Whining: A Way of Life

Whining is a very important part of my general existence. If I couldn't complain about every little thing in my life that goes wrong, I don't know what I'd do. I might take all that extra time on my hands and invent something truly awful, like a line of soaps that smelled like your favourite dinner. Surely there is a niche market for soaps that smell like garlic butter or turkey gravy, but I don't know if I want to be associated with those people.

The long and short of it is, complaining is important to me--important to the point that I will actually rearrange my daily schedule in order to fit complaining in. For instance, this morning, the first thing I thought of when I woke up was my need to complain to someone about what an awful sleep I'd had. It was actually the reason I got up; I could have slept in for a good hour more, but I was afraid that my parents would have left by then, and there's no satisfaction in complaining to the cats. I decided that I had enough time to brush my teeth before going to complain, but not enough time to make my bed. This caused me a twinge of anguish, because I generally can't leave my room happily unless my bed has been made. But today, I had been woken up at 4 o'clock in the morning by a friend who had gotten her Amys mixed up, and people needed to know about this*.

I went downstairs. The parents were both still in the dining room. Excellent. I had time to make myself breakfast, but I would have to go for cold cereal; making toast was too much of an involved process, and Mum and Dad could leave at any minute. Hurriedly I filled my cereal bowl, went back into the dining room, and sat down. I waited for a lull in the conversation. Then I began to complain. I had even planned an opening hook--"Julia got her Amys mixed up last night"--to trick my parents into thinking this was the beginning of an interesting story, instead of just a whining session.

Unfortunately, I had picked the wrong generation of people to complain to. One of the crucial differences between my parents' generation and my own is the likelihood that their cellphones will be on at any point in time. The only time when it's okay for a member of the Millenial generation to have his or her cellphone turned off is if they are at work. If he/she is sleeping, eating, showering, at a funeral, getting married, making passionate love to someone, or is otherwise busy, they probably have their phone on silent. Ergo, of course my cellphone would be on at 4am, and, unfortunately, since the ringer is automatically on Loud when it's plugged in to charge, the damned thing rang and woke me up.

I don't think Generation X has this problem, though. At least, Dad doesn't. After my whining was ended, he informed me that I should have just turned my cellphone off, and he had very little sympathy for me. Damn. I should have played up the "i'm still sick" angle of things. I should have explained that I had to leave my phone on because I was coughing so badly I was afraid I would have to call an ambulance to come pick me up, and I should have added that Julia woke me up a mere 2 hours before I finally managed to fall asleep after a long battle with a frustratingly plugged up nose. At least half of that explanation would be true. I hadn't fully prepared myself before commencing the complaining! I had complaint-blocked myself.

Thoroughly unsatisfied, I retreated my room, to write a blog post complaining about my failed attempt at complaining.


*I was THEN awoken again at 9 am by someone who wanted to discuss the sexual practices of elephants with me, but I couldn't whine about that because 9 is a perfectly reasonable time to text someone, and also I had started that conversation in the first place.