The Wit's Guide to Gripes

Or, useless complaints

The Cobbler’s Heel Turn, Adolf Echtler, 1878.

When a wit collects enough gripes, that individual congeals into a curmudgeon: Still clever in expression but eternally petty in subject matter. The stone stops rolling and starts gathering moss, and can’t stop griping about all that moss. It gets in everywhere! It always faces north! It’s too green!

“The world is so dreadfully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain.”
— Ronald Firbank

What’s the difference between a gripe and a complaint? On the dearly departed podcast Reply All, hosts Alex Goldman and P.J. Vogt routinely collected thousands of listener gripes and learned how to pick a good one. “Something that is annoying enough to complain about but mostly not annoying enough to do something about,” was how Goldman defined it. “They should be highly specific and also universal at the same time,” Vogt added. Their example of a perfect gripe: Stickers on fruit.

“I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain.”
— Lily Tomlin

Back when normal people used social media, there was no surer way for an otherwise likable individual to seem unhinged than to issue a public complaint against an airline. Gauche! Happily, that problem has solved itself, as there’s now a whole academy of scam artists who quickly respond to public complainers, pretending to be helpful customer service associates who just need to get your credit card number to process the refund.

“Any kiddies in school can love like a fool
But hating, my boy, is an art.”
― Ogden Nash

For a visceral reminder of how times have changed, take a flip through 112 Gripes About The French, a 1945 U.S. Army pamphlet handed out to G.I.s in newly liberated France. As an effort to keep the peace between the visitors and the locals, it features an admirable answer to every complaint a soldier might have.

“The French rub me the wrong way,” is answered with: “It was inevitable that some Frenchmen would rub some Americans the wrong way; the same goes for a Pittsburgher in New Orleans or a Texan on Fifth Avenue.”

What’s that? “All the French do is talk.” Well, “Frenchmen enjoy conversation. They consider it an art. They are, on the whole, skillful at it.”

And “Why do they knock off work for two to three hours every day?” Because “The average Frenchman maintains that a lunch eaten at leisure is a lot better than a chicken-salad-on-toast gobbled down at a drugstore counter.”

“Just because nobody complains doesn’t mean all parachutes are perfect.”
— Benny Hill

A gripe might also be known as a pet peeve, a term that made frequent appearances as the subject of David Letterman’s Top Ten lists. Number 9 on the magician’s list: “You’ve got a cold and all your handkerchiefs keep turning into doves.” Number 7 on the Easter Bunny’s list: “When the Gambinos won’t give you a lousy extra week to come up with the cash.” Number 1 on Batman’s list: “When people call him ‘The Batman.’ It’s just ‘Batman’, damn it!”

“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.”
— Bertrand Russell

In England, the pet peeve is known as a pet hate, which is a perfect way to frame it. It’s a hatred you’ve domesticated and can keep around the house; it won’t hurt anyone and it provides you some degree of comfort. I can recall having a novelty toy called the Pet Hate, a small cardboard box that, when opened, revealed a pair of angry eyes looking back at you. I think it was modelled after the Pet Rock, the 1970s fad that foreshadowed the Tamagotchi. And Pets Hate and Rock merged in Rocco, the stony companion of the Sesame Street character Zoe and persistent pet peeve of the otherwise easygoing Elmo. Why does Rocco get a cookie? Why should a rock be treated like a sentient being?

“Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.”
― Oliver Wendell Holmes

For the noblest defence of the gripe, turn to the late Paul Auster, who explained his position in a letter to fellow novelist J.M. Coetzee. “The truth is, griping can be fun,” he wrote in 2010, “and as rapidly aging gentlemen, seasoned observers of the human comedy, wise gray heads who have seen it all and are surprised by nothing, I feel it is our duty to gripe and scold, to attack the hypocrisies, injustices, and stupidities of the world we live in.”

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One man’s gripes are another’s grapes, said no one ever, and that’s the point of this month’s elegantly macabre Riposte Card by Natàlia Pàmies Lluís:

Pink and green! Who knew they worked so well together? Also cannibalism! And whose hand is that on the left? I’ll be sure to tell my paying subscribers when I mail a stack of these beautiful postcard-sized prints out to them later this month. Subscribe today!

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“I don’t have pet peeves like some people. I have whole kennels of irritation.”
― Whoopi Goldberg

It struck me the other day that, of the Seven Deadly Sins, we’ve only done Anger. And that was fun! So let’s work through the other six, shall we? Though I can only fit five below and was too lazy to include Sloth.

You know what really grinds my gears? When you ask someone how they’re doing and they say they can’t complain. Try harder! There are at least five annoying things in Issue No. 298 of Get Wit Quick to gripe about! The newsletter’s mascot is a magpie named Magnus after the magician in Robertson Davies’ Deptford Trilogy ― annoying! The lunch may well be chicken salad on toast ― unappetizing! The title font is Vulf Sans, the official typeface of the band Vulfpeck ― elegant! The book was Elements of Wit: Mastering The Art of Being Interesting ― captivating! Share a gripe below, or tap the ❤️ if you’d rather just nod along.