There are 112 people in our little patch of heaven who could help me develop a sense of grievance, of which I am notably lacking.

Being aggrieved about something is one of the hallmarks of modern life. Any small annoyance can be instantly promoted to Worst Outrage Ever. Just one example: The father of an area high school football player called us recently to demand an investigation into why his son was sitting on the bench. Seriously, that's the word he used -- "investigation."

My son once was ordered out of the dugout when his youth-league baseball coach decided he had an attitude problem. I later told the coach that was the right thing to do. What was I thinking? I should have hired a lawyer and dragged Coach Hitler into court and beaten a million dollars or so out of his sorry rule-enforcing hide. I left money on the table. What a chump.

See what I mean? I have a woefully underdeveloped sense of grievance.

Most parents get sort of crazy about things when their children are involved. The N.C. Museum of Art is learning this lesson right now. A crowd of aggrieved parents has the museum under siege because they can't bring strollers into the popular "Monet in Normandy" exhibit.

It's a modern, high-tech kind of siege, by the way. You don't literally encircle your enemies these days. Instead, you create a Web site and talk trash about them. (To see for yourself, go to www.petitiononline.com/seemonet/petition.html.)

The Monet exhibit opened Oct. 15 and will continue until Jan. 14. Crowds have been steady, and some remaining days have already sold out. Therein lies the rub: Big crowds are packing into a relatively small museum space, making strollers both an impediment and potential danger.

At least that's the story according to museum officials. Stroller-pushers, aka Mom 'n' Pop, see it differently.

"It's discrimination," one mother says in her online posting. Another encourages the museum to "foster a love of art from the start," while a second echoes that by calling the policy a "pretty straightforward statement of how little the NC Museum of Art values encouragement of art appreciation in our younger set." Others ask why wheelchairs are allowed, but not strollers.

That last point can be easily answered. Federal law says the museum has to be wheelchair-accessible. It says nothing about strollers. "It's the difference between a convenience and a necessity," museum spokeswoman Jennifer Bahus says.

As for the accusation that the museum is denying children an early art-appreciation opportunity, let me field it:

Oh, please. Stop it.

Want to give your toddler a taste for art? Try a box of crayons and a few sheets of blank paper. Quit pretending that you looked forward to discussing Monet's brush work with your 4-year-old. Or that any member of the stroller set is interested in comparing Monet with, say, Cezanne. And if the real issue is that you want to see the exhibit yourself but you're stuck with the kids, I've got one word for you: "sitter."

Wow. I suddenly feel so ... aggrieved. Maybe I'm better at this than I thought.

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