Damien Galeone

Many of us know the benefits of gaining perspective. It’s invaluable to learn that those every day problems we obsess over don’t amount to much when compared to someone else’s real world problems.

I can’t get a strong wifi signal in this café is not so urgent when compared to I can’t get food to feed my children.

As aware of this as many of us are, we sometimes need a reminder of just how lucky we really are. Usually, I get this while reading the news on the internet. I find myself saying, Hey, at least I [and what comes next really depends on the news that day]

…didn’t set my chest hair on fire, didn’t get my face eaten by a bear, didn’t get herpes from my cat.

Here are some news bits to help you get a perspective reality check. So, repeat after me:

Hey, at least I…

…don’t have to deal with radioactive wild boars.

Residents of Fukushima region of Japan are vexed by the extraordinary number of radioactive boars which are running amuck and becoming a general nuisance. Also, they’re boars…and they’re radioactive. The boar population has risen by 330% since the nuclear disaster, as they are making sexy-time use of abandoned towns made uninhabitable by radioactivity.

And the raccoons are becoming a similar issue. In a few years the Fukushima region might resemble a 1950s B Monster flick.

…am not a person with a brain who lives in Mississippi

In a decision which thumbs its nose at intelligence, reason, and the 21^st century, the US state of Mississippi has signed a bill into law which allows businesses to refuse service to gay couples based on religious objections.

Oh, Mississippi. (pinches bridge of nose while sighing to convey exasperation)

It must be awful to be one of the (hopefully) thousands of intelligent Mississippians who are wondering why their state has just stepped back into the Stone Age. But I suppose we shouldn’t be too surprised that something like this is happening in a state which finally officially repealed slavery in 2013. They say it was a clerical oversight. But c’mon. I think they were just quietly waiting for a loophole to present itself.

…didn’t get diarrhea in an airplane that I was driving.

An Airbus 330 captain was apparently, um, inconvenienced for 30 minutes during a trans-Atlantic flight two days ago. The pilot was feeling a stomach full of inconvenience and didn’t want to inconvenience in his pants and the cockpit. So he brought his inconvenient woes to the bathroom and luckily another captain who – conveniently – happened to be a passenger on board stood in for the captain while he was inconvenienced.

And when I do get inconvenienced it doesn’t end up on international news.

…did not leave a 9 month old in a car while I went into a strip joint.

The crime news is filled with Hey at least I‘s on a much grander scale – murderers, armed robbers, Trump supporters. But sometimes people are so dumb that we can parlay it into a twofer. So this is also: At least I am not that frickin’ stupid.

The details are priceless. A man in Los Angeles left his 9 month old baby in a car with a window cracked while he enjoyed beers and the dancers in a strip club. And, no doubt, their lunchtime seafood buffet. The manager of the establishment found the baby and broke into the car to extract it. When the father was found inside, he was enjoying a lap dance.

Seriously. People, you may have lapses of judgment from time to time, but they are probably not “leave a baby in a car while you get dry-humped to Bel Biv Devoe” lapses.

Honorable Mentions

Hey at least I…

…am not the governor of Florida.

…didn’t get completely showed up by an 8th grader concerning BMI.

…didn’t call the police about my lost remote control.

…didn’t try to slyly jump out of a cab to avoid paying fare only to leave behind a couple of things, like my bong…and my driver’s license.

So, people, I hope you have gained perspective. Relax. Your world is not that bad.