Exchanges with People that Make Your Brain Hurt

[Yvaine]

Her reply? " I guess you don't pick people up from airport very often most people call first  to check if flight arrived"....!!!!!!

I understand Kate's brain-hurt on this one, but this line makes my brain hurt. Maybe because it's about 1½-2 hrs drive between my house and the nearest commercial airport, 1hr to my mum's house (from her nearest airport) and 4hrs to my SIL's; but surely almost anywhere if you (generic) waited for the flight to land before going to pick up a passenger, the passenger would be waiting around?

Yep...I am only ten minutes from the airport and its a small airport too so it only takes passengers about 15 or 20 minutes max to get their luggage and get out to the pick up area. It never would occur to me to call the airport first unless there was obviously bad weather  or something. And in this case it would have done no good as her flight arrived right on time ....without her.

Is there any chance she meant call her, rather than the airport?

[greencat]

Her reply? " I guess you don't pick people up from airport very often most people call first  to check if flight arrived"....!!!!!!

I understand Kate's brain-hurt on this one, but this line makes my brain hurt. Maybe because it's about 1½-2 hrs drive between my house and the nearest commercial airport, 1hr to my mum's house (from her nearest airport) and 4hrs to my SIL's; but surely almost anywhere if you (generic) waited for the flight to land before going to pick up a passenger, the passenger would be waiting around?

Yep...I am only ten minutes from the airport and its a small airport too so it only takes passengers about 15 or 20 minutes max to get their luggage and get out to the pick up area. It never would occur to me to call the airport first unless there was obviously bad weather  or something. And in this case it would have done no good as her flight arrived right on time ....without her.

Is there any chance she meant call her, rather than the airport?

As per the OP, the errant passenger didn't carry her cellphone ever.

[Piratelvr1121]

This is an old brain hurt but it still makes me shake my head when I think of it.

When DH was in the Marines and we lived on base, we had some very nice next door neighbors who were very religious.   We went to church too, actually even the same services at the chapel, but our spiritual ideals didn't always match up.

For instance, when it came to Halloween, they would not do the door to door thing because they didn't agree with the whole Halloween thing.  Or so they said, because they all dressed up in costume and went to a "harvest festival" at the base chapel where the children would be walking around and getting candy in their bags from various volunteers and having parties. 

From what I've learned from people who do not celebrate Halloween for religious reasons, it's because they don't agree with the holiday's pagan origins, the dressing up to repel the evil spirits who pass between the living and the dead on that one night before All Saint's Day when that veil is lifted?

Now that's fine, to each their own, but doesn't it defeat the purpose of objecting to dressing up in costumes and going door to door for candy when you dress up in costume and go from one person to the next who will drop candy in your bags?  It's doing  basically the same thing but at a church/chapel and calling it something different. 

I didn't say anything about it to our neighbors, partly cause I was impressed by the husband's awesome MIB costume and how he'd rigged up a neuroblaster that looked like the one in the movies.   But it didn't quite make sense to me.

I have known of organizations that will do that sort of thing for children who do not live in safe neighborhoods, like a Trunk Or Treat, so that they can still participate, but this was a base neighborhood we lived in that was really safe. 

[hermanne]

Going through a brain-hurty right now. DS is asking every 10-30 seconds for the past 20 minutes if it's time to go to swim class yet. 

ETA: He's 3 years old.

[Twik]

(Eyeroll at Kate's friend, not DaisyG!)  Since we only live a few miles from the airport, DH calls me as soon as his plane lands.  By the time I get there, he's already collected his luggage and is standing outside waiting.  And if he's delayed at any point, he calls me.

What you can do, if you live farther away, is call and find out if the plane left on time.  Say your friend was flying from Dallas-Fort Worth to JFK.  You call or go online to find out if United Flight 1234 from DFW to JFK left on time.  If it didn't, you know approximately how long it was delayed.

Leaving on time is a good hint, but it's still not a guarantee that the flight will land on time. Weather, air traffic, or mechanical difficulties can all play a part.

[magicdomino]

Mildly brain-hurty, although maybe it's the headache that I already had:

Background:  I work for a relatively obscure law enforcement agency in an office that normally doesn't work with the general public.  Still, we get the occasional phone call from confused people.  Some are . . . more confused than others.

So, a woman calls asking about an email that she got from Facebook.  First, she said that they wanted a copy of a "drivers license or government ID.  What's a goverment ID?"  I explained that government-issued ID's were passports, military ID's, and the like. 

