Rant On

Everybody’s got a rant. Just probe a little, and you’ll see.

Mine is NPR. Despite fitting the NPR profile to a T, I can’t stand the stuff. Bong bong bong, here’s a poem about a dead leaf. Great, here’s some jazz – oh, sorry, that was just the introduction to another poem about a dead leaf. On my foot. In winter.

Of course, that’s unfair. NPR is a venerable institution. I read many of the same interesting stories in the New York Times, so I don’t feel deprived when my husband tells me about all those fascinating “driveway moments.” But my friends are always amused to elicit my NPR rant, especially among Diane Rheem devotees, who seem to be multiplying by the minute.

My friend Bethany hates jazz. I am sure there is a rant there, but I haven’t heard all of it – probably because she knows I love jazz, though I too dislike that doodly doodly imitation Coltrane stuff, and please don’t tease me with jazz as an introduction to the world news on NPR.

My sister-in-law Alyssa has a great rant. We call it The Cake Rant. It is all about how at birthday parties, graduation parties, and baby showers, everyone raves about the store-bought cake with the lardy super-sweet frosting, but actually this cake is horrible. If you have ever had homemade cake with real homemade frosting with butter and sugar, this store cake is not even close, the worst stuff ever, and she just wants to shout that the emperor has no clothes and this cake is terrible, what are you all raving for!

I just discovered my husband’s secret rant is about key lime pie. Maybe there is something in his family about food and rants, what with the cake rant and now the key lime pie rant. Just get him going. What is the big deal about key limes? Why is this on every menu, even if you’re not in Florida? Who wants a sour pie anyway?

It is a fine line between having a nice therapeutic rant every now and then and becoming a crackpot with a rant a minute. Sometimes politics make some of us feel like ranting non-stop, and about issues that are more pressing than taste in cake and radio stations. The key is to pace yourself, stick to what’s most important, and not rant about everything. It’s like the Boy Who Cried Wolf – is that you, complaining again?

In a political question and answer session, there is always a ranter who turns his question into a ten minute manifesto, as the rest of the audience groans and checks their watches. Then there are the well-meaning folks who speak publicly on an issue – but then misspeak on something big, like race or religion – and everyone feels for them that a public rant was perhaps not the best way to go.

But there is something comforting about a nice private rant among friends, like sharing a secret. Make some cake. Bring on the rants. What gets to you?