2,501 Things That Really Piss Me Off

Complaining, psychologists assert, is good for the soul. It acts as a relief valve to help dispel the pent-up energy generated by our frustration. If we weren’t able to complain, we would no doubt exhibit more physical violence and engage more frequently in destructive behavior. Our neighbors outrage us, our children mock us, strangers insult us, government agencies mistreat us, unscrupulous entrepreneurs victimize us, and even inanimate objects conspire to screw up our lives. Compelling inner voices harass us, the crowd in the Agora thwarts us, and irrationality surrounds us everywhere. It’s enough to make someone paranoid! 2,501 Things That Really Piss Me Off demonstrates that misery loves company, and that we are the company that misery loves. Intended as a catalog of everything irksome in our lives, 2,501 Things That Really Piss Me Off reviews the broad spectrum of affronts, annoyances, nuisances, grievances, vexations, mortifications, and molestations that disrupt our equanimity and that daily pervert the simple pleasures of living. It gives voice to the time-honored practice of people everywhere in the world—griping. Within these pages the reader will find items of anger, reflection, humor, social comment, and even the occasional non sequitur. For its octogenarian author, it is pure catharsis, but it is also the author’s intention that the reader be entertained, and, with a little luck, enriched by the realization that the demons that confound him confound the rest of us as well. That he is not alone in his Weltschmerz.

Herb Reich spent fifteen years as senior acquisition editor at John Wiley & Sons. Before that, he administered the behavioral science publishing program at Basic Books and served as editorial director of the Macmillan Book Clubs. Along the way, he spent two post-grad years affiliated with the Research Foundation of the State University of New York; edited The Odyssey Scientific Library, and contributed to The Random House Dictionary of the English Language and the Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. The author of Don't You Believe It!, he lives in Hastings-On-Hudson, NY.