Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[snowdragon]

My sister and I tried a new restaurant on Saturday. We'll never go again. I ordered a roast beef on weck sandwich and a salad. The salad was limp and had barely any dressing. The sandwich was horrid. The meat was raw, not rare but raw and tasted rancid.  I took one bite and could not eat it. I tried to send it back and the waitress looked at me and said

W: "The meat is spoiled?"
Me: Yeah, the meat tastes rancid.
W: It's still red, it's not spoiled.
Me: It'd red because it's still rare, not rare and it tastes rancid.
W: So you're telling me you won't eat it"
Me: No, I won't eat it - it's spoiled.
W: Well is there anything else wrong with it?
M:Isn't that enough?
W: Is there anything else wrong with it that you won't eat it?
Me: I'd like my check and I won't pay for a sandwich I can not eat.
W:?

She took off the sandwich but she never seemed to get it.

Sigh.

[RingTailedLemur]

I don't know if I mentioned this already, but that reminds me of the time I opened a pasty (like this: http://www.ginsters.co.uk/productdetail.asp?RangeID=2&ProdID=198) to find it was mouldy.  i took it back and the lady behind the counter just kept repeating, "But it's in date."  I assured her that I understood that, but that the product was mouldy so it really didn't matter.  It took quite a hassle to get my money back!

[violinp]

I don't know if I mentioned this already, but that reminds me of the time I opened a pasty (like this: http://www.ginsters.co.uk/productdetail.asp?RangeID=2&ProdID=198) to find it was mouldy.  i took it back and the lady behind the counter just kept repeating, "But it's in date."  I assured her that I understood that, but that the product was mouldy so it really didn't matter.  It took quite a hassle to get my money back!

Ow. Just...ow. I once drank milk that smelled funny (I have a crazy - sensitive nose), but was in - date. Yeah...my gut did not thank me kindly later.

[Dazi]

Recent funny...although I think it's fair to say that I was the brain hurt-er.  I live in a very touristy area and was asked where the closest Starbucks was.

Me:  I'm sorry, I have no idea where there is a Starbucks.  There is a small private coffee and pastry shop just down the street though.

Her:  You live here right? How can you not know where a Starbucks is, they are everywhere.

Me: Ma'am, I don't drink coffee and can honestly say that I've never stepped foot in a Starbucks in my life.

Her:  <sheer look of horror and much sputtering>  Never, never been, but how...you don't drink...coffee...how do you function without coffee?  Is this other coffee shop any good?

Me:  I have no idea how their coffee is, but everyone local goes there.  They serve some food, great pastries, cakes and cookies, Fruit smoothies, exotic teas and a lot of different coffees.  I usually only go there for group activity.



She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

There is just no pleasing some people.

[GreenHall]

Several of my cousins have been married this year. Last night, I mentioned a thank you note from one, while talking with the mother of another recently married.  The mother said that she did not know where the rule that only the bride could write thank you notes came from, but she'd told her son he lucked out there.   
I did not say anything, but was thinking "WHAT?!? Has E-Hell led me wrong?"
An admittedly short google search this morning, and I wonder if this belief may be a conflation of the rule I just learned that only the bride writes bridal shower thank-yous (which makes sense to the degree that those are gifts to the Bride)
...in retrospect I can't even figure out how I could have questioned the matter of fact statement when she said it, much less after the fact. 
Aunt's family has always done thank yous, so I think she believes this (don't know if the bride/brides family may have even given the information...).

[Shea]

Recent funny...although I think it's fair to say that I was the brain hurt-er.  I live in a very touristy area and was asked where the closest Starbucks was.

Me:  I'm sorry, I have no idea where there is a Starbucks.  There is a small private coffee and pastry shop just down the street though.

Her:  You live here right? How can you not know where a Starbucks is, they are everywhere.

Me: Ma'am, I don't drink coffee and can honestly say that I've never stepped foot in a Starbucks in my life.

Her:  <sheer look of horror and much sputtering>  Never, never been, but how...you don't drink...coffee...how do you function without coffee?  Is this other coffee shop any good?

Me:  I have no idea how their coffee is, but everyone local goes there.  They serve some food, great pastries, cakes and cookies, Fruit smoothies, exotic teas and a lot of different coffees.  I usually only go there for group activity.


She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

There is just no pleasing some people.

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

[Hillia]

Recent funny...although I think it's fair to say that I was the brain hurt-er.  I live in a very touristy area and was asked where the closest Starbucks was.

Me:  I'm sorry, I have no idea where there is a Starbucks.  There is a small private coffee and pastry shop just down the street though.

Her:  You live here right? How can you not know where a Starbucks is, they are everywhere.

Me: Ma'am, I don't drink coffee and can honestly say that I've never stepped foot in a Starbucks in my life.

Her:  <sheer look of horror and much sputtering>  Never, never been, but how...you don't drink...coffee...how do you function without coffee?  Is this other coffee shop any good?

Me:  I have no idea how their coffee is, but everyone local goes there.  They serve some food, great pastries, cakes and cookies, Fruit smoothies, exotic teas and a lot of different coffees.  I usually only go there for group activity.


She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

There is just no pleasing some people.

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

I think the point is that the tourist lady went to Local Non-Starbucks Coffee Shop and it was so good, Starbucks is now ruined for her.

[PeterM]

She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

I took it to mean that the non-Starbucks coffee was just that much better than Starbucks. Most people are happy when they find a really good restaurant/cafe, but I can conceive of people who would be mad at being introduced to something great.

