On March 2, 2022, my fellow entertainment section writers and I drove into Tacoma to smash home decor with blunt objects.

Legally, of course, and within a safe, confined space. For years I’d been hearing about rage rooms—private rooms filled with objects that you can destroy—but I’d never felt the need to go to one. However, curiosity won me over, and I found a place online called Brainy Actz in Tacoma. 

So off we headed at 7:00 p.m., excitedly driving through the rain, horrible visibility, and pothole-filled highway that is SR-18 on a school night. 

At this point, I was hesitant about the whole experience—the brutal reviews online for the rage room in Brainy Actz only fueled my lack of faith. Within the hour I’d be finding out if those reviews were accurate and I’d just wasted $40 or if BrainyActz could prove Yelp trolls wrong. 

Upon arrival, we were met with enthusiasm from the two front workers who handed us tablets to fill out our waivers, and then we headed towards the basement labeled “The Dungeon” to begin our experience. Our host took us all into the room and gave us a brief explanation of how it all worked. Don’t hit the metal bench, floors, lights, walls, or door. Do hit everything else. 

Next up was putting on our protective gear. We were handed two-layer Dickies carpenter suits,  massive helmets with a face shield that could flip up, and damp gloves. Were they damp from sweat or being sanitized? I chose to remain oblivious and settle on the latter. 

Only one person could participate in the rage room at a time, so entertainment section co-editor Ally Stucky entered first, playing “Yeezus” by Kanye West as her background music. Entertainment section co-editor Vincent Le and I then began a twenty-minute conversation with our host while Ally was furiously slamming things in the room, laughing in between words every time we heard her hit something new. 

Ally was then pulled from the room after her time limit ran out, and it was my turn to enter. I anxiously asked her what she did and how I should approach it and was told to just hit everything in sight. 

So that’s exactly what I did—right after restarting “Yeezus” and closing the knobless door (you had to bang really hard on the door and wait on your host to rescue you if you wanted to come out). 

I’m not an angry person, but I was in the zone for those next 20 minutes. I started by violently pitching three mason jars into the back right corner of the room, which was by far the most satisfying activity out of everything the room offered. I then decided to test the three available weapons out, starting with an insanely heavy sledgehammer to break a wood pallet plank apart.

Then, I tried out the long metal rod and crowbar on the same pallet and found that the crowbar was quite effective against the splintering wood. Once I got tired, I moved on to hitting the metal wire in the corner of the room as well as a weird metal cylinder filled with paper towels. 

I was scrambling around the room at this point looking for more mason jars, half-blinded by the fog in my face shield. I took a moment to recuperate so that I could set some glasses up on the floor to hit like golf balls with the metal rod and clear my face shield so that I could see again. Then I was back to work, jumping on some planks of wood until it seemed silly and abusing a few more items I found. 

When my time was up, I emerged red-faced and dripping sweat, wishing that the AC in the rage room hadn’t been broken. It was easily the best workout I’ve ever done, but it felt a little embarrassing when I took the helmet off and my hair looked like I had just sat in the rain for an hour. 

Vincent went last, leaving the room in complete shambles. After another thirty minutes, we thanked our host and left the facility feeling refreshed. 

While I still left the room with a bit of residual stress about tests I had coming up, I was in a significantly better mood for the rest of the night from the sheer fun and peculiarity of the whole ordeal. I advise you not to hold back at all if you plan on trying out a Rage Room– I imagine I wouldn’t have had that lingering anxiety if I did the same. 

BrainyActz fulfilled its promise to have us leave their facility feeling more relaxed than we had felt when we entered, and I discovered that smash therapy is actually pretty effective. 

Overall, I would recommend that everyone try out a rage room. The one thing I would change about my experience would be going to Goodwill before the rage room and buying things to smash, as BrainyActz allows for customers to bring their own items. But despite this, the rage room is an experience I will never forget, and I can’t wait to go again.