catapult magazine

The Bottom Shelf, Low Down, Guilt Inducing, Helping You Attain Some Global Perspective Blues

by David Howard Malone

My baby’s sea scallops with rhubarb and foie gras mousse are slightly overcooked;
her favorite author just released a mediocre book;
her best friend smiles a secret smile and doesn’t meet her eye;
she loves me but she’s well aware I’m kind of not the perfect guy,
and she’s worried she’ll never be able to afford more than one pair of Jimmy Choos:
my baby’s got the first world problem blues.

People ask her, “What’s the matter?” when she feels she looks her best;
she makes phone calls in the stairwell because she can’t get reception at her desk;
the actuary in the next cubicle listens to Nickelback  and Creed;
she says she sometimes knows what she wants but she’s never sure what she needs;
she sets her alarm so she can exercise, but she only hits the snooze:
she’s aware she’s got those first world problem blues.

Never targeted for genocide, never had to dig a well;
she has no first hand experience on whether war is or isn’t hell;
never sold into the sex trade or aborted because she wasn’t male;
never contracted cholera, survived famine, or practiced free speech and wound up in jail.

All her old bulimic habits have started coming back;
every time she presents her monthly report she has to fight off a panic attack;
doesn’t feel like men take her seriously or even hear what she has to say;
she’d like to climb the corporate ladder but there’s this invisible ceiling in the way;
and her feeling that she’d like to vote disappears every time she watches the news—
oh, can’t somebody stop these first world problem blues?