Complaints ain't what they used to be

As people, we love to complain, even though it doesn't seem like we're as good at it as we used to be. And by that I mean the things we choose to complain about. I'm not talking about those with real legitimate problems, whose lives are kind of awful and they really don't have the means at their disposal to do anything about it. Those people should be granted the slack of at least getting to bitch about it. But usually, those are the people who are least likely to do so. Instead, it's those with too many privileges to count who are just running their mouths to get attention because somehow, everything else they have just isn't enough. They want you to think they have it rough but they have no idea what that really means.

For example, it's not uncommon to hear someone start a sentence with "There's nothing worse than.." When I hear that, my mind is already flashing forward to how they're going to finish that statement. Being raped in prison? Abusing children? Genocide? A giant spider with Adolph Hitler's head? But what invariably follows is something mundane like "losing a sock" or "realizing your out of milk AFTER you've eaten a donut". Basically, things that wouldn't even qualify as a problem in most places on the planet where people somehow manage to get through life without knowing what socks or donuts are.

Recently, I walked into the break room at work and found a co-worker restocking the little bowl of coffee creamers. "Ugh, I have to do everything around here!"  Let me point out that this was in the break room at work, and not on the floor of a factory that fills little bowls with coffee creamers all day long. If she honestly believed what she said, I wonder what she thinks all the employees who weren't in the break room at that exact moment were doing.

Yep. Masturbating. Again.

An even better...and by better, I mean much, much worse...example is something said to me the other day:

"My cleaning lady keeps putting the toilet paper on the roll the wrong way."

Well, back to Guatemala (or wherever) for you then!

I'm assuming they mean that she orients the roll so that the toilet paper feeds from underneath instead of over the top. Because unless she's doing something with it that precludes you from being able to wipe your butt, absolutely no combination of words in that statement can be re-arranged to indicate a problem. That is, at absolute worst, an extremely easy-to-correct temporary suspension of a personal preference. I don't think it even qualifies as an annoyance. It certainly doesn't merit the expulsion of breath required to voice it as a complaint. I heard that and all I could do is ask for their address. When they asked why, I said, "so I can burn down your home and give you an idea of what a REAL problem is." After all, anybody who mentions they have a "cleaning lady" in the process of whining about something deserves to be stabbed to death with one of those little forks designed specifically for olives, because they probably have some.

Look, I get it. It's fun to complain (see: at least half of this very blog). And hyperbole is a great way to get attention (see: about three quarters of this very blog). But maybe, since there are actually situations that are truly horrible in the world, we could scale it back just a little? If not, can we at least get the rich people to shut the hell up?