CSotD: Not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are whiners
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Tough topic today for two reasons:
One is that criticizing whiners is very apt to turn in on itself, and, as regular readers know, I try to avoid having too many Andy Rooney moments.
The prototypical Andy Rooney whine was when he complained about the air in potato chip bags, the whiney part being that, since he was Andy Rooney of 60 Minutes, he could have just picked up a phone, called a potato chip company and asked why they seal so much air in their chip bags.
Or, being a fairly intelligent fellow, he could have realized it's to keep the chips from being crushed in transit.
But then he would have had to find something else to whine about for his weekly segment.
The other problem in addressing this issue is that, to illustrate the topic, I would be likely, most days, to be in violation of the Prime Directive.
However, today, I came across a trio of cartoons that I liked, but which, if they don't quite illustrate my point, at least open the topic:
Bizarro links in to an entire school of whining, which is that, if you are one of several million people in a small geographical area, you're bound to come across a few people whom you'd rather not be in a small area with.
And, yeah, I don't know what a "wine spectator" is, either. I edited a paper called the Connecticut Valley Spectator, but we were supposed to watch and, in fact, journalistic ethics suggest that we're only supposed to watch, and not participate. But as much as I realize that's an impossible goal, it's not nearly as ridiculous as writing about wine without participating.
At least he is sitting with his knees together. She may be put off by his drunkenness, but we've had a word for that for eons. It would be far worse if he did something that required inventing a new, hip term for a public transit faux pas about which to complain.
Or, as I call it, "whinesplaining."
I mentioned the other day how New Yorkers have learned to deal with their claustrophobic existence by blowing up quickly and cooling off just as fast, which works for them but is disconcerting to their country cousins.
Some decades ago, I was in New York for a Newseum roundtable on the Lewinsky scandal and how White House coverage had (or hadn't) changed over the years. I was definitely the smallest name is a roomful of large names, and, afterwards, I was heading for Penn Station with one of them, and, as we knifed our way through the packed, quitting-time sidewalks, I said, "I know it's a cliche, but this is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."
He laughed and said that, when he was AP bureau chief there, he found it invigorating.
So there you go.
Still, pounding on a car hood and screaming "I'm walkin' here!" is a far cry from running into a rude person on the subway (Really? No!) and carrying the grudge home and nursing it long enough to make a creative meme.
When I lived in Maine, you didn't dare to complain about cold weather, because somebody was sure to respond, "Wall, ya live in Maine."
New Yorkers might consider adapting that phrase. Or …
… learning how to be assertive without being a jerk, since being a jerk tends to obscure your message.
Okay, this Argyle Sweater panel is a stretch, since it's simply a silly joke and not a comment on caps lock, but it comes about a day after some friend linked to a rant from a political site which consisted of a combination of F-bombs and caps-lock sentences, and my reaction was that it really didn't matter what the point was because it was written in Crazy Person, which I can read but don't.
It particularly struck me because I had recently had lunch with a friend who, at one point, said, "if you'll pardon my french," and I had to scroll back the conversation in my mind to even find the F-bomb, since she'd used the intensifier in such a normal, conversational fashion and context that it didn't leap out.
Similarly, there are ways of saying "Excuse me" that are not overly deferential but also don't provoke a fight.
Whiners whine, I think, because, on the one hand, their needs don't match their circumstances and, on the other, they feel incapable of either accepting the situation or acting to change it.
Which brings us to …
This delightful Sheldon, in which Dave Kellett bemoans a Big Bank's move to make life even less functional, pleasant and personal.
He's right, but it's not a hard problem to solve.
Last night, Bernie noted that there are six banks that control just about everything, and, while that's an issue on the macroeconomic scale that he was addressing, on the micro scale Kellett is addressing, the "just about everything" is crucial.
I used to have this idea that using a major bank was helpful because, if you were out of town, you would still have a branch nearby.
But direct deposit, and direct just about everything, has made that less important than it once was. I work with two small, community banks, one from my days in Maine because they allow me to use any ATM in the world without paying a fee, and one in my current town in case I need to drop by.
When I opened my local account, I got a handwritten thank-you note two days later. The biggest problem is that they told me it was okay to bring the dog in, and now he knows it to be a prime doggy-cookie-dispensing location, so I have to avoid even walking past it with him.
If either bank is ever swallowed by a giant, I will move my money. And I'll probably whine while I'm doing it, but then I'll be all better again.
Now, here's your moment of righteous urban whining …
(Yes, from Andy to Oliver. Now do you believe in evolution?)
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