(huff)

Huffs are almost necessary in the unwavering practise of ahimsa. (Sanskrit for non-violence, the Gandhian choice of warfare weaponry, whereby the war advocates truly can’t say the reason for invasion is that you are a threat. That’s like saying trees are a threat to our debatably civilised way of life.) Lots of people use them (huffs, that is, not trees) as viable alternatives to other destructive behaviour modeled after MMA, WWF, or provincial legislatures during question period.
A bored and lonely student, I found the resulting environment much friendlier if Teacher left the room in a huff than if she started chucking scissors, desks, playground sports equipment, her flower vases, or the temporary petting zoo. Those cages had sharp edges. She could have massacred all her educationally stimulating wall displays that no one ever noticed. The infliction of pain was substantially less that way, to all of us tiny tots and the animals alike. So if Johnny had the guts and the insight to see one coming, he’d rush to open the door for her. No one ever knew what or who the uproar was about, but we all appeared less bored ten minutes later when she returned, having combed her hair, all pert as if the day was to start anew.
Later, as a supposed instructor of younger people, I had the occasional huff. Not prone to interior decoration, keeping of classroom pets and the like, I was avoiding outright fist or palm cruelty which would result in a loss of that supposed license to teach, the one I’d forged. At the back of my head was a commitment to Gandhi’s ways. Still the door would slam on the way out.
On the occasion of my first totally unplanned and spontaneous huff, I found another individual in the staff room, my choice of recuperation resort.
The local superintendent of schools looked at my clenched fist and mumbled, “You did the right thing.”