Then she fretted about why Facebook would want so much information.  Don't they already have that?  She had her identity stolen before and didn't want to send it, but the email said that Facebook was going to close her account if she didn't, and she needed it to keep in contact with relatives who didn't communicate any other way, but she couldn't understand why Facebook needed all that information, and she couldn't find a phone number for them anywhere . . .

I gently interrupted, and told her that the email sounded like it was phishing.  "What's fishing?"  I explained what phishing was.  Then I told her to report it to Facebook security, to see if it was real.  Do not use any links in the email.  I also explained that I'm not a member of Facebook, and didn't know the details of how to report phishing emails.  We can't do anything; she needs to contact Facebook.

"But I can't find a phone number anywhere, or an email or anything, and I don't understand why Facebook wants this information, and I've had my identity stolen before . . ."

Meanwhile, I Google Facebook.  "Okay, there is a mailing address for questions.  Also, under Help there seems to be a link for contacting them via email or whatever Facebook uses.  I can't go any farther, since I'm not a member."

"Where did you find that?"

"Www.Facebook.com"

Sometimes I miss the guy who called to report that celebrities were committing murders on television.  This, of course, had nothing to do with his habit of smoking marijuana while watching TV, because the murders were so real.  Still, he thanked me for listening, even though the government is being taken over by aliens.  I might be an alien too, but I was a nice one.   

[blue2000]

This is an old brain hurt but it still makes me shake my head when I think of it.

When DH was in the Marines and we lived on base, we had some very nice next door neighbors who were very religious.   We went to church too, actually even the same services at the chapel, but our spiritual ideals didn't always match up.

For instance, when it came to Halloween, they would not do the door to door thing because they didn't agree with the whole Halloween thing.  Or so they said, because they all dressed up in costume and went to a "harvest festival" at the base chapel where the children would be walking around and getting candy in their bags from various volunteers and having parties. 

From what I've learned from people who do not celebrate Halloween for religious reasons, it's because they don't agree with the holiday's pagan origins, the dressing up to repel the evil spirits who pass between the living and the dead on that one night before All Saint's Day when that veil is lifted?

Now that's fine, to each their own, but doesn't it defeat the purpose of objecting to dressing up in costumes and going door to door for candy when you dress up in costume and go from one person to the next who will drop candy in your bags?  It's doing  basically the same thing but at a church/chapel and calling it something different. 

I didn't say anything about it to our neighbors, partly cause I was impressed by the husband's awesome MIB costume and how he'd rigged up a neuroblaster that looked like the one in the movies.   But it didn't quite make sense to me.

I have known of organizations that will do that sort of thing for children who do not live in safe neighborhoods, like a Trunk Or Treat, so that they can still participate, but this was a base neighborhood we lived in that was really safe. 

I was totally with them on that, since Dad's church used to do a "Halloween" party for the kids - right up until the MIB costume with the neuroblaster. Dad's church had very strict TOT rules. They wore mostly religious costumes, and had non-offensive party games. They would have freaked out at a movie costume with a weapon. That was the point of their party - to not have anything secular or offensive!

[Piratelvr1121]

Yeah that kinda made my brain hurt too. It would be one thing if they did religious costumes, and just had a party but I mean this really was just like a trunk or treat only without the trunks.  The way the chapel building was set up was that there was a courtyard and the building formed a "C" of sorts around 3 sides, and there were a lot of doors, so being California, the kids would go up to each door to "trick or treat" but it was a Harvest Festival and my neighbors acted like it was TOTALLY different from trick or treating.

Um, how?

My church is cool with Halloween but the thought of religious costumes made the thought pop into my head to one year dress the littlest up like either Bob the Tomato or Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales.

[littlelauraj]

When our kids were younger we had a religious objection to celebrating Halloween.  That meant that we opted out of the holiday entirely-100%.  In my opinion, for our family, even the idea of "celebrating the harvest" at our church seemed to violate what we objected to about the holiday in the first place.  For the record, we chose to leave the house on trick or treat night and get something to eat with the family, maybe catch a movie if there was one that was appropriate for little kids. 

So my personal brain-hurt occurred when my step sister adopted the same view a few years later.  She and her husband decided to not celebrate Halloween, but of course still participated in trunk or treat at their church, oh and had the kids pass out religious tracts on trick or treat night, and oh, yeah, just trick or treated at a few houses in the neighborhood.  I earned her wrath by pointing out that it was hypocritical to take her kids trick or treating and then have them hand out pamphlets to other kids extolling the evils of celebrating Halloween.  That really made my brain hurt.

