Have you ever heard of A Complaint Free World?  Some pastor somewhere had the idea of how to help people get out of the habit of complaining all the time. He shared it with his congregation, and they started giving away these nasty little purple bracelets. I HATE the nasty little rubber bracelets, but I thought, you know, I do complain an awful lot, and I sent off for one. They sent me three. That was probably a good thing. I’ve been wearing it since Sunday, and haven’t even gone 6 hours, much less 6 days, without complaining.

You put the bracelet on your wrist. Doesn’t matter which one. And if you catch yourself complaining, you put the bracelet on your other wrist and start counting your days over again. Ideally you want to go 21 days eventually, because that forms a new habit of not complaining, yadda yadda.

So I have switched it back and forth ad infinitum, although I will say that about 75% of my whingeing is done silently. But I still know I’m doing it.

Here’s what I’m annoyed about today:

  1. One of my best friends got scammed out of a large sum of money. That really has me angry. I’ve been angry ever since it happened, and I’m still angry.
  2. The apartment of that same best friend was broken into, and her laptop and last bit of cash was stolen. I’m even angrier. She has been searching hard for a job, but has yet to find one. She’s one of the coolest, nicest, most whatever superlative you can think of people I’ve ever met, and it pisses me off that people hurt her like this.
  3. My sister is sick. I know what you’re thinking, but I honestly don’t think she caught what I had. I’ve been over the infectious part for a couple of weeks, even if I still am hacking up a lung at least 10-15 times a day. Nope. She’s got something different. And this is the last week before tech, and we open a week from Thursday. She doesn’t have time to be sick, and she’s so frustrated by the whole thing. And of course there’s nothing she can do; it’s not her fault she got sick. Please. But I’m pissed in her behalf. Because I was so sick for so long, and it really sucks. Of course, she is blessed in that she has reasonable bosses and reasonable sick leave policy.
  4. Work is driving me abso-frickin’-lutely insane!!!  There are people who request credit bureau reports from me, only to delete them as soon as they’ve worked them. Lo and behold, they need it again. Do they tell me they need me to repull a report that was pulled on a certain date? Nope, they just do a brand new request. My job is hellish from July through December anyway, and this just makes it worse. I caught myself today furiously noting an account that I emailed the July/XX cbr to Soandso “because I don’t already have enough work to do.” Of course I spaced it back off and just noted that I’d emailed the reprint to Soandso. But you get the picture. What is even more maddening is this particular Soandso was coming in my office every day the first week of the month wondering when I would get to her credit bureau requests. I explained that I do them in the order in which they’re received, and as I’m currently doing over 100 a day, it might take an extra day or so.  I finally got to the bottom of that stack, and realized that Soandso had never even submitted any credit bureau requests to me. When I told her that, she wondered what had happened to her requests, and printed new ones. Of course, as I’ve pulled them, I’ve searched the account and, as I suspected, she’d never requested them to begin with. I’M NOT STUPID!!!
  5. Molly is apparently traumatized about Joe’s absence. I came home yesterday to the ripe smell of dog crap in the house. I checked the pad I leave by the back door. Nothing. I check the bathroom (her other favourite place when she’s punishing us). Nothing. I check the bedroom. Nothing. I finally thought she must just be really gassy. But no, the smell was just as ferocious when she was outside. I finally stuck my head inside our home office, and she’d left two gigantic piles of crap on some papers Joe’d left on the floor and the rug. NASTY!  I cleaned it up, and had a talk with her about it. Apparently she’s still stressed about Joe’s absence, though, because when I woke up this morning I found that she’d peed on the floor, right next to the pee pad, by the back door during the night.  I swear she flipped me off when I asked her politely to either come get me or use the pee pad. I know she’s traumatized, poor baby, but there’s nothing either Joe or I can do about the situation.
  6. Joe was going to come home this weekend, but he’s decided to wait until next weekend. I think that’s a good idea. There’s a lot of music for him to go see in Saint Louis next weekend, and I’ve got a billion things going on this weekend. Plus, if he comes home next weekend, he’ll be here for opening weekend of the show and can also escort me to our end of season banquet.  So I’m glad in a way, but also bummed.
  7. My back hurts. And I’m still coughing frequently, and my voice still comes and goes. And I’m still not off book. And we open next Thursday. Oh, and my house is still a disaster zone and I’m having a bunch of friends over Friday night for the Harry Potter party. And we’re getting out of rehearsal late on Friday night (which is a bad thing) because a reporter & some photographers from the paper are coming (which is a good thing).

I suppose that’s enough complaining for one gripe session. Pretend like I just moved the bracelet back and forth 7 times, and I’ll start all over again. :p