Bitching Your Way to Good Health

Let me clarify that bitching is a totally different energy than anger. Angry people are always angry. They go to bed angry and wake up angry. The other day my current husband and I went out to dinner. We noticed this guy two table over was arguing with his wife about HER steak being over done and not medium rare. She didn’t seem to mind so why was he so angry. He became even angrier when he couldn’t get the attention of the waiter. He stormed off to the host asking, it was more like demanding to see the chef. I looked at his annoyed wife and shrugged. She whispered, “He’s such an asshole!” I whispered back, “Doesn’t he know that anger will kill him quicker than that huge slab of meat he intends to devour. I could see her body relax and a smile creeping to her face with just two minutes of bitching. Or maybe it was the thought of that hefty life insurance payment she’d receive when he strokes out from uncontrolled anger issues.

Bitching can be a group event. Some women create reading groups to unwind. I have Stitch and Bitch night. My gal-pals and I pull out our sharp, pointy knitting needles and knit to relieve stress while bitching about world events, the price of gas, bad hair cuts, which has-been celeb got voted off Dancing with the Stars, you name it – we’ve got to bitch about it. There is a Zen quality to bitching that can’t be replicated with drugs.

As a final point, I was at the bank the other day trying to deposit one of my mammoth royalty checks. It bewilders me that the concept of direct deposit is still a mystery to the literary world. That’s an entirely new bitch . . . but I digress.

I’m waiting in the queue when a woman drives up to the drive through window with a Pomeranian in her car. Whenever the bank teller turned on the intercom to talk this dog starts yapping. Pomeranians yap. Maybe it’s because they’re puny Pomeranians. Then I realized what it was yapping at . . . nothing, NOTHING! It yaps because it can! It’s their way of bitching. I started bitching to the guy in front of me about this pain in the ass fuzzy rat and he said, “Don’t you YOUNG people have anything better to do than bitch!” I thought, “Young people?” This guy couldn’t have been much older than 45. I’m almost 60 . . . I rest my case.