10. Hangovers
We’d love to journey back in time to find out where exactly in history the wires of virtue got seriously tangled up, and the knock on effects of binging on near life-ending quantities of alcohol began warranting sympathy. If your head hurts a bit after 11 pints and half a bottle of vodka, good – it’s a message from your body that too much more of that and it’s bye-bye Mr. Liver. Suck it up, drink some water and be thankful you live in a society that not only provides you with the economic means and recreational services to get so hammered in the first place, but also pampers you like a wounded soldier the day after. “Awh, can I get you another cup of tea love.” Hang your throbbing head in shame….
9. Nothing on TV
Awwwh…. There’s nothin on TV is there? Oh well, read a book, go for a walk, converse with fellow first-world inhabitants (we believe it’s called – socialising) or otherwise avail of the several million entertainment options in the first-world. When you find yourself complaining, yet still sitting through your 19th viewing of the same episode of Friends, you don’t deserve better TV listings, you deserve to be taken out and shot…
8. ATM Queues
You know you’re smack bang in the thick of first world ignorance when you hear people queuing up in perfect safety, to get their own money, to spend on themselves, on whatever the heck they want, but complaining because they might have to wait about 3 or 4 minutes. Just think what you could have done in those 3 or 4 minutes… probably complain about something else… like how penniless farmers in Burma break their backs farming the harshest imaginable land for 150 hours a week, only to have their two or three pitiful fistfuls of hazardously diseased corn taken off them by local military mobs… Just kidding, we know you’d find a far more pressing issue to critique, like the price of ice-cream or something…
7. Rain
Of course, farming in the third world is somewhat hampered by the fact that it might rain for five seconds a year, but what better tragedy for us first-worldians to moan about than a few days consecutive rain and how ‘down’ we all get as a result? Hmmmm… can we just remind everybody that hats, jackets, umbrellas, scarves and raingear are widely available to protect us all from suffering the damning effects of being caught in the rain. You know, like… frizzy hair… or…. foggy glasses…
6. Bad Back from a Soft Bed
If your back hurts from having spent a whole night sank blissfully into a luxurious dough-like mattress, put up with it. There’s nothing worse than hearing someone crib that their €1,000 mattress isn’t “quite right for their body.” Try hunkering down on a slab of freezing sand, gravel or concrete next time things get a bit too ‘pudgy’ in the back-support department…
5. Sore Feet
Pain resulting from wearing high heels is only a problem for first world women. If you intentionally choose to purchase shoes that are clearly going to cause extreme discomfort, throbbing, deformations, bruising, corns or lacerated foot tendons, you have yourself and yourself alone to blame. Ladies, everyone realizes you’re trying to look more sophisticated and sleek, give the illusion of having longer legs or just simply want a pocket spear in the case of a row, but when a long commute is ahead of you, or an evening of walking, queuing and dancing for that matter, do you not think practicality should topple aesthetics? Stop whining – you choose to wear these podiatric death traps, you deal with the pain and you deal with it in the strictest of silence…
4. Being Peckish
It truly is a reflection of being a pampered first-world ponce when you crib and whimper as soon as your brain detects the slightest drop in food levels. There are three stages of food intake humans need worry about – sustained, hungry, dead from starvation. That’s it. Next time you feel ‘peckish’, just shut up and wait for your next full meal, which you obtained without having to risk your life hunting for several days in a treacherous jungle, desert or swamp…
3. Having Too Much Change
Haughty first worldians commonly complain about the laborious task of carrying around too much “loose change.” But if you take a step back and think for a moment, you’re actually boasting about having too much money! Nobody likes a whiner, and nobody likes a bragger – and you are both. So if you find yourself moaning about your overabundance of money not being wrapped up neatly in clean, weightless notes – never have children. Spend it, or donate it to a charity. We’re certain most poverty-stricken third world inhabitants would gladly take your burden of change to carry…
2. Fear of Spiders
Save for a small number of exceptions (Australia, for example) a first world inhabitant has absolutely no right whatsoever to fear spiders. Spiders in the first world are unlikely to be any larger than a cherry. They also eat flies and generally keep themselves to their completely unpoisonous selves. There are spiders in parts of Africa and South America that go out of their way to hunt down medium sized children and devour them whole. So if an easily-drownable spec in the bath freaks you out, try systematic neurotoxicity, respiratory failure or necrosis….
1. Being Too Full
Ah the top-dog of our list in all it’s gluttonous glory… Don’t try and deny that at some point in your life you haven’t heaved back from consuming several times your body weight in food, clasping your throbbing gut and moaning that you’re too-full. It’s probably happened as recently as in the last 24 hours, hasn’t it? Now have a serious think about what that actually means. You have eaten too much food! And you somehow feel this gives you the right to actually COMPLAIN? Sssshhhh, do you hear that? If you listen very carefully, you can hear the delicate little ‘whump’ noises as millions of malnourished children the third world over collapse dead from starvation. If the noises get too loud or repetitive, just drown them out with some Coldplay while you shovel that eighth helping of curry down your gullet…