User "NeckBeardDiscordMod" (points for the user name) asked:
What's a 1st world "problem" that's a 3rd world luxury?
And yup! There's a lot to unpack here.
Food Tetris
tetris GIFGiphy"Having to Tetris the fridge because you ordered too much food and the fridge is full of left overs." - Nospamkhanman
"Which you probably end up throwing away a few days later as it gone bad or doesn't taste good anymore." - lzwzli
"So many people just throw whatever onto a plate in the microwave and if that doesn't work consider it bad leftovers. It's sad."
"Some of my favorite tips: hamburgers and many other meats can be done quickly and decently in the microwave, but wrap them in a soaked napkin or paper towel first. They stay way moister."
"Barring that, wrap in foil with a splash of water or broth and put in the oven."
"Mashed potatoes, reheat on the stove with a splash of half and half to rejuvenate them."
"Most fried foods spring back up nicely with a quick re-frying, or if you don't want to do that, high temperatures in an oven for a few minutes (convection is best if you have it available). Even french fries, which get nasty and mealy when old, can be reheated this way."
"Breads take on a new life when toasted. This even goes for things like day-old biscuits. Cut it in half and give it a good toast on the internal sides and you're prime for another great sandwich." - Mitosis
Imperfect
Bell Pepper Cooking GIF by MypenleaksGiphy"Here's one that blew my mind: imperfect vegetables. Imagine a grocery discarding a pepper for having too many bumps or a banana for having to many brown spots."
"Meanwhile here I am with my crinkly green peppers and bananas that are 40% brown patch. (But our avocados are like .20cents US)" - corvusaraneae
"Hey good thing is that here in France, this is changing."
"They are starting to sell "ugly vegetables" in supermarkets much, much cheaper than the "good" ones. I tried, so for 0.75€ I got four ugly peppers, ugly beans and an ugly onion hahaha well they were as good as the others!"
"I would have paid 5€ at least for a "perfect" version of them. They taste all good and become all ugly in my stomach. So well. Hopefully this will become more and more the norm." - meteorpuppy
Hot Water
chris evans shower GIF by VideolandGiphy"I would say not enough hot water to take a long shower because the tank in the heater is 'too small.' " - vaspat
"I lived in a former communist country in Eastern Europe. Same problem. Also the bathtubs are 1/2 the size and everything uses coal heating."
"I nearly froze to death because the thoughtless landlord went on winter vacation and cancelled coal delivery, leaving me to freeze." - LunarRatGrl
WHAT not IF
Confused David Rose GIF by Schitt's CreekGiphy"It's what are we going to eat tonight, not are we going to eat tonight." - j*rkitwithrightynewb
"Do you want pizza? No. Chinese? No. Salad? No. Want to go to the grocery store and get stuff no make dinner? No. Ugghhhh there's nothing to eatttt!!!!" - wishyouamerry
"It's so real though. Like we have to watch our intake and do sh*t like exercise just to avoid getting fat."
"Obesity is one of the biggest killers in the 1st world."
"Our bodies are designed to eat foot when it's available because we've got 100,000 years of evolution telling us to, because who knows when we'll eat again. It sucks and "just eating less" goes against our basic instinct." - slurmz-mckenzie
Halfway Great
Vietnam GIFGiphy"I live in Ho Chi Minh City. It's dense. We don't actually know how many people live here, but it's somewhere north of 10 million."
"I don't currently live in poverty, but did for a few years when I was getting a company off the ground."
"A lot of people live 3 people to an 8 square meter (80 square feet) room. The room has to also fit a kitchen, a bathroom, and a mattress (yes, just one)."
"We struggle to find places to keep clothing. Oh, and dishes. Both of those things are very affordable compared to renting/buying a bigger place to live."
"Moreover, since the older generations have survived famines and conflict, there's a tendency to never throw anything away. Heck, I'm an immigrant here, and just a few years of lesser hardship have made it challenging to discard things!"
"I guess it's just a symptom of things being halfway great."
"We can afford more than we have space for now, but are still haunted by the memory of being able to afford neither things nor space. So we accumulate things." - Saigonauticon
If I See Single Ply
Toilet Paper Poop GIF by Paper PooGiphy"I was born in Eritrea (country on the Horn of Africa) and when I was a kid I would alternate between living with my grandparents and my mother ( my father moved to the US on a student visa shortly after I was born)."
"My mother was a teacher and the government would send her to to indigenous villages that had absolutely no running water, electricity or anything of that sort."
"On the flip side my grandparents lived in the capital city where they had indoor plumbing but the "toilet" was a hole you would have to squat over and then manually dump a bucket of water to flush, and afterwards you would wipe with an old newspaper."
"At the time, I thought this was the epitome of high-class living."
"After my father finished school and got his US citizenship he was able to bring me to the states when I was 9 years old (2003.) Since then I've became Americanized as f*ck and if I ever go to your house and I see single ply toilet paper I will judge the f*ck out of you." - Philly73898
Not A Monolith
Jesse Pinkman Reaction GIF by Breaking BadGiphy"The thing is, the third world population isn't a monolith. Like every country, there are wealthy, mid-class and poor. The wealthy and upper-middle class people probably have all the luxuries these comments mentioned and more."
"But there is also the poor class, people still living in super dense housing area. Like I'm talking 'the streets are barely 2m wide' dense."
"A good proportion of my country is still very underdeveloped infrastructure-wise. We don't have drinkable tap water, a lot of places (even in big cities) don't have reliable hot water, until like 5 years ago electricity shutdown was a regular thing here etc." - whoatemycupoframen
Life Or Death
star tv hospital GIF by HotstarGiphy"I live in a very bad 3rd world country. I'll explain some of the problems we experience."
"We no longer have petrol. We must wait about 6 hours or more to fill up petrol at the station."
"Our local currency has devalued by 20 times making things sooooo much more expensive."
"We have no medicine. Not even Panadol anymore."
"Electricity cuts off for about 16 hours a day (I live in an upper middle class house). The problem here affects all people of class."
"Imagine going to a hospital and there being no electricity to do an operation. No matter how rich you are you can't get many medicines that are life or death." - Countbat
Road Construction
mine hunt GIFGiphy"I was once told this story by a coworker."
"This guy is driving this contractor from Africa to the office. They get stuck in traffic due to road construction, and the guy turns to the contractor and says, 'This is something else, huh?' "
"The contractor replies, 'This is amazing! In my country the roads are falling apart because they're so old. I wish we had road repair like this where I come from.' "
"It completely changed the guy's perspective on road construction. It may still be an inconvenience sometimes, but now he has an appreciation for it he didn't have before. It definitely opened my eyes the first time I heard the story." - TorinKurai
Hopefully this was little jolt to reality for us. Some of us have no idea what a third world country is really like - and some of us don't realize we're already living a life much closer to "poverty" than we are to "wealth".