Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Diane AKA Traska]

I used to work with a woman from Alaska. She was constantly amazed at how many people didn't know that Alaska is a state.

Recently I was with a friend as she was closing out an investment account shortly before moving out of state. There was a question about whether her current representative would be able to help her or not based on which state she would actually be living in at the time the transaction was completed. He at first insisted he was not licensed in the state she was moving to and would therefore have to turn her file over to someone else to handle. On the visit where I was with her, he then said he actually WAS licensed in that state. This guy was rude and flaky on lots of counts so when he said this she was a bit taken aback and asked for proof since he clearly didn't know where he was licensed and where he wasn't. He got all huffy and said, "There are fifty-some-odd states! I can't remember all of them!"

We looked at each other and I mumbled something about how I was under the impression there were exactly fifty states.

We still joke about that!

I have a friend who develops geographic software, who insisted one day at lunch that Hawaii was the 51st state. I had him look it up on his smart phone, but clearly Google was wrong. We were eating next to city hall, which was flying an American flag, so we sat there and counted stars, but city hall also was wrong, and was apparently flying a 50 year old flag. Eventually he said, "Let's just agree to disagree." Uh, yeah, no. You're wrong, I'm right.

Shoulda asked him to name all 51 states. See what he adds in.

State of Confusion.

[RingTailedLemur]

I used to work with a woman from Alaska. She was constantly amazed at how many people didn't know that Alaska is a state.

Recently I was with a friend as she was closing out an investment account shortly before moving out of state. There was a question about whether her current representative would be able to help her or not based on which state she would actually be living in at the time the transaction was completed. He at first insisted he was not licensed in the state she was moving to and would therefore have to turn her file over to someone else to handle. On the visit where I was with her, he then said he actually WAS licensed in that state. This guy was rude and flaky on lots of counts so when he said this she was a bit taken aback and asked for proof since he clearly didn't know where he was licensed and where he wasn't. He got all huffy and said, "There are fifty-some-odd states! I can't remember all of them!"

We looked at each other and I mumbled something about how I was under the impression there were exactly fifty states.

We still joke about that!

I have a friend who develops geographic software, who insisted one day at lunch that Hawaii was the 51st state. I had him look it up on his smart phone, but clearly Google was wrong. We were eating next to city hall, which was flying an American flag, so we sat there and counted stars, but city hall also was wrong, and was apparently flying a 50 year old flag. Eventually he said, "Let's just agree to disagree." Uh, yeah, no. You're wrong, I'm right.

Shoulda asked him to name all 51 states. See what he adds in.

State of Confusion.

Or State of Denial!

[dirtyweasel]

My husband and I had this happen to us in a Costco Food Court a few weeks ago.  This is how the exchange with the guy at the food counter went:

Hubby:  Hi, we would like a slice of pizza, a soda and a yogurt.
Guy:  Okay, so I have a pizza slice, churro and soda.  That will be (price).
Hubby:  No churro, just a pizza slice, soda and yogurt.
Guy:  Okay, so a pizza slice, soda, yogurt and churro.
Hubby:  We don't want a churro.
Guy:  Okay, so a pizza slice, soda and a churro.
Hubby:  No churro!  Just a pizza slice, soda and yogurt.
Guy:  Okay, I have four items.
Hubby:  No!  Three items!  Pizza slice, soda and a yogurt!
Guy:  Oh!  Okay!

Meanwhile the guy behind us is cracking up because this guy is beyond ridiculous.  We eventually got our order, but we were trying to figure out if Costco was trying to get rid of their churro's. 

[mbbored]

I used to work with a woman from Alaska. She was constantly amazed at how many people didn't know that Alaska is a state.

Recently I was with a friend as she was closing out an investment account shortly before moving out of state. There was a question about whether her current representative would be able to help her or not based on which state she would actually be living in at the time the transaction was completed. He at first insisted he was not licensed in the state she was moving to and would therefore have to turn her file over to someone else to handle. On the visit where I was with her, he then said he actually WAS licensed in that state. This guy was rude and flaky on lots of counts so when he said this she was a bit taken aback and asked for proof since he clearly didn't know where he was licensed and where he wasn't. He got all huffy and said, "There are fifty-some-odd states! I can't remember all of them!"

