Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Piratelvr1121]

Don't have an ipad so can't really weigh in on that but I do love my android phone!

[stitchygreyanonymouse]

I haven’t played around with Android on tablets yet. I could see myself liking it as a tablet OS over iOS too, maybe (although for tablet computing, the simplicity of iOS is one of its advantages [and I’m interested in playing with the new Windows tablet OS for that reason]).

It’s going to be such a hard decision for what to get when my iPad breaks. It’s the first gen, and the only reason I have it is that it was the holiday bonus from my company a few years ago. Now I’m hooked on having it.

[Midge]

I had a brain straining conversation today.

Have you even had one of those conversations where, for most of it, you are struggling to keep up and can't quite follow what the other person says, and you assume it's because they're smarter than you? And then they say something and you realise that it's the opposite: you were having trouble because they're not smart at all, and they're making all sorts of nonsense statements, which is why it's hard to understand--just for a different reason!

Ah, I see you've met my brother-in-law!

[lowspark]

lowspark wrote:

"I just saw this today on a restaurant sign: Field of Green's -- is the name of the eatery. Now, they can call it anything they want, it's their place. But the name implies that it belongs to Field of Green, not that it is a field of greens. Oh well, whatever."

To me, that name is the same as saying Green's Field.  That is, a field that belongs to someone named Green.  I agree that it's probably not what they meant, though.

Virg

I went to this restaurant a few weeks ago with my DD and her vegan friend. I think they figured out their mistake because their website just has Field of Green but their sign still has Field of Green's.  Honestly, I didn't think much of it, but DD and her friend were both highly amused by that errant appostrophe.  They wanted to ask to meet Mr or Mrs Green.

Off topic, but... was it any good? It's pretty close to my office but I've never eaten there. It doesn't sound tempting.

It was OK. We were with a vegan soma good choice for vegan friendly. I had their veggie barley soup and it was fine.

Ok, thanks. It doesn't sound like a place I need to make a point of trying. Too many other good restaurants in the area.

[CakeBeret]

And she thinks she is doing them a favour?

If the family is meat eating, the more naturally and matter of factly the subject is handled, the better.

My brother owns a farm and my 3yo spends a lot of time there, and I was a bit uncomfortable at first with how, well, blunt farm life is re: the facts of life. Mating, life cycles, animals being turned into meat, that sort of thing. My son did fixate for months about a particular mean rooster who died, but otherwise, he seems to have processed everything quite well.

[BabyMama]

I am wondering what the people who don't know that meat involves the death of some creature think of the Thanksgiving or other roasted poultry. Perhaps they missed the chart in the meat department that shows the cuts of beef and pork, so I'll give that a pass. The seafood department has whole fish; well, gutted and ready to prepare, but still looking whole. Lobsters are in the tank at many restaurants. (That one really bothers even me.)

I guess it just never hit them on a conscious level. 1 + 1 = 2.

Our grandson figured it out before he was three. He was eating a bone-in chiken leg, his dad reminded him that it was chicken. Grandson said, "Cluck, cluck?", son nods his head, and grandson after thinking a bit shrugged his shoulders and went on eating.

My grandson knew consciously that meat was dead animals from the time he was a toddler, but I think he was 10 before it really hit him.  A neighbor was processing a deer, and actually seeing a body being cut up turned him off meat for at least a week.

My 5 year old is all to aware of where meat comes from. Last summer I was complaining about rabbits eating my potted plants. She looked at me, deadpan, and said, "We should kill them." I went  . She said, "What? There's meat inside." 

[snowflake]

And she thinks she is doing them a favour?

If the family is meat eating, the more naturally and matter of factly the subject is handled, the better.

My sister thought she had given this talk but she says feeding her kids boneless/skinless must have derailed things.  Her daughter was ten when they were visiting a friend who kept chickens in the country and she suddenly turned to her mother in horror saying, "Wait, THOSE chickens are the same thing as the chickens we eat?  You mean nuggets are just pieces of them?"

The child has always been brilliant at math and science so it's not an IQ thing.

I have laughed at  that but now I'm parenting two children who have to eat everything cut up fine and in soup.  So I'm probably going to end up having the same conversation about carrots.

