Читать книгу Grumpy Old Men: New Year, Same Old Crap - David Quantick - Страница 33

Complaining is, from time to time, a good and useful thing (see PEOPLE WHO DON’T COMPLAIN).

‘That man is setting fire to our car!’

‘Goodness! We should say something!’

But in all fairness, the preceding fictional example is about standing up for yourself, rather than complaining, which is defined by most dictionaries as: ‘being a whingeing git who will try anything to ruin someone’s day, so long as they can do it just by talking in a droney voice about someone else’s perceived faults.’

Complaining is bad because it combines only negative elements. For a start, it offers no solutions. The old scumbollock who knocks on your front door because your ball has gone over his fence yet again rarely offers to buy you a PlayStation or suggest that you grow some leylandii (see LEYLANDII) so that your ball will bounce back into your own garden. No, he just wants to complain. Preferably while either handing you back a ball that has been deflated with some old-man scissors, or while hinting that somewhere, possibly in his shed or his odoury bedroom, there is a magical pile of balls, all collected over the years, some possibly signed by Bobby Moore, or even kicked over the wall by Bobby Moore as a lad.

Then there’s the moany factor. If a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet (and here’s a clue: they aren’t), then a complainer is just a lonely, stinky attention-seeker you haven’t met yet. Complaining is the flip-side of making pals with people. Unable – thanks to their vile personalities, totally negative outlook, and obsession with keeping other people’s footballs – to form normal relationships, complainers are forced to resort to a different tactic. Complaining.

When someone knocks on your door in the morning to complain about the fact that they could just about hear your Brian Eno CD after 10.30 p.m. if they stood on a ladder and jammed their ear up to the ceiling in a toothglass full of sophisticated surveillance equipment, they’re not just there for the joy of making your life unpleasant. They’re lonely and friendless and would do anything for human company.

Unfortunately, they are also very bad people who, when they die, will go to a special hell where demons will constantly kick footballs into their burning garden, play music loudly after ten thirty at night, take their milk from the fridge without replacing it, and never put the lid back on either the toothpaste or the toilet.