Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Slartibartfast]

But an ounce of gold does weigh more than an ounce of feathers - just to throw that quirk into the mix    (Troy ounces are used for precious metals.)

[Virg]

Midnight Kitty wrote:

"Now you're making my brain hurt!  Muscle is denser than fat."

It's OK, if you read the implied ending to suzieQ's statement as "...for the same volume" then it's perfectly rational.

Slartibartfast wrote:

"But an ounce of gold does weigh more than an ounce of feathers - just to throw that quirk into the mix."

Not if they're from Trojan chickens. 

Virg

[Diane AKA Traska]

Midnight Kitty wrote:

"Now you're making my brain hurt!  Muscle is denser than fat."

It's OK, if you read the implied ending to suzieQ's statement as "...for the same volume" then it's perfectly rational.

Slartibartfast wrote:

"But an ounce of gold does weigh more than an ounce of feathers - just to throw that quirk into the mix."

Not if they're from Trojan chickens. 

Virg

Silly, Trojans go *onto* roosters, they're not made from them!

[PastryGoddess]

Midnight Kitty wrote:

"Now you're making my brain hurt!  Muscle is denser than fat."

It's OK, if you read the implied ending to suzieQ's statement as "...for the same volume" then it's perfectly rational.

Slartibartfast wrote:

"But an ounce of gold does weigh more than an ounce of feathers - just to throw that quirk into the mix."

Not if they're from Trojan chickens. 

Virg

Silly, Trojans go *onto* roosters, they're not made from them!

Someone just won the internets for the day

[JoW]

Everyone here knows the north east US has been severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.  There is a hotel chain with more than 200 hotels in the storm area that have lost electricity, gas, running water, or some combination of the three.  I exercise with someone who works at the reservation center for that chain.  Tonight she told me that she spent much of today answering the phone, telling people “no, you can’t stay in <hotel> because they don’t have <utility that has failed>.    She thinks some of the calls were from people in the area whose homes are also suffering from failure of those same utilities.  But others were from parts of the US far from the damage. 

[Snooks]

Everyone here knows the north east US has been severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.  There is a hotel chain with more than 200 hotels in the storm area that have lost electricity, gas, running water, or some combination of the three.  I exercise with someone who works at the reservation center for that chain.  Tonight she told me that she spent much of today answering the phone, telling people “no, you can’t stay in <hotel> because they don’t have <utility that has failed>.    She thinks some of the calls were from people in the area whose homes are also suffering from failure of those same utilities.  But others were from parts of the US far from the damage.

I'm not sure that it's particularly brain hurty, I wouldn't be surprised to find that a hotel had it's own generators and UPS so if my home was suffering from a failure of a utility I may well call local hotels to see if they had power.

[Virg]

JoW wrote:

"She thinks some of the calls were from people in the area whose homes are also suffering from failure of those same utilities.  But others were from parts of the US far from the damage."

I'm not that brain-hurty about either of these.  People in the area looking for a hotel are usually desperate enough that they'll call and ask even if it's likely that the hotel has the same problem as their home.  People outside the area really can have difficulty realizing the extent of the damage because most natural disasters don't cover hundreds of square miles.  As long as the callers didn't blow up at her or demand anything be done about the breakdown (or they don't actually know about Sandy), then both cases are understandable and reasonable.

Virg

[HorseFreak]

Everyone here knows the north east US has been severely damaged by Hurricane Sandy.  There is a hotel chain with more than 200 hotels in the storm area that have lost electricity, gas, running water, or some combination of the three.  I exercise with someone who works at the reservation center for that chain.  Tonight she told me that she spent much of today answering the phone, telling people “no, you can’t stay in <hotel> because they don’t have <utility that has failed>.    She thinks some of the calls were from people in the area whose homes are also suffering from failure of those same utilities.  But others were from parts of the US far from the damage. 

There was a really nasty ice storm a few years back where I used to live and I lost power for several days. However, all the businesses around the corner less than a mile away weren't affected and were open. Doesn't hurt to call and check as long as you're being polite.

[Adelaide]

I was looking through some old pictures and having flashbacks to my childhood birthday parties. My mother typically started her cleaning spree two days early and that usually meant several hours of cleaning for myself as well-I remember one year I was scrubbing the bottom of the door frame with vinegar the day of my birthday about an hour before guests were due to arrive. By the time the parties started I was usually tired and smelled like whatever cleaning fluid was on my pruny hands.