[Amava]

She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

There is just no pleasing some people.

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

I think the point is that the tourist lady went to Local Non-Starbucks Coffee Shop and it was so good, Starbucks is now ruined for her.

That's how I took it too. I can see someone say that in a joking way, but she was actually seriously yelling? That is crazy. 

brb ruining McDonalds for some people by sending them to the locally owned fries place. 

[squeakers]

I hurt some brains last night.

Last night was the Homecoming dance and Middle Son went to it.  DH is gone on a business trip so Youngest Son has taken over his side of the bed (our bed is supercomfy and he gets to sleep with my little dog (she sleeps with me)).  Oldest Son was up and playing on his PC when I went to bed.

2 hours later I woke up to a foot touching mine.  I freaked because I knew DH was not home.  Then my frazzled brain remembered YS was sleeping with me.  So I fell back asleep.

Only to be woken up by a voice that was his coming from the living-room/kitchen!

I stumbled out of bed, did not put my glasses on and stood in the hallway blearily asking "YS?, Youngest Son!" (Thinking no way is he getting up and staying up until morning.. this isn't summer break/winter break, just the week-end).

A voice answered me back "Hi, Aunt squeakers!". Walk into the kitchen and find Younger Nephew making a pizza. Ah. Ok.

But where is Younger Son? Aha! I bet he is in OS's room!

Open the door and glance around.  No YS. Just MS, OS and Older Nephew.

"Where's Youngest Son?"

OS answers "Umm, mom.  He's in your bed."

"oh." *stumbles back to bed where YS was sleeping soundly.*

Then I hear his voice again and put 2 and 2 together: Younger Nephew sounds just like Youngest Son.

And then I hear giggling coming from OS's room as they wondered if I was sleepwalking.  I'm sure I had those giant owl eyes going on as I attempted to see in focus.  Not to mention wild hair and cute PJs.

(Older Nephew, Younger Nephew and Middle Son were all at the dance and came to our house to yak, eat some pizza and prolly play some WoW with Oldest Son.)

[Hillia]

That reminds me of a piece by Shirley Jackson recounting the nighttime ramblings of her household: her, her husband, 3 kids, a dog, and her pack of cigarettes.  I think the cigarettes got lost somewhere along the way.

[Shea]

She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

I took it to mean that the non-Starbucks coffee was just that much better than Starbucks. Most people are happy when they find a really good restaurant/cafe, but I can conceive of people who would be mad at being introduced to something great.

Ah, I get it. Still, lady was a bit special if she was actually mad...

[Elfmama]

She finally left, deciding to try the coffee shop as she was in desperate need of caffeine...I ran into her shopping a few days later, long enough for her to yell at me that I have ruined Starbucks forever for her. 

Wait, the fact that you personally have never been in a Starbucks ruined the place for her? I...I don't even know what to do with that...

I took it to mean that the non-Starbucks coffee was just that much better than Starbucks. Most people are happy when they find a really good restaurant/cafe, but I can conceive of people who would be mad at being introduced to something great.

I can believe that.  Both times when we were stationed in Europe, I had other Americans tell me that they never ate local foods.  Not because they thought that the local foods would be bad, but because they might like it!  If they liked it, they would miss it when they went back to the US, so they never tried it at all. 

[Sirius]

But let's assume my training presentation was the equivalent of reciting the Gettysburg address. The length of time it takes to say it is not dependent on the number of people listening, is it?

LOL!

This reminds me of our VideoGuy at work's brain-hurty moments with customers. (This was years back when everybody used VCR tapes instead computer videos.)

Customer: I need you to duplicate this tape for me. I need 10 copies and I really need them in like an hour or so.

VG: How long is the tape?

Customer: About an hour long.

VG: And you want 10 copies in 1 hour? Sorry, no can do. I only have 1 duplicator and the tapes are duped in real time.

Customer: So how long will it take?

VG: About 10 hours.

Customer: What? Why does it take so long?

VG: Real time means that for every minute of tape it takes a minute to duplicate. Your tape is 60 minutes long so I need 60 minutes to make one duplicate.

Customer: 60 minutes . . . that's an hour, right? Great! So I can get my duplicates in an hour!

VG (knocking his head against the wall to stave off the brain hurty): Let's start over . . .


 

Believe me, I can sympathize.  I'd get the docs handing me a tape to transcribe and telling me, "I need this 30-minute report in ten minutes."  I ask, "Is the tape completely full?"  Usually it was.  Then I'd tell them, "Not going to happen."  Had one guy get quite upset with me when I told him his 7 hours of dictation wasn't going to be finished by the following morning.  A fairly good estimate as to how long a dictation will take is 15 minutes of dictation per hour of typing.  He handed me seven 1-hour tapes and told me they were all full, front and back.  Nope, not going to happen.  And he can yell all he wants, but that's not going to change the speed of time.

[Pippen]

This one hurt my brain and also made me pretty flipping amazed at the rudeness and stupidity of people.

I was outside my work when this woman drove into the car park pulled up next to me wound down her car window and just started shouting a number at me. (For argument sake '74')

I looked at her strangely thinking I may have misheard her so she shout it louder over and over again getting more and more aggressive each time. Finally having had enough and having no idea what she is trying to communicate I tell her 'Look. I have no idea what you are saying or what you want from me so you may as well leave.' She then shouts it a few more times and finally says 'I'm looking for number 74. This is 180 where is 74'. Ah so she is looking for an address. I just told her I had no idea and walked back inside. Stuff her. She can drive around all day looking for it for all I cared.