Today on the show, lunch snubs, bad neighbors, and needy in-laws.

We're sorting through a roundup of the bad behavior getting under your skin.

Dear life kit. Dear life kit. Dear life kit. Dear life kit. I have a question for you.

This is Dear Life Kit, from NPR. How can I become a better caretaker? How do I deal with my

parents' unrealistic expectations? And we're getting personal. I'm catching feelings for someone,

but they're married. I'm your host, Andy Tagle. Every episode we answer one of your most pressing

and intimate anonymous questions with expert advice. The things that we see as petty,

they can hit us in the heart in a way that feels very real. That's today's expert writer,

our Eric Thomas. He wears a lot of hats. Among them, novelist, culture critic, former slate

advice columnist, and longtime host of the Moth in Philadelphia. Today, we're throwing him a

mailbag full of petty problems, and I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Stay tuned.

We have been lovingly calling this episode our petty problems round up,

because we're talking about, you know, seemingly small slides that have big emotional impact,

and I would love to know. Is this a thing that you can relate to? Oh my gosh. Every problem I have

is petty problems. It is one of my true delights, just to sort of be able to stew in the littlest

things, though weird things that a neighbor does, or the way that a friend will text at a random

time, but never respond when I write back. Yeah, I think sometimes petty problems can connect to

larger issues, but sometimes it's like life is delightful, but also deeply annoying experience.

So I don't know. I get a lot of joy out of being petty. I'm so glad I'm not the only one.

I don't really know. There's also a lot of quiet resentment in the questions we're going to

cover today. Where are you on that scale? I'm a grudge tender, but I'm also a, I've learned

through years of therapy to also be a speaker-truther. And so, and I think that is the litmus test.

...