Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Elfmama]

Texas is about the size of France.

When I was a kid, we were on one of our cross-country road trips and met a group of French tourists in about Pennsylvania. They were confused and my father was trying to help them make sense of their map. We realized that they thought the US was the same size as France. They had assumed they could drive from NY to LA in one day, max two days. We tried to explain that the US is waaaay bigger and the father's response was, "But they're the same size countries in the atlas. They both take up a page."

British maps are even worse.  We had a UK couple ask if they could see Niagara Falls in the morning and drive to the Grand Canyon that afternoon.

DH worked it wrong the other way.  I wanted to go see something in Yorkshire the first week we were there, and he "didn't want to drive all that way because there would be no time to see anything once we got there."  He'd looked at the UK map and thought it was about 60 miles away.  It was about 5.

Re NY to LA -- Google maps says it's about 40 hours, so you CAN do it in about 2 days.  But that means driving straight through, changing off drivers when one gets tired, sleeping in the passenger seat, and getting meals at fast food places to eat in the car, and bathroom breaks only when you stop for food or fuel.  We made it from Baltimore to Pendleton, Oregon in 51 hours, stopping for restaurant meals and bathroom breaks. That was with 4 drivers, and in a minivan with the center seat removed so that one passenger could sleep on padding on the floor. Never again!

[nutraxfornerves]

I ordered a new iPod and went to fill in the delivery information. All my mail is sent to my PO Box (we don't have the option of home mail delivery in my town) and for bigger-ticket stuff like that, I kind of like the security. Unfortunately FedEx would not let me enter a PO Box, so I had to enter my home address. Sigh, fine.

The day it was supposed to be delivered, they didn't even try to bring it to my house. They just left it--guess where--at the post office. What the...argh.

Many years ago, my car broke down in a tiny town (population about 200) in the middle of nowhere. Several people stopped to help, including a couple who apologized that they had no spare room for me, assured me that the rooms for rent over the local bar were quite respectable (they were), and insisted I join them for an evening at a town picnic in the next county.

I wanted to thank them, so I asked for their address, saying I wanted to be proper and send a thank you note. (I actually wanted to send a gift.) They didn't know their own address. Everyone in town had a post office box and the postmistress knew who had what box, so townfolks just gave out their address as "John Smith, Tinytown, [state, ZIP code]." These nice people, who had lived there all their lives, had never bothered to learn their PO Box number. Besides, you don't need to send us any thanks, we were happy to help out.

Fortunately, I spotted a magazine in their house with the correct address on the label and I was able to send them a food specialty from my home town that I knew would be very hard for them to find.

On the travel board where I hang out, we get that geographic confusion a lot. The most recent that I recall was someone who wanted to take 2 or 3 days to visit the Grand Canyon--departing from Chicago. It would take about 6 hours just to fly to a nearby city and drive to the Canyon, so the round trip is almost 2 days in itself. This map is helpful in showing people from Western Europe the scale issue.

[Moray]

When my mom was growing up on a farm during WWII, they named the pigs which were destined to become pork chops Hitler and Mussolini, so no one would get too attached to them.

My friend's father is the source of a few brain-hurting anecdotes. They raised goats, and he carefully labeled all the packages of meat in the freezer with the names of the dearly departed. So one night they might have Millie for dinner, and the next night it might be Bob.

If you'd said sheep, or pig, I'd think your friend and I might have some relatives in common. I can't tell you how many times I got sent to my grandma's deep freeze to get a package of "Wilbur Butt Roast" or "Shank of Fluffy".

[Shalamar]

That reminds me of Betty MacDonald's book The Egg and I.  She deliberately stayed away from her farm on the day that her husband was slaughtering the pigs, because she'd become very fond of them.  When she returned, her husband greeted her with a pig's head in each hand, asking her to make head cheese out of them.  He was bewildered when she shrieked in horror and ran away.

[kherbert05]

 Texas is 268,580 square miles. There is a reason we measure distance in time.




You could fit DC and the smallest 13 states in Texas and still have about 34,434 square miles left over. If Texas was a independent country today it would be about the rank around 76 largest.


My boss at the museum came from back east. One day he decided to drive and see Eden, Texas a small town outside of San Angelo. He thought it would take 10 - 15 min - and ended up thinking he had driven into the Twilight Zone with the same scenery going on a loop for ever - and Eden is only 45 min away.


Another time we were all going to an see a museum in Amarillo for a meeting. Every native born Texan showed up with a cooler of drinks for the van - just in case. He got that it was a 4 hour drive there and 4 hours back - but not just how lonely US 84 was going to be. Especially if something happened between towns. Given the timing deer were a big hazard both ways.

[Jocelyn]

  When people ask me why I buy certified free range meat I've learnt to reply that "Happy meat is yummy meat". If I phrase it that way it seems more acceptable to people. Go figure.

It's a proven fact: stress hormones decrease the quality of meat. Thus, Temple Grandin's work on improving livestock handling in slaughterhouses.

[MommyPenguin]

I was having fun playing with the map overlay of the United States versus Europe, and commented to my husband that it was amazing just how much an impact England had on world history, considering its size, and he reminded me to consider population density.  England's is something like 674, the United States' is like 88.  Maryland is somewhat comparable at 595 (I grew up in Maryland), which makes sense, as Maryland does have expanses of horse farms, forest, etc., but they just aren't huge wide endless expanses like you see in the western U.S.

[Elfmama]

Texas is 268,580 square miles. There is a reason we measure distance in time.




You could fit DC and the smallest 13 states in Texas and still have about 34,434 square miles left over. If Texas was a independent country today it would be about the rank around 76 largest.


