There were three of us sitting in the break room with a haze of silence between us, which was apparently odd because when the next person walked in she asked why we didn’t have the TV on. I said in all seriousness,”I couldn’t reach the remote,” the remote that was on the same table where I was seated. I looked at it, then back at her, and stretched my hand out inches from the remote, as if to prove to her that my troubles were vast. She laughed and said, “first-world problems.” Then we all laughed, but the TV stayed off, and a conversation was born… all about problems that would only be problems in a first-world country:
“My cell phone is running low on power and my adapter isn’t here!”
“I wish I could go for a walk, but my wi-fi won’t reach the treadmill on the porch.”
“The dish is out because of the storm. Now what am I going to do?”
“Don’t text me while I’m in the middle of texting you. You just made what I had to say irrelevant.”
“I drove all the way to the pizza place but they didn’t have pepperoni.”
“The escalator is out, so I have to walk up it like stairs.”
“My auto-correct keeps saying things I don’t want to say.”
“Starbucks made my coffee wrong.”
“My iPad takes way too long to load. I’m going to give those Apple people a piece of my mind.”
I once lived with a girl who felt like it was always hot, so she had to keep the air conditioning on constantly. Then she complained about the air conditioning bill. I also knew this guy who complained about the price of beer, but he kept stocking up regardless. I say it’s only a problem if you let it be one. Wear less clothing. Stop drinking beer. Makes sense to me. But even after our conversation I couldn’t bring myself to reach that remote. Which was okay.
Sam
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