Anger Room lets you vent with a baseball bat and heavy metal
Jan 3, 2017, 5:43 PM | Updated: Oct 11, 2024, 9:54 am
Have you ever wanted to destroy a hotel room, rock star style? Do you get so frustrated with work, you want to take a baseball bat to the fax machine, like the infamous Office Space scene? Sounds like you need Anger Room.
Anger Room is a business in Dallas that lets you pay to come and destroy a room with the weapon of your choice.
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“We get you all geared up in safety gear from head to toe,” explained Anger Room CEO and founder Donna Alexander. “Then we go through music and weapon selection with you. Then we introduce you to your room.”
“So in an office space you’d see computers and desks, a mannequin, paperwork, printer, things like that,” she said. “Or if you had a living room you’d have a television, sofa, dishes. We put the music on and let you have at it for five, 15 or 25 minutes. Or until you get tired.”
The Anger Room
Alexander first came up with the idea when she was 16 years old, growing up in Chicago.
“We had a problem back then, around 1998, with the overpopulation of our jail system,” she said. “I thought that I could help out if there was a place where people could go to destroy stuff because I knew a lot of people who went to jail for punching holes in walls and slashing people’s tires. What if they had a place for people like that where you could do it and not get in trouble for it?”
Cut to 2008, when Donna decided to put her idea into motion. At first she invited friends over to her garage and charged them $5 to break stuff. And eight years ago she started an official business where people can pay to take out their anger in a safe environment.
“Our most common situations are relationship issues, divorces, family issues, holidays and work related issues,” she said.
Anger Room even hosts groups for divorce and bachelorette parties.
“There’s actually more women than men that participate,” she said. “When I first started I thought it was going to be more of a male thing. But it actually turned out to be more women.”
Alexander says most people choose gangster rap or heavy metal music and then they get to choose their weapon.
“Baseball bat, 2×4, golf club, metal pipe, sledgehammers and things like that,” she said. “But they can vary from day-to-day.”
At Anger Room you can pay extra to customize a room, which led to one of the strangest requests Alexander has ever had.
“A room full of playing cards!” she said. “He ripped them all into tiny pieces to classical music. We have no idea why he did it. That was one of the weirdest things we’ve had so far.”
Alexander says people are often exhausted after a session. There can be tears and high emotions, but it seems to relieve stress and not enhance it. She says they’ve never had a problem with a client taking their anger out on the staff or other guests.
A second Anger Room location is opening soon in Las Vegas and there’s a similar place in Toronto called Rage Room. If you’re ever angry … and in Canada.