[Ereine]

This hurts my own brain a little: when I was very young, so young that I have no memory of it I saw on the news pig carcasses hanging from meat hooks and apparently I was really traumatized by it. This was before Christmas and the story was something about the consumption of ham, the main Christmas meal meat here. I'm not sure if I ate ham before that but at least after it I haven't been able to, it isn't really the taste but the whole idea of the ham repulses me. I eat other pork, though it's not my favorite meat but I have nothing like the reaction I have with the ham. So was I so traumatized by seeing the dead pigs that I can't tolerate the meat almost 30 years later? The same goes for mushrooms, I really dislike them but there's evidence that one time I ate them as someone cooked sort of toxic mushrooms for me which lead to a trip to doctor's (fortunately my parents knew a lot about mushrooms and realized what the "nice mushrooms that taste like licorice" were) and these days I can't stand them (and I really wasn't a less picky eater as a child).

Actually, cooking mushrooms without really knowing what they are is pretty brain hurting too. 

[Reika]

I guess this proves how warped I am as an individual.

Mom made sure I knew that meat came from animals (and if she didn't, the ginormous pictures of cows and pigs at the store with the various cuts of meat helped). And my mother's brother-in-law was an avid deer hunter who did his own butchering. One day I walked in on him butchering a deer (I was 6 or 7), not only was I excited that we'd likely have venison for dinner that night, I wanted to help "take it apart".

I think I broke his brain a bit that day judging by his expression.

[violinp]

I broke my own brain a few days ago. I can get pretty kooky - putting peanut butter in the fridge when it's not the kind that needs it, almost putting a whole thing of mayonnaise in the trashcan, etc.

However, I've never been absentminded enough that I got a dinner plate to put my ice cream on. Yes, a dinner plate. I only realized my error when I put the scoop in the ice cream and looked over to the dish I'd gotten on which to put my ice cream. After I'd gotten a bowl and put the plate back, I laughed like a loon for a minute straight.

[CakeBeret]

I broke my own brain a few days ago. I can get pretty kooky - putting peanut butter in the fridge when it's not the kind that needs it, almost putting a whole thing of mayonnaise in the trashcan, etc.

However, I've never been absentminded enough that I got a dinner plate to put my ice cream on. Yes, a dinner plate. I only realized my error when I put the scoop in the ice cream and looked over to the dish I'd gotten on which to put my ice cream. After I'd gotten a bowl and put the plate back, I laughed like a loon for a minute straight.

I do that sometimes. I go about my business and have a sudden moment of clarity--WHY am I attempting to place the Cheerios in the freezer?

[Carotte]

I broke my own brain a few days ago. I can get pretty kooky - putting peanut butter in the fridge when it's not the kind that needs it, almost putting a whole thing of mayonnaise in the trashcan, etc.

However, I've never been absentminded enough that I got a dinner plate to put my ice cream on. Yes, a dinner plate. I only realized my error when I put the scoop in the ice cream and looked over to the dish I'd gotten on which to put my ice cream. After I'd gotten a bowl and put the plate back, I laughed like a loon for a minute straight.

I do that sometimes. I go about my business and have a sudden moment of clarity--WHY am I attempting to place the Cheerios in the freezer?

I had the "why am I about to brush my toothbrush on the bar of soap to then brush my teeth" (that wouldn't be a good invention, and clearly not hygienic) and a "why am I waiting to open the fridge door when the toaster ding". I then shake my head and go on about my business. 

[marcel]

I broke my own brain a few days ago. I can get pretty kooky - putting peanut butter in the fridge when it's not the kind that needs it, almost putting a whole thing of mayonnaise in the trashcan, etc.

However, I've never been absentminded enough that I got a dinner plate to put my ice cream on. Yes, a dinner plate. I only realized my error when I put the scoop in the ice cream and looked over to the dish I'd gotten on which to put my ice cream. After I'd gotten a bowl and put the plate back, I laughed like a loon for a minute straight.

The most brain hurty part for me is why you did not continue with eating from the plate that you got out. It doesn't really matter for the ice cream eqating experience, and it only makes for slightly more dishes. Getting a bowl is more trouble then the extra dishes are.

[Coralreef]

About where meat comes from...

Niece was about 5YO and we were vacationing at a family farm.  They men went to the barn to dispatch the bull (mean thing, it charged someone one too many times).  Us "weak wymyn folks" were told to stay at home and watch the kiddies.  Niece escaped and went to the barn.  She came back scandalized that they were removing the bull's "carpet".   

[Shalamar]

My daughter became a vegan after reading "Fast Food Nation".  She'd always known where meat came from, and she'd eaten it more or less willingly until she was 13 or so.  Reading about how cows, pigs, and chickens are often mistreated turned her right off, and she hasn't knowingly eaten meat since.

The brain-hurty part is the people who don't understand her reasoning.  I think they envision all farms as wonderful, bucolic places with frisky lambs and happy smiling pigs, and they can't or won't acknowledge that she might have a point.

(This isn't intended to insult anyone who owns a farm, and I hope I haven't given offense.)