My boss at the museum came from back east. One day he decided to drive and see Eden, Texas a small town outside of San Angelo. He thought it would take 10 - 15 min - and ended up thinking he had driven into the Twilight Zone with the same scenery going on a loop for ever - and Eden is only 45 min away.


Another time we were all going to an see a museum in Amarillo for a meeting. Every native born Texan showed up with a cooler of drinks for the van - just in case. He got that it was a 4 hour drive there and 4 hours back - but not just how lonely US 84 was going to be. Especially if something happened between towns. Given the timing deer were a big hazard both ways.

Something I read, maybe in Michener's Texas, how to demonstrate the size of the US to people of other countries.  Take a globe and something like a compass or measuring tape or even a strip of paper.  Use your chosen tool to measure from X to Y in the US, like Texas from east to west or north to south.  Now take that measurement and put one end on the capital of your country.  Swing the other end around in a circle, and see how far that takes you.  Texas east to west is about the same distance as London to Prague.

[figee]

About the distance thing, it's the same here.  We regularly have tourists in Sydney who inform us that they're planning to go to Ayers Rock and Kakadu for the day tomorrow.  Uh.  No.  You're not.  And we also measure distance in time, which caused us to hurt a cousin of DH's brain a few years ago.

He is English and had visited Australia and was familiar with the '9 hours to Melbourne from Sydney' style of measurement.  We were staying in Edinburgh and planned to drive down to York to visit him and his family for the weekend.  He asked when we would arrive.  We had to go for lunch in the Borders with another family member so we did the Australian maths.  1.5 hours Edinburgh to lunch.  1.5 hours for lunch.  2 hours from lunch to York.  Add 30 minutes for traffic and getting lost.  If we leave at 10.30, we'll get to York by 4.  Cousin told us that it didn't work that way here.  He was right.  We were 15 minutes late because he hadn't given us his house number in the small village he lived in, but instead had told us to look for the 'house with the dig tree in front of it'.  (which hurt our brains).  Who knew so many houses had big trees in the front?   

[Barney girl]

I'm not surprised he said that. What speed were you doing to get from the Borders to York in two hours? I'd reckon that from my home town, going south to York and the same going north to the border. Even knocking off a bit of time to allow for getting to the A1 that seems incredibly fast.

[figee]

We were on the backroads most of the way, and lunch was quite a long way sound in the Borders, so we weren't travelling as fast as it sounds.  Had we driven straight through on main roads, it should have taken us about 4 hours, so 6 hours including lunch was reasonable.

[Browyn]

When my mom was growing up on a farm during WWII, they named the pigs which were destined to become pork chops Hitler and Mussolini, so no one would get too attached to them.

Many years ago, My Uncle bought a pair of pigs to raise for meat.  He named them after his wife and her sister (my Mom) because "all they do is chatter all day".

Mom and Aunt were not pleased with his sense of humour.

[starry diadem]

Yesterday my internet connection decided to slow down to dial-up speeds, making it near impossible for me to work from home. I called Large Phone and Internet Service Provider to report the problem.

The first-level technical support person was quite frustrating. At one point she asked what my signal strength was. Having no clue, I asked how I would go about finding that out. She replied, "Oh, it's on the main screen of the internet connection application." After much searching I failed to find it and asked for clarification. Turns out that you have to click Menu, then Support, then Settings, then Diagnostics to get to the page that shows signal strength. And it's not listed as "signal strength," either: it's called LSRX MME. But I was apparently just supposed to know all of that.

She then informed me that similar problems to mine were being reported in central Texas and since I lived so close to there perhaps I was experiencing the same thing. I live in southern Arizona...

Eventually I was transferred to second-level support. That lady also mentioned the problems in Texas and suggested that I might be affected "since I'm so close." I advised her that I live in Arizona and she replied, "Yeah, but it's just the next state over." 

And no, the problem has not been resolved.

The New Mexico Magazine has a regular column - One of our 50 is missing (http://www.nmmagazine.com/one-of-our-50-is-missing/ )You might like to suggest your internet provider becomes a subscriber.

[cabbageweevil]

...She then informed me that similar problems to mine were being reported in central Texas and since I lived so close to there perhaps I was experiencing the same thing. I live in southern Arizona...

Eventually I was transferred to second-level support. That lady also mentioned the problems in Texas and suggested that I might be affected "since I'm so close." I advised her that I live in Arizona and she replied, "Yeah, but it's just the next state over." 

And no, the problem has not been resolved.

The New Mexico Magazine has a regular column - One of our 50 is missing (http://www.nmmagazine.com/one-of-our-50-is-missing/ )You might like to suggest your internet provider becomes a subscriber.

In recent years, I have come across quite a number of accounts from people in the US, of dealings with compatriots who basically had not heard of the state of New Mexico, and thought that Mexico the country was being referred to. (Am not meaning to mock America and Americans, in this -- plenty of people here in the UK are highly "geographically challenged".)  I can't help feeling that when the United States acquired this area, a more convenient name for the state might have been hit on, than "New Mexico". In the light of how easily confused, and not very clued-up, people can be; the choice of name, was perhaps inviting this problem.

With bansidhe's "just the next state over" lady: in Harry Turtledove's "How Few Remain" alternative-history series, that applies, but "the other way round", as it were. In this series of novels, the history of North America works out somewhat differently from "our time line" (and often, rather nastily). In the series, there are not quite as many western states, as in "our time line": there's no Arizona -- what is Arizona and New Mexico in "our time line", is all just New Mexico.  Perhaps, by reason of this, in the novels' "universe" New Mexico turns up "missing", less than it does with us...

[Redsoil]

How peculiar.  I just checked to to get an idea of just "how big" Texas is, and it's smaller than NSW!