The Saga of the Eighth Dwarf

It's a little known fact that there were actually eight dwarves. We all know about Bashful, Doc, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy and Sleepy. But they had a brother whose name was Complainer. Like the other dwarves, his name pretty much summed up his personality. And while Grumpy sometimes brought the mood down, he was balanced out by Happy. But no one could seem to get Complainer to quit...well, complaining. About everything.

When supper was served, the food was either too hot or too cold, too spicy or too mild. When the dwarves decided to redecorate the cottage, he didn't like the carpet or the paint. He complained about the songs they sang in the evening and the tuning of the piano. "Why do we have to walk to work? Why isn't there a bus to take us to the mines?" On and on it went. "Why isn't my axe sharper? I'm so tired of digging in the mines. I really ought to have a better job. The weather is terrible. The sun is too bright. The moon is too dim. The rain comes too often, and it's too dry this time of year. I don't like these clothes we have to wear, either. And the hats, really? Who said hats were in style this year?"

The other dwarves really tried to help Complainer out. Doc checked him over for some sort of chemical imbalance, but all the blood tests came back negative. Sleepy suggested he needed more naps during the day. Dopey and Happy teamed up to tell him jokes and try to get him to smile. Bashful thought about doing something but, well...he was too shy to actually do it. Grumpy wasn't much help, because when it was just the two of them, they could find little to be happy about. And Sneezy...well, Sneezy sneezed on him, and that just made Complainer start ranting about the weather and allergies and why there were no cold medicines in the cottage. Nothing seemed to help.

The last straw was when the young lady showed up in their cottage. Complainer was the first to discover her, actually, and he came running back to his fellow dwarves. "Why is there a young woman in our cottage?" None of the rest knew anything about it, but that didn't satisfy Complainer. "Come on, you mean to tell me we have a house guest and none of you know about it? Why wasn't I told? I am so sick and tired of being the last to know. This is ridiculous!" Happy again said they had no idea what was going on, but they would check into it. "Don't bother," Complainer said, "that's it. I've had enough! I'm going to go find somewhere else to live!"

And with that, he took off, into the forest. The last the other seven saw or heard of him, he was complaining about how dirty the forest was and wondering why couldn't someone get things cleaned up.

Do I grumble or complain constantly? (Wesley's twenty-first question for the Methodist societies.)

"Do everything without grumbling or arguing" (Philippians 2:14).