My biggest complaint right this minute is broken fingernails. I’ve been trying to grow my nails out, to get them all even, so I could get a no-chip manicure that will cost me thirty-five dollars, only last two weeks because that’s what nails do, they grow, then I’ll be irritated that I have to go back again to get a fill and who has that kind of time and money but damn, I don’t want tips and the no-chip lasts longer than the cheapie old-fashioned don’t touch anything with your drying nails technique so it’s totally worth it and I love pretty nails. First my right thumb nail broke. Then the opposite hand ring finger nail split. You know I’m going to have to trim each of the remaining nails down and start growing them out again. I’m lucky I can type at all considering the imbalance of nail lengths.
This totally sucks.

Now, you know that is NOT my biggest complaint right this minute. You KNOW there are bigger things on my mind. But this one, this silly superficial fingernail problem is one I can share.

I know you know. Maybe not about fingernails, but something similarly shallow.

Maybe you stepped in dog crap cutting through the grass to your car on your way to work and didn’t realize until you arrived, wondering what that smell was the whole time only to discover that the poo the color of cumin—what they heck are they feeding that dog, anyway– is ground into your Audi Q3 floor mats and scraped onto the brake pedal. And wedged really deep into the tread of your Florsheim which you inevitably track into the office where, swearing under your breath the whole time, you try to dig it out with your favorite pen despite a box of straws in the lounge drawer. #FWP

Maybe they got your five dollar coffee order wrong. First they make you call it a grande café au lait which is a conflict of cultural and linguistic sensibilities and then they give you some sort of café latte which you did not order and do not want. All you really want is a good old fashioned plain black coffee with a dollop of half and half in a warm ceramic mug, a coffee light. But no, you got a light with some coffee. The ratios are way off. And you wanted a mug. Five bucks. Five. Bucks. For a disposable cup of brown milk. But you drink it. Otherwise that would be wasteful, right? #FWP

Maybe your dog ran straight through your new screen door in pursuit of the cat he could never catch even if he hadn’t been slowed down—minutely—by that pesky mesh. (Okay, that’s mine, too.) #FWP

Believe it or not, I do have a point. Social media has made complaining a daily duty.
I FaceBook therefore I overshare.
I tweet therefore I #whine.
I text therefore I SMH.

Seriously, we complain about the tiniest things now. There is a certain camaraderie in sharing updates regarding that hole in our favorite sock or the bottle of wine we drank despite the crumbly cork falling in or those stupid kids who talked through the entire movie or…
There’s always another “or”.

Venting releases tension. We can vent over the small stuff.
Come on, despite the book, it’s NOT all small stuff. Some of life’s distress is kind of major and not something to be publicly declared.

But the little things, the small stuff, the First World Problems, those are worthy of a post.
A like. A comment. A share.

Venting publicly is therapeutic. It seems proactive, it feels like problem-solving. Everyone has an opinion, an experience, an “OMG, IKR”.
In this way, we are not alone.
We understand.
We find comfort in that.

We know our issues are selfish and petty and minor compared to the second, third and fourth world problems. But the ones we can complain about, the ones that don’t matter, they bring us together in a way the big things tend to divide.

At a least a few of you thought, “Oh my God, I hate broken fingernails!”
I know, right.

(I blog therefore I am.)