yuppie problems

From web site referenced below:

“Line at wine store taking forever [because] some guy tried to pay with Discover card. Really?”

Some years back (maybe December 2006?) the first and only New Years Eve party this condo has seen was held.  One couple stayed late and we ended up talking about computer issues or something that was causing somewhat serious disruption to one of our lives.

At the time I was reading What is the What by Dave Eggers, which is basically the story of a Sudanese refugee and his amazingly tragic life. With this in mind, I started to chastise all of us for our focus on these little things in our lives that we complain about when in distant (and not too distant) lands there are entire villages being wiped off the planet due to civil unrest, dictatorships, etc. 

I called these little things “yuppie problems.”

The phrase “yuppie problems” is now referenced humorously.  For example, I have a friend who got very worked up because the company from which he orders the bulbs for his garden messed up his order.  As in they sent him Russian garlic instead of some other kind.  I pointed out to him that this was definitely a yuppie problem.

Of course, I asked the Googles about yuppie problems and it seems there are others out there posting on the interwebs about this.

There is an entire web site devoted to this topic (see initial quote at beginning of this post)!  Then there are web sites with individual yuppie problem posts:

• “Yuppie problems: What the hell are we going to do with all this Fennel?”
• “The next time I have a meltdown over something as trivial as reformatting PowerPoint presentation slides, I should remind myself that I don’t save lives for a living.”
• “I am having serious yuppie problems this weekend, including burning a small chunk of hair with a straightening iron and winding up with too many leftovers from my couples’ board game party.”

That’s the story of yuppie problems.