At one point (I was about twelve or so) my mother made the casual inquiry like "Well, what kind of party do you want this year?" Going off of past precedent, I said that I didn't really want one. When she asked why, I said that I just didn't like all the cleaning I had to do for them and she flew off the handle into a Hulk-like rage. We're talking red face, tears, the whole shebang. She called me ungrateful/lazy/rude because I didn't want to get my hands a little dirty to clean the house. I replied that I had no problem with cleaning up but I thought that doing things like scrubbing the door frames and cleaning the edges of the windowsills with toothbrushes was excessive for the five or so friends + the handful of relatives that would show up. She kept repeating "That's just what you do" and said that I wouldn't have a party without a house that was spotless the way she defined it.

Again, I repeated that I was perfectly fine without a party. That wasn't an option though, because "The party's not about you, it's for your relatives and friends to get to see you".

I'd like to say that I remembered how this argument turned out, but I don't. I probably caved though, as she was really good at guilt-tripping us. She always went on about the time and effort she spent making our cakes and decorating the house and that us not wanting to do the work beforehand=ungrateful/lazy/rude. While she absolutely did put in a lot of time and effort, I always did as well and I got to where I wasn't a fan of my birthday because of it.

[ladyknight1]

Adelaide - I am dumbfounded by this story. As a mom, it makes me consider what I have DS do before he has company and whether it is necessary.

When I had to come upstairs tonight, I told DS to bring the candy bucket in, then go out when we have little visitors. Did that happen? No. He left the bucket of candy outside and was surprised to find it empty. 

[Adelaide]

Adelaide - I am dumbfounded by this story. As a mom, it makes me consider what I have DS do before he has company and whether it is necessary.

When I had to come upstairs tonight, I told DS to bring the candy bucket in, then go out when we have little visitors. Did that happen? No. He left the bucket of candy outside and was surprised to find it empty. 

My mother's just one of those people (and I touched on it in the holiday thread about my brother coming home) who creates obligations where there really don't need to be any. She has always been like that when people come over. Every little speck of dirt has to be cleaned away and the house has to be absolutely spotless down to the back bedrooms that people have no reason to see, "just in case" they go back there.

I'm sure that you ask your son to do perfectly normal things that parents expect kids to do to help, even if it's for their own birthday party, but we did the equivalent of a major spring cleaning every time and it kind of took the fun out of it. Even as a kid I weighed party=cleaning with no party=no cleaning in my mind and the choice wasn't always exceptionally clear.

[greencat]

My trainer at my new job made my brain hurt.  She swapped two words when she was explaining something...and what a difference!

This is a hotel restaurant.  Meals can be paid with cash, credit card, or charged to a room account.  When meals are paid in cash, the server holds that money.  At the end of the shift, the computer calculates the difference between how much money the server received from cash sales (not including cash tips!) and how much the server made in tips charged to a credit card or room account.  If the cash sales were less than what the server made in charged tips, the server gets paid the difference out of the central till.  If the cash sales were more, the server pays the difference into the central till - either way, you go home with all the tips you made that night, in cash.

My trainer kept saying "cash tips" instead of "cash sales" so it sounded like you had to pay the difference between what you got tipped on cash and what you got tipped on the charge accounts!  It took us five minutes of going around in circles and me saying "That can't be right!" until she finally figured out that she was actually saying the wrong word.

[Piratelvr1121]

I once had two girls from Texas insist I was a yankee because I'm from Maryland.  Um, I don't think I'm far north enough to be a yankee!

[Luci45]

I worked with a very nice young lady once that said she got rid of all her welcome/entry mats because all they did was collect dirt.

There were about 12-15 of us on the crew, and no one said anything - lots of open mouths and staring at each other. That kind of makess my brain hurt, too, that no one helped her out there.

[nutraxfornerves]

I once had two girls from Texas insist I was a yankee because I'm from Maryland.  Um, I don't think I'm far north enough to be a yankee!

To a lot of southerners, a Yankee is anyone who is not from the Deep South, not just a New Englander.

As a Californian, I never thought of Maryland as a southern state until my employer sent me to live in what was then a fairly rural town about an hour's drive from DC.

And for brain hurt, more than once I was asked something like "California? Oh, maybe you know my cousin who lives in Burbank?" When I'd tell them that Burbank was about 400 miles (approx. 650 KM) from where I lived, they were astounded. They were just not used to the concept of a state being so big. "400 miles!" one person exclaimed. "That's all the way to Florida!"."