace. Consider yourself lucky that I'm in anger management, dickface. Otherwise, I'd really mess you up."