Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[NyaChan]

"Oh! You're from Illinois. Do you know my cousin?"

hahaha I get that too!  People somehow don't get that IL is a state, not a small town.  I especially love when it when I say I'm from IL and people go "Oh Chicago is a great city to live in!  You must love it!"  Well yes, I suppose it is a great city and I do love it, but I don't live there.  I live in one the other numerous cities in our state.

[Luci45]

"Oh! You're from Illinois. Do you know my cousin?"

hahaha I get that too!  People somehow don't get that IL is a state, not a small town.  I especially love when it when I say I'm from IL and people go "Oh Chicago is a great city to live in!  You must love it!"  Well yes, I suppose it is a great city and I do love it, but I don't live there.  I live in one the other numerous cities in our state.

I've probably been to Chicago maybe 20 times in my life despite living 40 miles away for 34 years, so it makes me laugh when people want to know about it. A great place to eat? Several thousand.

[MommyPenguin]

Me: Where is the court building?
SCC: On Ritchie Highway.
Me: Where on Ritchie Highway?  (Ritchie runs for about 20 miles between Baltimore and Annapolis.)
SCC: Near Fountain Blue. 

This was *hilarious* to read, not only because of the conversation itself, but because I grew up right in that area and knew *exactly* what Ritchie Hwy and Fontaine Bleu you were talking about. I even got my wedding dress in the building that houses Fontaine Bleu! It's so strange when you're reading strangers' stories on the Internet and they live down the road.

Elfqueen used to work in that wedding dress shop!   

So funny!  It would *really* be a small world if she were the person who helped me at the shop!

[Sirius]

Had this discussion via chat with a niece, who is a college student in her early 20s: 

Niece:  Several paragraphs about how dumb most guys her age are and how most of them are only looking for one thing, and it isn't a degree.

Me:  Oh, they're not all like that.

Niece:  But Auntie!  You don't know what it's like to be young!

Me:  Niece, I was young once.  I wasn't born old.

Niece:  But you don't know what it's like to be young and pretty!  Mom says you're smart! 

I think someone needs to have a chat with my niece.  But not me - I'd be laughing too hard.

[Sirius]

"Oh! You're from Illinois. Do you know my cousin?"

hahaha I get that too!  People somehow don't get that IL is a state, not a small town.  I especially love when it when I say I'm from IL and people go "Oh Chicago is a great city to live in!  You must love it!"  Well yes, I suppose it is a great city and I do love it, but I don't live there.  I live in one the other numerous cities in our state.

I've probably been to Chicago maybe 20 times in my life despite living 40 miles away for 34 years, so it makes me laugh when people want to know about it. A great place to eat? Several thousand.

I used to get the same thing about San Francisco.  I lived 60 miles away, and was there probably fewer than ten times in the 31 years I lived in the area. 

[WhiteTigerCub]

Conversation with my toxic Aunt Sophie recently:

Me: Help yourself to some apple cider
Aunt: That's alcoholic...you should know better than to serve that with alcoholics* around
Me: It's not alcohol, it's apple cider
Aunt: It's in a bottle that looks like ones alcohol comes in
Me: Points out "apple cider" on the bottle.
Aunt: It's alcohol
Me: It's apple juice with carbonation. No alcohol
Aunt: well it's going to make alcoholics want to drink.

*PA jab at my mother who is a recovering alcoholic

Note: aunt does not drink alcohol and thinks anyone who does is evil.

[Iris]

Sirius and White Tiger Cub - after your two posts in rapid succession now MY brain hurts.

[amylouky]

I've got one.. I went into a video store to try and find the movie "The Devil's Arithmetic", and had the following conversation:

Clerk: Can I help you find something?
Me: Yes, please.. I'm looking for "The Devil's Arithmetic"
Clerk: (blank stare)
Me: It stars Kirsten Dunst and Brittany Murphy?
Clerk: The What? (in tone that implied he thought I was an idiot)
Me (slower and more enunciated, but not condescendingly so): "The Devil's Arithmetic".
Clerk: The Devil's Ah-thu-thu-thu??? (Slurred together as if I were speaking gibberish)
Me (not my finest E-hell moment..):  Um. No.. A-rith-me-tic. You know, like.. math??

I had to tell him how to spell "arithmetic", so he could type it in his computer. Sad, really.

[magician5]

The several posts about ridiculous grade-school teachings on math reminded me of the classes in Virginia History (again and again and AGAIN) in my public schooling.

I knew this was nuts back then (1960s) but what does a kid say when the sweet little old lady teaching the class tells everyone that "many of the slaves did not want to be freed, and cried and cried and didn't know what they would do if they couldn't live with Ole Massa anymore"?

This was before the day when a kid could "call shenanigans" but I mark it as the beginning of the time when I started looking for more evidence that authority was not to be trusted. Oh, and wasn't that a time when there was evidence everywhere?

[mabelle]

To the poster above - I can assure you that by the 70s those lectures were not given in my Virginia history class. 

When I worked at a hotel at the oceanfront in Virginia Beach, I regularly was just plain confounded by folks' lack of geography/spatial relations. VB is on the EASTERN seaboard and our hotel faces due east. On the reservations line, we'd ask, "would you like an ocean front room or a land-side/west facing room?" and then get "Will I be able to see the sunset over the water?" from the potential guest. "No, not from our hotel."

See, this is why I don't eat the egg shells.  Much simpler than worrying about chicken butt. 

Anyone else keeping thinking of that silly "Guess what?" / "Chicken butt!" bit by now?

I can't resist...my hubby does this whole dialogue with our 5 year old daughter almost daily - with both of them laughing hysterically:

Guess What? Chicken Butt!
Guess Why? Chicken thigh!
Guess When? Chicken Pen!
Guess Where? Chicken Hair!
Guess How? Chicken Cow!

DD response "you're silly, Daddy!"

[Iris]

I knew this was nuts back then (1960s) but what does a kid say when the sweet little old lady teaching the class tells everyone that "many of the slaves did not want to be freed, and cried and cried and didn't know what they would do if they couldn't live with Ole Massa anymore"?

Yes, and people suffering from Stockholm Syndrome should not be rescued because they like their captors just so dingdangity much 

[onikenbai]

Revenue Canada denied my tax claim for my ticket to my work place in Japan.  They couldn't find my tiny city on a map of Japan and therefore could not confirm that it was more than 40km outside of Canada...

[Outdoor Girl]

Revenue Canada denied my tax claim for my ticket to my work place in Japan.  They couldn't find my tiny city on a map of Japan and therefore could not confirm that it was more than 40km outside of Canada...

LOL

Not that I'm surprised...

[kherbert05]

To the poster above - I can assure you that by the 70s those lectures were not given in my Virginia history class. 

Didn't get that nonsense in Texas schools either - no State Rights stuff as the cause either. Slavery was evil plain and simple

[Just Lori]

To the poster above - I can assure you that by the 70s those lectures were not given in my Virginia history class. 

Didn't get that nonsense in Texas schools either - no State Rights stuff as the cause either. Slavery was evil plain and simple

I was a child in the '70s living in the northern US and I can remember my piano teacher - a retired elementary school music teacher - telling me about studies that proved nonwhites were not as smart as white people.  She insisted it was true, and said it was a shame the nonwhites did not believe the studies, because "we" could have helped "them."

Those sort of memories hurt my brain.