It’s Wednesday, which means it’s time to open the window and air out all those pent-up grievances from the past week in another edition of The Gripe Report.
By this point, over two years into the storied history of The Gripe Report, we all know that I am a guy who can complain about a lot of things.
It’s a gift and a curse, frankly.
But sometimes, some things get to me that are so minor, so petty, and potentially so ridiculous to get bent out of shape over, I wonder if I’m the only one losing sleep over the fact that someone is parked facing the wrong way outside my house.
I probably am, but we’re still going to go ahead and talk about that, and some other, very petty gripes.
My neighborhood might be one of the most “suburban” neighborhoods you can possibly imagine.
The only thing that might make it look a bit different from what you’re picturing is that all of the houses are crammed way too close together on small lots.
As is the Florida way.
Fortunately, the neighborhood is pretty nice, and there’s not too much about it that drives me nuts, but one thing that makes my eye start twitching when I see it is when people park on the street with their driver’s-side tires against the curb.
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And no, these are not one-way streets; they are two-way streets, there are just more lazy idiots than I’d care to accept.
This is not legal, and it bothers me, not because it takes up more space — obviously it doesn’t — but it is one of the ultimate signs of laziness and entitlement.
If you can’t be bothered to pop a nice, quick, tight, dignified U-turn or simply park on the other side of the street, then I’m sorry, I’m just not a fan of yours.
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It’s a litmus test I use just like how I judge people who don’t return shopping carts.
If I see that, I slap the offender with an instant “DOUCHE” tag, and I steer clear.
Speaking of which…
Buckle up, this is about to be the most “Old Man Yells At Cloud” we’ve ever gotten in The Gripe Report, and that’s saying a lot.
I know that haircut trends come and go, but I can’t stand that broccoli top/alpaca haircut that every male moron under 25 seems to have.
Sure, every generation has its stupid haircut, but the problem I see is people not growing out of it.
I feel like in generations past, people would have “kid” haircuts and grow out of them so that by their mid-20s, you had a grown-up cut.
Not anymore. People now have kids’ haircuts into their mid twenties, and that’s just embarrassing for everyone.
For them and for society at large.
I’ll just be honest: when I see someone with an alpaca haircut over the age of 18, I simply do not take you seriously. I’ll be pleasant, but anything you’ve got to say will go in one ear and out the other, because if you’re going to have a kid’s haircut, your words have as much value to me as an eight-year-old explaining to me why his favorite Hot Wheels car is his favorite Hot Wheels car.
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Actually, less weight. Hot Wheels are cool, so I’d probably pay more attention to that.
At the very least, get a comb, because I swear, no one under 25 owns one. It’s straight up bizarre. Every dude 25 or under seems to have weird, matted bedhead, and that’s their look?
Again, sorry, I just don’t take you seriously if you look like you just got up from a nap.
The only person who ever got away with a look like that in my book was Boris Johnson, and that was because I just assumed he was so busy running the UK that he had no time to comb his hair.
So, unless you’re running the UK, go get a comb and an adult haircut.
Not to brag, but I’ve got a few TVs in my house.
I know, that makes me sound like a Rockefeller, but you won’t envy the next part: not one of those TVs came with a remote that has a number pad on it.
When the f–k did we become okay with this as a society?
These are smart TVs, and I know streaming is to blame, but we also have cable.
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Only our cable streams through the TV, meaning that the cable company can cheap out and not send us another remote with numbers.
So, when I want to change the channel, I have to go to the guide and then scroll through hundreds of channels (sorry, slipped into Rockefeller mode again) to get where I want to go.
“Matt, you are incredibly smart, funny, and handsome, and also you play guitar well, but don’t you realize that you can just go buy another remote that has numbers and use that?”
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Here’s where I break from the Rockefellers: I shouldn’t have to do that.
The remote that comes with the TV should do everything.
All we need is 10 extra buttons, one for each digit and the oft forgotten 0, and we’re golden.
I think we’ll close out this week with a message from John U, who checked in with a handful of gas station gripes:
I find that I get pretty annoyed at gas stations – especially the non-chain type. From credit card units being taped over telling you to go inside, to no lock-stop on the pump so that you have to keep manually pumping the gas, to extremely slow flow rates (especially when dealing with the previous issue), to windshield wiper boxes that haven’t seen liquid in years, to paper towel dispensers that are always empty, there is plenty to get annoyed about. And that is just on the exterior of these types of gas stations.
Inside, you have bathroom sanitation issues, lines of people buying scratch-off lottery tickets, poorly lit aisles, and so on.
…
If I had a dollar for every time I pulled up to a pump, got out, and went to stick my card in the reader only to realize it was out of order, I wouldn’t have that much money, but in the Year of our Lord 2026, that should be netting me exactly $0.00 from that.
Same with the little locking mechanism on the pump. That seems like a two-second fix, and yet it’s a bridge too far for some gas stations.
Not putting the water in the little plastic tub thing with the squeegee is where they lose all sympathy from me.
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The card reader requires a little technical know-how to fix, and there’s a chance fixing that pump will require a special part, but filling a plastic tub with water? That’s the easiest task you’d have while working at a gas station.
Plus, it’s not even like each driver uses a whole plastic reservoir to clean their windshield. Unless it’s surface-of-the-sun hot and arid like in Death Valley or Phoenix in the summer, maybe you have to haul a bucket out there every couple of days?
Then, when we venture inside, gas stations aside from your upper-echelon kind-of-a-gas-station/kind-of-a-restaurant-or-attraction places like Buc-ee’s, Sheetz, or Wawa are just depressing.
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They opened a new 7/Eleven near me, and I went inside because, for some reason, I thought it’d be fun.
I was mistaken.
Unless you call walking back outside after looking at day-old roller dogs and walking on floors sticky with spilled Slurpee fun, in which case, you might need to get out more.
…
That’s it for this week’s edition of The Gripe Report.
Be sure to join us next week, and in the meantime, send in your pettiest gripes!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com