We looked at each other and I mumbled something about how I was under the impression there were exactly fifty states.

We still joke about that!

I have a friend who develops geographic software, who insisted one day at lunch that Hawaii was the 51st state. I had him look it up on his smart phone, but clearly Google was wrong. We were eating next to city hall, which was flying an American flag, so we sat there and counted stars, but city hall also was wrong, and was apparently flying a 50 year old flag. Eventually he said, "Let's just agree to disagree." Uh, yeah, no. You're wrong, I'm right.

Shoulda asked him to name all 51 states. See what he adds in.

State of Confusion.

Or State of Denial!

Surprisingly enough, he said Puerto Rico! He said it joined in the 50s, near when Alaska did. Then we debated whether or not US had territory that wasn't officially states. Guess who swore we didn't have territories?

[drafter_lady]

My mom lives on the east coast of the US and I am on the west coast. There is a three hour time difference between us. Today, she asked me if gets dark early here at this time of year, or is that just an east coast thing. *face palm* I love her, but this kind of thing happens a lot.

[BabylonSister]

At a family reunion where most of the "family" lives in Minnesota I was chatting with a distant cousin who I don't remember meeting before:

Me: So, where do you live?
DC: Minot (North Dakota).  Where do you live?
Me: Idaho.
DC: Is that in Minnesota or North Dakota?

To be perfectly fair, there are cities named after other states. I lived many years in Northwest Illinois, not far from cities named Oregon and Ohio.

[strangetimes]

Years ago when I worked in a military hospital records section I had to do a bunch of paperwork to get the minimum security clearance necessary for my job.  I did fine until I got to the section about my spouse; Mr. Sirius was born in Britain, but at an Air Force base to parents who are U.S. citizens so he is a U.S. citizen by birth.  The paperwork only had two categories for foreign born spouses - resident aliens and naturalized citizens.  There was nothing in the paperwork about foreign-born U.S. citizens.  I came to a complete halt.  I told my boss why I couldn't finish the paperwork, so she contacted the security people and told them what was happening.  Meanwhile, they're nagging me to finish the paperwork, and I can't, even going so far as to threaten to pull my security clearance so I couldn't do the job I was doing. 

Finally, about two weeks later, my boss informed me that the paperwork had been fixed, and I finished it.  What amazed me was that, with all the people in the military who have had children overseas, no one thought to include a category for family members who are foreign-born U.S. citizens.  Mr. Sirius, who was an active duty military member at the time, told me he ran into the same thing when he had to do the paperwork.

A cubicle-mate at a former job ran into a similar problem. He was born to US citizens, in a civilian hospital in a foreign country. Some of the people responsible for the paperwork kept wanting to classify him as a foreign national.

Well, in his case, he might actually be a foreign national. We live overseas and after each child is born, my husband goes to the American embassy to get a 'consular report of birth abroad' and have them made American citizens. If we hadn't done that, our kids wouldn't be American. So, they're not completely wrong- your coworker may be American because his parents took care of his citizenship, but it's not automatic.

[Pinky830]

My mom lives on the east coast of the US and I am on the west coast. There is a three hour time difference between us. Today, she asked me if gets dark early here at this time of year, or is that just an east coast thing. *face palm* I love her, but this kind of thing happens a lot.

Friends of mine were transferred to Japan with his job. I had a going-away party for them, and at the party another guest asked them, "So, is it summer there too, or are the seasons different because it's so far away."

[magician5]

But ... but ... but ... consider how the seasons are indeed reversed south of the equator (Australia, etc)

Just a wee bit too little thought on the part of your friend, in this case.

[Amalthea]

My mom lives on the east coast of the US and I am on the west coast. There is a three hour time difference between us. Today, she asked me if gets dark early here at this time of year, or is that just an east coast thing. *face palm* I love her, but this kind of thing happens a lot.

Friends of mine were transferred to Japan with his job. I had a going-away party for them, and at the party another guest asked them, "So, is it summer there too, or are the seasons different because it's so far away."

I get asked this all the time.  By both Americans and Japanese people.  My mom also once asked me if there were rainbows in Japan.  My friend tried really hard to get me to tell her yes, but the colors were all backwards.

