A Bit of a Grumble

When you’ve been in a bad mood for some time, nothing feels better than having a bit of a grumble.

You shouldn’t make a habit of it, of course. In fact, you should probably reserve grumbling for a last resort, lest you be labeled a Grumpy Goose. But assuming you’ve tried all the usual bad mood remedies—snacking, walking, napping, journaling, angry-dancing, petting an animal, lying on your back with your heels up against the wall, and shouting at fish—if you’ve still got a dark cloud hovering about? It’s time to have a bit of a grumble.

This persistent peevishness is the most perplexing sort of bad mood, because there’s often no obvious reason for it. I experience this every time I get the hiccups. I mean, sure, they’re annoying, and they stay for so long, and they’re weirdly resonant, but that still doesn’t warrant unshakable grumpitude.

But then, the thing that tips you over the edge is never what your bad mood is really about, is it? For me, current contributing factors include: a week’s worth of writer’s block, feeling restless and listless at the same time, concern for faraway family and friends, that very specific hell of watching loved ones struggle with problems you’re powerless to help with, reading the news, reading comments after the news, and of course the low-grade undercurrent of existential panic that goes along with being a human in the world during any time period.

However, it doesn’t always help to grumble about the things that are really bothering you. For communal grumbling (which is generally found to be the most satisfying), I find it helps to pick something seemingly insignificant yet completely universal. Like when you walk into the empty kitchen, unaware that somebody was getting ice earlier and a little ice shard escaped to the floor, and you just happen to be wearing socks, and you step right in the tiny puddle of water the ice left behind.

As soon as you bring up this scenario, you and your Grumble Buddy just start kickin’ up a grumble.

“Who does water think it is, anyway?” they exclaim.

“Ooh, I’m water,” you say tauntingly. “I can exist in any state I want to because I’m sooo special.”

“I’m water,” they flounce. “I make up sixty percent of the human body and seventy percent of the earth’s surface. I’m so important you literally couldn’t exist without me!”

“I’m made of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule.” You scoff. “Who cares, right? Big whoop! Try being made of carbon, ya jerk!”

“I could have evaporated,” they say, “but instead I stayed here on the floor just waiting for you to step in me.”

“And now I’m in your sock,” you continue, “and it feels like your soul is being melted like the Wicked Witch of the West, and every step you take just reminds you of how awful and unfair the world is—”

“And your whole day is ruined!” they finish.

“Stupid water,” you say.

“Stupid cold sock water,” they agree.

You both let out a satisfied sigh. Nothing is solved, but your post-grumble mood is triumphant. Grumbling feels so productive, so cathartic. You feel steeled to make it through another day in a chaotic world.

At least until the next bout of hiccups.