“That’s enough of that…”

Limits— buttons pushed, levers pulled, camels backs broken, someone standing on that last nerve. Was it someone tapping a pencil incessantly? Or maybe the sun was shining on your face as you were trying to sleep one off? Could it be the way your mother fawns over your little sister more than she does you?

We all have that end of the rope where tolerance runs out and we react in a way to somehow erase the annoyance. Are we diplomats? Warriors? Or ostriches ( as one of the dearest souls reminded me— somethings are easier to dismiss than face). How did your reaction make you feel? Justified, or regretful?

Then there is the other side of the coin. Did you act peevish towards someone because you found a chink in their armor, or you were hiding from your own weakness? Did you dig, prod, poke, bad mouth, pester, and/or bother them until they came at you with “That’s enough of that?”

How we answer to being annoyed to the point of snapping, or being snapped at because we were a nuisance can speak volumes about who we are, or try to be.

On the surface, this prompt looks like it is attempting to provoke a lesser emotion of being annoyed, bur like every other facet of life, we can wheedle this into an introspective look at our personal limits and how we handle ourselves when those boundaries are breached.

Thus we begin the new cycle of memoir prompts here at Extreme Writing Now. Open your answer with “That’s enough of that…” and see where your boiling point is.

If you want to have your memoir call back published here, register and contact me for Author Permission (no editing takes place for any submission), or you can send me the content to publish.

Contact me at: r.alex.crabtree@gmail.com

Have fun!