Get your gripes out before you give thanks

Traditionally, this is the week to begin considering all we are thankful for.

This year, let's twist tradition a bit. Before you list all the wonderful things you're thankful for, release all the complaints you've held in about everything that has bugged you all year.

Sound silly?

It's simply piggybacking on a new trend, only without the music. Complaint choirs are all the rage throughout the world -- choirs formed solely to sing out the complaints lodged in our souls.

Apparently, it's a stress-reducer.

"We say you should sing (complaints) out … acknowledge things aren't as they should be. It's therapeutic," said founder Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in a recent AP story.

He and Tellervo Kalleinen, of Finland, came up with this idea three years ago while contemplating a Finish word that refers to the phenomenon of people complaining in packs.

The actual translation, "complaints choir," sparked their idea of putting complaints to music. Their first such choir in Birmingham, England, was to be the only one, but clips put on YouTube spread the whines worldwide.

Now complaints choirs are performing from Australia to Israel, with one just recently in Chicago.

I can't sing, but I sure can complain. Here's a sampling:

• Why isn't there a double right-turn lane on northbound Rickert Drive turning onto West Street? For approximately 14 years now, I've complained that there should be.

• When will stalking salespeople realize this is really a method to chase shoppers out of their stores, not entice them to browse and buy? Downtown Naperville stores, take note.

• Why aren't the late winter/early spring senior lock-in extravaganzas at the four Naperville high schools held after prom instead of weeks or months before?

• I hate that the very wonderful Book Road White Hen now has a sign that says it is a 7-Eleven. Yuck. It's just as bad as the red star on Marshall Field's.

• Why do people not much older than me call me "honey?" Simple rule: I don't think anyone wants to be called "honey" by a stranger.

• The really fun miniature golf course that used to be by the Fox Valley mall (I hate that it is now called Westfield something-or-other, not that I like the mall at all anyway) has been replaced by strip mall number 8,563. Gee, we sure needed that. (It's empty so far, by the way.)

• The next person driving ahead of me who turns using just brakes and no blinker is going to get brights in their eyes or a really loud horn. How hard is it to push down your finger and activate the turn signal?

• We all hate the infuriatingly slow numbering system at the Secretary of State's driver's license office on 75th Street, don't we? Heck, we all just really hate that place. But here's perhaps the weirdest complaint about it: why, no matter how many professional photographers (at various family events) or friendly snapshot-takers I encounter, does the only photo of me I remotely like come from the DMV? I just reluctantly turned over my 7-year-old, expiring license to surprisingly find the new photo was just as good -- if not better. Strange, but true. Could the DMV photo area be the one bright spot in a complaint-rich location? Whatever, it still takes way too long to get in and out of there.

• Driving by the big span of empty land at 75th Street and Commons Drive, I get grumpy thinking of what should already be there. If the Brach-Brodie trust had simply negotiated with Indian Prairie Unit District 204 after voters last spring approved building a third high school, think of the legal fees everyone would have saved and probably all parties would have been ahead financially -- and we'd have Metea Valley High School opening and the District 204 high schools and middle schools less crowded much sooner, such as in this decade. It's hard to imagine any commercial enterprise needed there that we don't already have in triplicate around here -- or space sitting empty.

• The idea of building a parking garage in front of Nichols Library is overwhelmingly sad and shortsighted.

• I hate just about every inch along Route 59.

• What is with the closed lane on 75th Street near Washington Street?

Wow, that does feel good. Image how great that would feel set to music. With these off my mind, it will be so much easier to be thankful.

Have a wonderful, complaint-free Thanksgiving.