~a column by Colleen O’Brien
Speaking of loudmouths, bullies and whiners – I’m not at this moment connected to the media – radio, Facebook, TV – but I figure someone is either speaking about them or being loudmouth, whining bullies themselves. The country hears a lot of loudmouth, bullying whining going on a lot of the time these days – it seems to be news – so it’s likely that someone is engaging in one or all of these as I write.
Humans consistently apply ways of dealing with loudmouths, bullies and whiners, starting with ignoring them, then keeping out of their way, walking around them, standing up to them, pretending they didn’t hear, punching them in some way (not necessarily physically) so they’ll quit being so disgusting.
Many humans who are easily scared or intimidated or who have less power (the bully might be the boss, the law, much stronger physically) tend to kowtow to bullies and loudmouths because it seems too dangerous not to. Who wants to lose a job, go to jail for a slight infraction, get beat up?
Bullies often operate in the shadows or are simply devious, so they get away with meanness and cruelty because no one sees them pushing or shoving or being unfair in an office situation.
Loudmouths and whiners are just out here in the world never shutting up.
Most of us become weary of loudmouths quickly, and ingenious folks, often radically joke-prone after days or weeks of loudmouthery figure ways to discomfit the loudmouth.
My husband used to work with a loudmouth who wouldn’t shut up (the two traits go together), and eventually he and others in the office got so tired of it they began pulling sophomoric tricks on the guy: rubber snakes in drawers, coffee cup glued to desktop, and so on. It didn’t shut the loudmouth up – little does – but it did amuse the instigators enough to lighten the office atmosphere, for them at least.
Decades ago, I heard of a fellow who bought one of the first Volkswagens in the state. He got such good mileage with it that another fellow in his workplace bought one. This second VW buyer was a braggart loudmouth who annoyed many, so they came up with a way to annoy back: a few of his co-workers began siphoning gas out of the guy’s new VW. His mileage tanked, so to speak, and he kept taking the car to Des Moines (only dealer in the state at the time), where nothing untoward could be discerned. The fellow became a sadsack, figuring that either he bought a lemon or, typical of a bully-type, told everyone that obviously the original VW owner was lying.
The whiner is the most ubiquitous among us humans, whining being something we all do at some point: who hasn’t whined about the weather … the stupidest thing to complain about in one’s life because we have no control there.
But the whiner, oh my – there is no topic or occurrence that is not fair game: the other driver, the postman, the bureaucracy, the politicians, the bank, the grocery store, the neighbor, the motorcycle, the buzzards, the crows, the dandelions. Really, nothing is sacred when it comes to the whiner, for many of them whine about women breastfeeding, a sacred thing in itself.
The whiner not only complains about things out here in his real world but whines about how others treat him. Unfairness abounds in the whiner’s orbit. It’s difficult to be a friend of a whiner because at any point you may say or do the wrong thing, and you are going to be fired, ridiculed or whined about, possibly for the rest of the whiner’s life.
In the urban dictionary, to complain in return to a complainer makes you a “snowflake.”* This means you can’t take the heat; it is also one of the tricks of the loudmouth-bully-whiner [from here on known as the LBW] – to turn his or her behavior (whining) over to you. You become the overly sensitive or easily offended person if you take offense to an LBW in action.
The LBW is the original easily offended and also believes he or she is entitled to special treatment on account of his or her unique characteristics.
Calling the loudmouth, bully, whiner by the LBW acronym might be a good fight-back position. He’ll think you’re calling him a relative of LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson, former U.S. President), or fat walrus (Lb means pound) or LBGTQ (lesbian, bisexual, gay, transexual, queer) and take you to court (one of his favorite threats and/or actions, besides his being basically homophobic, a researched trait of LBWs).
Just let him go ahead and sue. He’ll waste a lot of money and lose anyway.
Another word for LBW would be “loser.”
*Noun synonyms: coward. weakling, namby-pamby, mouse, drip, sissy, mama’s boy, milksop, doormat, jellyfish, crybaby, scaredy-cat, chicken, wet, cream puff, yellow-belly, candy-ass, cupcake, pantywaist, milquetoast, nebbish, suck-up, complainant, crab, annoyance, grouch, bore
Adjective synonyms: feeble, petulant, childish, thin-skinned, unpleasant, grouchy, boring
Verb synonyms: bore, carp, complain, cry, groan, grouse, grumble, howl, mewl, moan, wail, yowl
Most common expressions of a whiner: “It’s not fair.” “Why are they always picking on me?”
An apt phrase to characterize a whiner: “a long, high-pitched unpleasant sound”
