What are you angry about?

Egg prices? Tariffs? Tipping for counter service? “The White Lotus” finale?

There’s no question people are worked up about all sorts of things these days, and while some are channeling their anger by gathering in protest or posting on social media, a new Topsham business is offering another option with all the visceral benefits and none of the virtue signaling: breaking stuff.

The Wreck Room opened in January and every month since, demand has multiplied for its ax throwing, paint splatter, air-gun range and most of all, its rage rooms. Talk about meeting the moment. Aside from breakups, the current political climate is the most common reason people come in, said owner Brent Gumbs.

But despite his impeccable timing, that’s not why he started the business. Growing up in New Hampshire, Gumbs said he saw too many of his peers turn to drugs and die of overdoses and “wanted to try to counteract that” by offering less self-destructive activities in the Midcoast, where he had noted a similar lack of things to do, especially in bad weather.

The rage rooms are the main attraction, offering a private space for customers to unleash their anger by taking a bat or a hammer to various breakable objects ($20 for 10 small items, $35 for 20), including vases, Mason jars and, for an additional cost, appliances like TVs, toasters and crockpots.

Although rage rooms have been around for more than a decade, there aren’t many in Maine, and none in the southern part of the state. Perhaps we had been too peaceable a lot until now.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t feeling particularly ragey when I decided to head up to Topsham to give it a try. It was sunny out and a lovely day for a drive; I might as well have been whistling on my way into the building.

But pretty quickly, things got serious. First, there was the waiver, releasing The Wreck Room of any responsibility for whatever I did to myself in there. Then I was given a plastic face shield and what looked like gardening gloves to protect me from the shards of glass flying from the objects I was about to break and those in the pile of previously smashed material on the floor.

Inside the rage room, atop the broken pieces of household objects, was a plastic tub holding 10 items: a pint glass, some Mason jars and vases, a ceramic mug, a pail and a cooking pot lid. There was also an old water heater lying on its side that Gumbs said was for people to beat on or to prop up the items before hitting them into the wall, like some sort of very impractical tee.

In the corner were several baseball bats, a hammer and a pickax. A former softball player, I’m always down to swing at things, so I grabbed a bat, set a pint glass on the water cooler and took a timid whack, sending the cup against the wall and its remnants flying back at me. Did they get in my hair? Were they stuck on my clothes? Frantically wiping myself of imaginary shards, I could tell this wasn’t going to be my sport.

Gumbs said people take anywhere from five minutes to an hour to get through 10 objects, with some picking up broken pieces to smash again or hammering at the pile on the ground. I just wanted it to be over, so I dutifully set up the various objects and hit them against the wall, hoping at some point I’d get past my newly discovered fear of flying glass and start feeling the benefits.

Truthfully, I didn’t give my inner rage much of a chance. Though I’m no physicist, it seemed that the harder I hit these things, the faster the shards flew back. So, rather than swinging for the fences, I went for more of a slap hit followed by a flinch and duck, undoing any of my previous efforts to disprove gender stereotypes.

Although I never fully unleashed my anger, you don’t have to be bitter to enjoy The Wreck Room. You can shoot at glass bottles from a much more comfortable distance in the air-gun range or put on a full-body suit and take spray guns to the walls of the paint splatter room. There’s also a bar serving dozens of specialty cocktails, as well as snacks, with plans to add more food.

Gumbs has other ambitions, too. He’s getting a glass pulverizer to turn the broken objects into sand that he wants to donate to help restore the coastline. The day after I was there, he held his first trivia night and later that week, an ax-throwing competition.

Those sound like good activities to do any day, but I’ll wait to revisit the rage room until I’m having a worse one.