Every time I get a hair cut, someone always asks me if I got it cut in Japan.  I'm not sure if I'm missing something, or if they really expect me to leave the country for a hair cut, or what.  It always confuses me.

[Sirius]

Years ago when I worked in a military hospital records section I had to do a bunch of paperwork to get the minimum security clearance necessary for my job.  I did fine until I got to the section about my spouse; Mr. Sirius was born in Britain, but at an Air Force base to parents who are U.S. citizens so he is a U.S. citizen by birth.  The paperwork only had two categories for foreign born spouses - resident aliens and naturalized citizens.  There was nothing in the paperwork about foreign-born U.S. citizens.  I came to a complete halt.  I told my boss why I couldn't finish the paperwork, so she contacted the security people and told them what was happening.  Meanwhile, they're nagging me to finish the paperwork, and I can't, even going so far as to threaten to pull my security clearance so I couldn't do the job I was doing. 

Finally, about two weeks later, my boss informed me that the paperwork had been fixed, and I finished it.  What amazed me was that, with all the people in the military who have had children overseas, no one thought to include a category for family members who are foreign-born U.S. citizens.  Mr. Sirius, who was an active duty military member at the time, told me he ran into the same thing when he had to do the paperwork.

A cubicle-mate at a former job ran into a similar problem. He was born to US citizens, in a civilian hospital in a foreign country. Some of the people responsible for the paperwork kept wanting to classify him as a foreign national.

Well, in his case, he might actually be a foreign national. We live overseas and after each child is born, my husband goes to the American embassy to get a 'consular report of birth abroad' and have them made American citizens. If we hadn't done that, our kids wouldn't be American. So, they're not completely wrong- your coworker may be American because his parents took care of his citizenship, but it's not automatic.

Mr. Sirius has one of those consular reports plus a British birth certificate, but the thing about the security paperwork that was strange was that it was obvious that whoever had put it together hadn't thought about the possibility of U.S. citizens who are born in other countries besides the U.S.  And such people are very common in a military community.  (An interesting tidbit - when Mr. Sirius himself was stationed at the same base where he was born, he rented a gamekeeper's lodge from the man who had signed his birth certificate.)

[Dr. Horrible]

I will say, I hate trying to decipher the ship to "ONTARIO CA" comments in the system at work because CA is both the country code for Canada and the state code for California and people don't always think a zip code is necessary.  The country, of course, is "obvious." 

well, Ontario is a province. If they were shipping to our glorious province, they'd need a town or city! Were pretty big, so a package for Suzy in Ontario isn't going to get anywhere (and die a slow lonely death at the post office while postal workers mock it for not having a city.) But Ontario, CA is an actual specific place, no further refinement (except for postal zip thingy) needed. I'd be assuming everything labeled Ontario CA is for cali.

or are there a not-really surprisingly large number of people who think they can get away with sending something to Canada armed only with name and province (not even a postal code)?

[Tierrainney]

This one isn't mine, but fits the topic.

I had a friend in college who was from House, New Mexico. So she had the people confused about New Mexico being in the USA, she had the people who didn't believe the name of her town. And she had people who thought she didn't know how to pronounce Taos, New Mexico correctly ( Taos is a relatively famous city in New Mexico )

She just couldn't win.

[Diane AKA Traska]

This one isn't mine, but fits the topic.

I had a friend in college who was from House, New Mexico. So she had the people confused about New Mexico being in the USA, she had the people who didn't believe the name of her town. And she had people who thought she didn't know how to pronounce Taos, New Mexico correctly ( Taos is a relatively famous city in New Mexico )

She just couldn't win.

People don't know that Taos rhymes with mouse?  And it may be relatively famous, but it's also REALLY tiny.  =)

[crella]

One on myself -- when I was much younger my dad told me that my car needed to have the tires rotated.  I replied, "But they rotate every day."  And I meant it.  Needless to say, I'm no mechanic.

Dtbrad, your answer makes complete sense to me! What else would it mean to rotate the tires? Probably a good thing I don't even own a car 

Rotate in this sense means change them out, I think.

Actually, it means to move the back tires to the front and the front tires to the back to even-out the wear.  You don't buy new tires, you just re-arrange the ones you have now.

And, I believe , they cross them over from one side to the other.