Editing 2590: I Shouldn't Complain

{{comic
| number    = 2590
| date      = March 7, 2022
| title     = I Shouldn't Complain
| image     = i_shouldnt_complain.png
| titletext = Bald-faced hornets are only a 2 on the Schmidt pain index, so I shouldn't complain. The tennis ball ejected from the dryer exhaust vent could have ricocheted off the nest of a much higher-scoring insect before knocking me off the ladder. Really, I'm lucky.
}}

==Explanation==
[[Megan]] has had a very unfortunate experience of falling into a garbage can and being repeatedly stung by wasps. [[Cueball]] expresses an appropriate amount of horror about it. However, Megan seeks to downplay this experience by saying "I shouldn't complain" and that she's "lucky" it wasn't worse. This has become a {{tvtropes|AppealToWorseProblems|habit in Western culture}}, like comparing minor issues to "kids starving in Africa" or war-torn countries, notably Ukraine (this comic was published during the {{w|2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine|Russian invasion of Ukraine}} starting in February 2022 and was ongoing when this comic came out on March 7).

Humans have a tendency to re-calibrate their mental scales to place their actual experience in the center. Cueball, who has never experienced being trapped for hours with stinging insects, rates this in comparison to not being trapped at all. Megan, however, rates it in comparison to other uncomfortable places a person could be stuck.

The title text explains how Megan came into such a mess. A tennis ball used in a clothes dryer got stuck in the exhaust vent, and was shot out of the house through the exhaust vents hole in the wall. Then it hit the wasp nest and ricocheted over on Megan knocking her off the ladder she was standing on. Since she was close to the nest, she may actually have been up on the ladder in order to see if she could remove the nest. The fall from the ladder made her end up in the trash can where she could not get out. And the angry wasps began stinging her legs. 

In the title text, Megan continues to downplay her experience even though it was very painful. She says that the wasp nest was of the type {{w|Dolichovespula maculata|bald-faced hornets}}. 

The {{w|Schmidt sting pain index}} is a scale developed by entomologist {{w|Justin O. Schmidt}} to rank the relative pain caused by different stinging insects. This scale ranges from 0 (for stings that are completely ineffective) to 4, which denotes torturous and nearly incapacitating pain (originally, Schmidt only classed one species as a 4, but two additional species have since been added at this level).  Megan says her stings were a {{w|Schmidt_sting_pain_index#Pain_Level_2|2 on the scale}}, which denotes "familiar" pain, comparable to that of the common {{w|Western Honey Bee}}. Most people would find that experience incredibly painful, particularly since she endured multiple stings over a long period of time, but Megan points out that there exist insects with more painful stings. 

Megan concludes that she'd been lucky, based on the argument that she theoretically could have endured something worse than she did. The joke, of course, is that by almost any subjective standard, her experience was deeply unlucky.

She also further downplays the situation by focusing attention on the sting pain index instead of the sting lethal capacity, described by the [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3810666/ author of the pain index]. The two are not necessarily equivalent. Let's assume that all insects in the colony affected stung Megan at least once over her two hour ordeal. A colony capable of sustaining an attack over two hours would probably be at least as large as the typical [https://www.rescue.com/latest-buzz/outdoor-pests/bald-faced-bully/#:~:text=Bald%2Dfaced%20hornet%20nests%20often,hornet%20workers%20enter%20and%20exit. maximum size for a bald-faced hornet nest]. Such an attack might (depending on number of attackers and the species of wasp) deliver enough venom to kill 84 kg (185 pounds) worth of mice (or human?). Given such an attack, Megan would probably not be standing around in routine conversation, casually discussing the incident. She would far more likely be in a hospital bed, and in a [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32252275/ gruesome fight for her life].

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Megan are standing together. Cueball has his hands on his chin, shocked.]
:Cueball: I can't believe you fell headfirst into a garbage can and were stuck there for two hours while wasps stung your exposed legs!
:Megan: I shouldn't complain! Lots of people have been stuck for longer in worse places.
:Megan: Really, I'm lucky.

:[Caption below the panel:]
:The more unpleasant someone's experience is, the more they apologize for complaining because it could be worse.

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Animals]]