No Complaints Here

Hello Friends, and people who have no personal relationship with me but have a strange taste for gross stuff and way too much time on their hands :) 


I realise it may have been a while, apologies. It was recently my birthday and my very good friend (I can't remember if I've mentioned him before so we'll re-name him...Pedro) couldn't make it up to H-town which was very sad times. However, lucky for me he is a very talented graphic designer and in penance for his absence he sent me this: 

 For those of you of the simpler intellect, it's a book! My blogs are, in the loosest sense of the word, published! And he's even illustrated each blog, can you spot them all?

However, as the book ends at my last blog (virtual-oso for those who haven't read it - do it, I have it on good authority that it's a corker!) I've been apprehensive about writing a new one. Hopefully Pedro will get on to a sequel for my Christmas present...

Minor showing off out of the way now, let's begin! Today's blog begins with a paradox, or, at least, a fair whack of hypocrisy. I'm complaining about...complaining! Now how does that work?

I seem to be under some sort of terrible curse. I'll go to a restaurant, let's say with a group of friends, and order dinner as this tends to be what people do in restaurants and, as you know, I'm all about convention. However, and I must stress this fact, WITHOUT FAIL if there is going to be a dinner forgotten, it will be mine. If there is to be a chicken undercooked, mine will be that unfortunate bird. If I order a coke with no ice or lemon, or a burger with no lettuce, the fates have ordained that there shall forever be ice and lemon in that coke, and lettuce in that burger. I may be being a little melodramatic, but it's often my order that gets messed up, and I who has to do that heinous and most unpleasant of tasks: complaining. 

You must be thinking; 'But you're a blogger! You went on a 4 paragraphs-long rant because your best friend farts on the toilet and then flushes. Surely complaining comes as easily to you as not showering or trumping in public?' You would think, but no, dear friends, I cannot complain to save my life. I am a complete wuss. Yesterday I had to ring up a lady who'd given me a health test because what she prescribed wasn't working, and I had to have 3 practice run-throughs of the potential conversation with Jake first before I would even dial. 


I would say this may be a terribly uptight british thing but we LOVE complaining about stuff, in private. The weather, food, films, politics; you name it, we find fault with it, but if we get a hideous haircut, we still smile away when the hairdresser holds the mirror up at the back and asks 'is this ok?' and when the waitress asks that annoying question 'is everything ok for you here?' we nod and smile and even leave a tip at the end of the meal! I will wait for hours before I finally muster up the nerve to ask where my meal has got to, I will scoop the ice out of my coke and drop it on the floor (don't judge me) before I will mention that I said 'no ice'. Why do we do it? Because we don't want to cause a fuss, because we don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, because we'd rather risk samonella than send back our chicken and embarass everyone else around the table. It's nuts. 

And I'm not saying we should all go into our local McDonalds and demand five-star dining. I have worked in a shop and those annoying customers who come in and demand a return still bring me out in a cold sweat. But if someone provides a service or a product that's, frankly, crap, we shouldn't just grin and bear it, but say something with as much poise and serenity as we can muster. Don't be the kind of complainer that yells until their dinner gets refunded, but then their pudding comes with a not-so-secret spitty ingredient. A quiet word and a smile works infinitely better.

But you get these people who have the opposite problem to me, they complain about EVERYTHING trivial in life, and that's just as bad. Don't complain about stupid stuff like your crisps aren't crispy enough or your plate wasn't placed from the left and taken from the right. Get over it! There are so many bigger problems in the world, you could be using your complaing powers for good, and not for the dark side. I have very low standards for general food quality and hygiene standards *salutes*, if it's so bad that even I don't want to eat it, then I think it's time to speak up. But, as in all things, speak out against it if it's unfair, if not, just shut up and eat. There are people starving you know, complain about that, not how much dressing you got on your salad.