[blue2000]

Yeah that kinda made my brain hurt too. It would be one thing if they did religious costumes, and just had a party but I mean this really was just like a trunk or treat only without the trunks.  The way the chapel building was set up was that there was a courtyard and the building formed a "C" of sorts around 3 sides, and there were a lot of doors, so being California, the kids would go up to each door to "trick or treat" but it was a Harvest Festival and my neighbors acted like it was TOTALLY different from trick or treating.

Um, how?

My church is cool with Halloween but the thought of religious costumes made the thought pop into my head to one year dress the littlest up like either Bob the Tomato or Larry the Cucumber from Veggie Tales.

And that made me laugh because I'm not sure the church would be OK with cartoon characters. They were VERY picky. Which would make a fine brain-hurty conversation in itself.

-"Those are cartoons! Your kids can't dress as cartoons!"
-"But they are religious cartoons!"
-"Yeah, but, but... you just can't! Why not dress as Ezekiel?? They just watched a video about him in Sunday School! He was a cool guy!"
-"Um, didn't they watch a cartoon about him?"
-"Well...yeah..."

[mmswm]

Today's Brain-hurt...

My father decided to take me, my 13yo son and my 11yo sister out to a Chinese restaurant as a treat, since we'd been working so hard the last couple days painting one of the rentals. So we get there, review the menu and place our orders.  There had been quite a bit of discussion regarding my sister's order but she finally settled on the Cashew Chicken.  The food comes out and she took one look at it and said "yuck!  There's NUTS in this dish!"  My father looked at her with a rather confused look on his face and said "what did you expect from cashew chicken?"

Keep in mind that this girl will eat cashews until she pukes, she loves them so much.  I couldn't wait to get home so I could post on this thread.

[ica171]

In our store, only registers 19 and 20 can sell tobacco products, today I had a customer come and ask me where he could buy cigarettes. I told him, registers 19 or 20.

He seemed satisfied with the answer he got, and went on his merry way. A little while later, same customer came back and asked if there was anywhere else he could buy his cigarettes in the store. Again I told him, only registers 19 and 20 are able to sell. Off he goes again.

He comes back one last time, can you just walk them to another register? Again, I answer him, only registers 19 and 20.

Why do some people think that if they ask a question several different ways, they will get the answer they want?

Perhaps there were no cashiers at either of those?

I've never seen a store that only sold tobacco at certain registers that didn't always have someone on at least one of those registers. Usually it's store policy.

[Shalamar]

My father looked at her with a rather confused look on his face and said "what did you expect from cashew chicken?"

I went grocery shopping with a friend once, and the store was handing out samples of head cheese.  I didn't take any, but my friend did.  He chewed it with a disgusted expression, saying "This tastes awful."  I said "Well, it's made out of pigs' heads - what did you expect?"  His response was a horrified "It's made out of WHAT?!?".

[Piratelvr1121]

Oh so THAT'S why it's called head cheese! I always wondered.

[TootsNYC]

This is an old brain hurt but it still makes me shake my head when I think of it.

When DH was in the Marines and we lived on base, we had some very nice next door neighbors who were very religious.   We went to church too, actually even the same services at the chapel, but our spiritual ideals didn't always match up.

For instance, when it came to Halloween, they would not do the door to door thing because they didn't agree with the whole Halloween thing.  Or so they said, because they all dressed up in costume and went to a "harvest festival" at the base chapel where the children would be walking around and getting candy in their bags from various volunteers and having parties. 

From what I've learned from people who do not celebrate Halloween for religious reasons, it's because they don't agree with the holiday's pagan origins, the dressing up to repel the evil spirits who pass between the living and the dead on that one night before All Saint's Day when that veil is lifted?

Now that's fine, to each their own, but doesn't it defeat the purpose of objecting to dressing up in costumes and going door to door for candy when you dress up in costume and go from one person to the next who will drop candy in your bags?  It's doing  basically the same thing but at a church/chapel and calling it something different. 

I didn't say anything about it to our neighbors, partly cause I was impressed by the husband's awesome MIB costume and how he'd rigged up a neuroblaster that looked like the one in the movies.   But it didn't quite make sense to me.

I have known of organizations that will do that sort of thing for children who do not live in safe neighborhoods, like a Trunk Or Treat, so that they can still participate, but this was a base neighborhood we lived in that was really safe.

It may have been that the church organization treated it like a masquerade party, and demonic costumes/decorations were not allowed. If you go door-to-door, you're going to be participating w/ people who have decorated their front yards to look like graveyards, etc.