Slam, slam, slammin on heaven's door

Early man had no need for anger management classes. I can prove it. The most satisfying thing you can do in the midst of an impotent rage is to slam a door. Now, I could be wrong, but giving the mammoth skin draped over your Pleistocene domicile a good shove was going to do nothing for a red-eyed glimmer of violence. Perhaps this lack of need for violence against domestic furniture and appliances had something to do with running on thick-skinned feet through the quaggy plains and plunging a flint-tipped stick into a giant toothed beast. Next time you feel tempted to hurl a plate across the kitchen, how about knapping a stone until it has a point, binding it to a piece of wood using strips of leather, and heading out into the neighbourhood looking for something to brutalise?

Why do some bosses claim that an open-door policy is better than a closed-door one? Frankly, an open-door removes the boss-ness you should be striving to keep in place- the ability to keep the employees worriedly glancing at your door handle while they filch paper clips and send scanned pictures of their butts to rude clients. As a matter of courtesy, the boss’s door should be kept snug within its frame, the threat of suspension or unemployment walled up within like the freakish inbred son of some distant twig from the royal family tree.

Bathroom doors are great- although it is disconcerting to find your children peering through the keyhole. They aren’t used to closed doors, so curiosity gets the better of them. It’s a habit you hope they grow out of. In some societies (and prisons/military camps) it is considered normal to have communal toilets. Which is why I am careful never to commit crime or volunteer for the army. One gets stage-fright.

Doors are best slammed after being inspected thoroughly. In order to get the full satisfaction of a doorslam during a moment of rage, you need to:
a) Make sure that it doesn’t have a rubber frame protector which can cause it rebound and strike you in the face
b) Inspect for those slow-closing hinge mechanisms, or it will not slam, so much as go whoooooooooosh.
c) Make sure that you have alternate access to the room- if the handle breaks off owing to the force of the slam, you could be stuffed. (That may or may not be based on personal experience).
d) Above all: NEVER, EVER slam a revolving door. It isn’t satisfaction repeated, so much as the sense of being stuck on the fast-spin cycle of the washing machine.

I love the way that the exotic island of Zanzibar was once famous for the incredible carved wooden doors. So popular were these doors that wealthy westerners bought most of them, presumably so that they can get the sensation of what it feels like to slam a door in Zanzibar whenever they are cross. The people of Zanzibar, curiously, have been much, much calmer, with the delicate island breezes blowing through their ravaged door-frames.