Pettiness, Inc.: Treating Grudges Like Long-Term Investments

Think of pettiness as an annuity: small, recurring payments of mild annoyance that compound into a family tradition. The Reddit post’s refrain—“pettiness does NOT have an expiration date”—isn’t moralizing, it’s a statement of discount rates: if the cost of one more passive-aggressive flourish is near zero and the amusement payoff is positive, you keep paying.

Toy model: Person A wants to be remembered (or remembered as a particular kind of nuisance); constraint: direct confrontation is messy; strategy: set up a low-effort recurring irritant that signals identity and enforces a ritual. Evidence: one commenter cheerfully declares, “Happy Birthday to your Dad!” while another reports an entire campaign of Olaf toys gifted to a mother who “HATES Olaf” (every single gift includes one). Another: “\”Or Current Resident\” just sends me.” These are not accidents; they are tiny, calibrated acts of repetition that force a social accounting every year.

Call it the Perpetual Pettiness Doctrine. Clause 1: If the marginal cost of annoyance < marginal joy of being annoying, maintain the annoyance indefinitely. Clause 2 (exceptions): death, actual reconciliation, or if the annoyed party hires a lawyer. Footnote: there’s accidental estate planning here—one commenter predicts the wrenches will return with the will. That is both funny and rational.

So yes, keep being petty. It’s efficient in a certain, very human way: low effort, steady signal, high narrative value. If you want to win an argument forever, sometimes the dominant strategy isn’t winning at all—it’s never stopping.