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Est. 2026 · Vol. I · The Daily Grievance
Grump News
"The worst thing that happened to me today that you NEED to know about. And some other news stuff."
❖ The Gripe ❖
A Personal Affront, Reported Faithfully
A soap company that built its whole identity around being natural just agreed to pay nine million dollars to settle a lawsuit claiming its shampoo, deodorant, and soap all contained synthetic ingredients anyway. Anyone who bought the products going back to twenty eighteen can file a claim for fifty cents per item. The company is still denying it did anything wrong, while paying anyway, for products people bought specifically because they were told it was not this. Fifty cents a bottle, eight years of it. I have overpaid for considerably less specific promises and never once gotten a refund, natural or otherwise.
❖ The Damage Report ❖
Today's News, Ranked By How Much It Ruined My Mood
🔥 Most Enraging
Scientists sampled a hundred forty four bonnethead sharks and overturned the leading theory for why males and females end up with different shaped heads. It was never about diet, as everyone assumed. Both sexes actually start out with a pointed head and it rounds out as they age, with the change much bigger in females. A pointed shape settled into something rounder with time, and nobody had checked. I have also softened with age in ways nobody bothered to study, and I could have told them for free.
😩 Most Exhausting
A deer wandered into a Florida home, was found standing next to the toilet, and had to be guided back outside with a pool brush, at which point it jumped straight into the family swimming pool. Twice. A deputy on the scene said it was the first deer he has found inside a house in twenty three years on the job. The animal escaped before anyone could issue it a trespassing warning. A wild animal used a bathroom, then a pool, in that order, uninvited. I have been asked to leave establishments for far less deliberate behavior.
😤 Unreasonably Annoying
Animal control in Massachusetts responded to a report of a lizard in a parking lot and found a mangrove monitor, a notoriously aggressive species from the other side of the world, wedged into a car's wheel well. It took a second town's animal control team showing up just for backup before anyone could catch it. The lizard had a small wound consistent with escaping a cage, and it is illegal to own one in the state without a permit. Officials are still looking for whoever lost him. Someone in Massachusetts is quietly missing an extremely dangerous pet and has not said a word.
🤷 Somehow Also Happening
A mustang that had been running loose near a Maryland reservoir for two months was finally captured using fifty nine fence panels arranged into a funnel that led straight into a horse trailer. The horse, known as Outlaw, now has a permanent home at a rescue instead of a reservoir. Two months of freedom ended by fifty nine pieces of fencing arranged just right. I have been contained by a single closed door.
❖ And Some Other Stuff ❖
Briefly, And With Limited Enthusiasm
▸ Look: Firefighters rescue cat stranded on roof of Connecticut home — Firefighters in Connecticut rescued a cat stuck on a roof ledge after it apparently climbed out through an open skylight overnight, and she happily went straight back inside once they got her down. No drama, no chase, just a cat who wandered somewhere she should not have been and seemed fine about coming home. I have gotten lost in my own neighborhood and taken considerably longer to admit I needed help.
▸ A longer exhale may push your brain toward bolder decisions — Researchers had people breathe slowly with a long exhale while making risky financial choices, and found it made them more willing to take the risk, driven by changes in heart activity that made the brain more sensitive to potential rewards. It did not make people slower or sloppier, just bolder, on purpose. A longer exhale, and suddenly the upside looks better than it did a minute ago. I have taken a deep breath before doing something reckless and blamed the breath afterward.
▸ MIT turns bacteria into living transistors — Engineers built actual bacterial cells that behave like transistors and wired twenty four colonies of them together into a circuit that can run a real calculation, printing them close enough on a plate and letting the chemistry do the rest. It takes about eight hours to finish one calculation. Slow, alive, and it works anyway. I have taken roughly that long to reply to a single text message and called it processing.
Larry sends his regards. He doesn't have any.
— The Grump · (and Larry)
We came, we read, we sighed.