You X? I guess you believe Y!

[jenny_islander]

Oh, I just remembered one from years ago!  My oldest sister found out that I had a boyfriend and asked me about him.  Part of the conversation went like this:

ME: He lives at home--
HER: What?   [Long rant that included the word "goldbricking."]
ME: --because his mother is on oxygen and the family can't afford to hire a nurse.  So he looks after her as much as he can while holding down a full-time job and doing all the shopping.
HER:  . . . Oh.

[LilacGirl1983]

You gave birth in a hospital? You must want your child to catch xyz! Everyone knows homebirth is natural and best way to go (babylilac turned out fine being in a hospital)

You gave your baby immunizations? Don't you know xyz chemicals are in it! (I believe in them thank you very much)

You co-sleep with your baby! Don't you know you will roll over and crush her? (She is now 13 months and doesn't look "flattened" to me)

You work full time so you don't need XYZ Help for school (Yea I do we are barely making ends meet)

You live in a 1 bdroom apt and own a run down car an thread bare clothes to get XYZ help (me umm no)

[Keres]

You have your dog chained to a tree!  You must be an animal hater!


Um...no, the guys who were putting in the invisible fence had to reschedule, so I couldn't just let him out.  And he is convinced the vacuum cleaner is a horrible entity from the netherrealm here to devour his new family and he must, as his solemn duty as a dog, save us from this vicious machine.  And the door is in on the conspiracy, thus when it is shut between him and this diabolical machine it too must be destroyed, and he must let his doggy brethren in approximately a 32 1/2 mile radius all know if this threat via copious amounts of barking, woofing, growling, howling, and yelping.

So, every other day, he gets chained outside for twenty or so minutes while I run the vacuum.

I know.  I'm mean.

[hobish]

Mmm... sauerkraut.

Thanks, that's what I'm gonna have for dinner tonight.

"You crochet, so you must be a repressed, stupid white trash girl." (Actual words!)

Ok, that just blows my mind. I can't even figure out the connection there, even a misconstrued misconception.

[Mediancat]

"You crochet, so you must be a repressed, stupid white trash girl." (Actual words!)

Ok, that just blows my mind. I can't even figure out the connection there, even a misconstrued misconception.

I suspect it relies on an egregious misdefinition of "white trash." As for "repressed," I haven't the foggiest.

Rob

[delphinium]

This isn't exactly what we're talking about, but it is about assumptions.

I read a book about the Battle of Britain and one of the GERMAN pilots was named - get this - Douglas Pitcairn of Perthshire...I kid you not.  For some reason, I never forgot that.  His ancestors must have emigrated to Germany from Scotland or something like that.

And Sycorax, I am Pennsylvania Dutch and I love sauerkraut!   

[PitBullMom]

We get the kids assumption a lot, too:

"You don't want kids?  You must hate them."  "... have a bad family life."

"You don't have kids?  You must be rich."  "... have nothing to do all day."  "... be lonely."  "... be unable to have them."  "... be irresponsible." 

And others:

"Your husband's in the military?  You must not work."  Right, I'll be sure to let my boss know!

(B/G:  We're going to Ireland next week.)  "You're going to Ireland in this economy?  You must be rich!"  Yes, yes we are.  Since we don't have kids, you see.  No, we've been planning the trip for 2 years.  We're not going to cancel now.

"You have Pit Bulls?  You must fight them/They must be mean/You'll have to get rid of them when you have kids."  They are actually very sweet, happy, people-oriented pets, thank you.

<sigh>

[jenny_islander]

Oh, yes, pitties are hoorrrrrrible!  I almost got soooo severely injured by one once.  See, I was walking along minding my own business when this dog dashes out of nowhere and lies down across my feet with her tummy in the air and two huge brown eyes beseeching me for a rub.  I almost went face-first into the gravel. 

She did that to everybody in the trailer park.  She was known as Violet, the Love Mugger.

Oh, and another time this awful pittie bruised my shins!  See, I was scratching him along the sides and he was leaning against me and wagging his undocked tail, which resembled a length of steel cable . . . Ouch.  But he didn't mean to.

[PitBullMom]

Oh, yes, pitties are hoorrrrrrible!  I almost got soooo severely injured by one once.  See, I was walking along minding my own business when this dog dashes out of nowhere and lies down across my feet with her tummy in the air and two huge brown eyes beseeching me for a rub.  I almost went face-first into the gravel. 

She did that to everybody in the trailer park.  She was known as Violet, the Love Mugger.

Oh, and another time this awful pittie bruised my shins!  See, I was scratching him along the sides and he was leaning against me and wagging his undocked tail, which resembled a length of steel cable . . . Ouch.  But he didn't mean to.

People ask if they're vicious.  They are vicious ... vicious bed hogs!! (As my avatar suggests...)

I too have been subject to a butt-wiggle sneak attack tail!  Or a drowning of, "I'm so happy to see you," bully kisses.  They will, in fact, lick a person to death.

[abfabmom]

You larp/play DnD?

"You play Dungeons and Dragons? Seriously? Let me guess, you're an elf."

Yep.  Well.  A half-elf, actually, with blue skin, purple tattoos, and orange hair.  Still think I'm "pretty"?

[jenny_islander]

"You play D&D?  You must be dating/married to the DM.  Bet your characters never die, har har."  Actually, we got to know each other at a D&D group DMed by somebody else, then got married.  And I have lost a lot of characters in his game world.  By the way, thanks for insulting me by insinuating that I can't play and am only there because of my Scrabble skills, and then insulting my husband by accusing him of playing favorites.

Then there was the jerk who asked what my character looked like and looked surprised when I described her as muscular and plain, with a nose that had been broken and set a bit crooked and a few scars along her forearms, a short haircut to fit under her helmet and worn but well-cared-for clothes and armor.  He pointed to a picture of what the DM's girlfriend's character was supposed to look like.  Apparently I was supposed to be a heavily made up, long-haired, well-stacked sorceress who wandered around the wilderness in high heels and lingerie.

He didn't stick around for long.

[Kimblee]

"You crochet, so you must be a repressed, stupid white trash girl." (Actual words!)

Ok, that just blows my mind. I can't even figure out the connection there, even a misconstrued misconception.

I suspect it relies on an egregious misdefinition of "white trash." As for "repressed," I haven't the foggiest.

Rob

Not quite sure, but my mother says she thinks it had something to do with feminism. The local college has a teacher that give lectures of feminism, basicly implying that sewing, crochet, knitting etc. are men's chains on women, and women who go along with it must be re-educated. (My cousin took the course... she was shocked.)

Yup. My crochet hook is really a chain. Who thunk it!

[Kimblee]

Oh, yes, pitties are hoorrrrrrible!  I almost got soooo severely injured by one once.  See, I was walking along minding my own business when this dog dashes out of nowhere and lies down across my feet with her tummy in the air and two huge brown eyes beseeching me for a rub.  I almost went face-first into the gravel. 

She did that to everybody in the trailer park.  She was known as Violet, the Love Mugger.

Oh, and another time this awful pittie bruised my shins!  See, I was scratching him along the sides and he was leaning against me and wagging his undocked tail, which resembled a length of steel cable . . . Ouch.  But he didn't mean to.

I've been attacked four times by dogs. All pits.

But I do believe that most pits must be nice, sweet hearted dogs, because on the net, I have heard from MANY owners who love theirs to pieces and can't imagine them going nuts.

I honestly think the majority of pits around here are severely inbred... one of the ones that attacked me I know for a fact was the result of a breeding between a male dog and his daughter.

They still scare me though. 

[Firecat]

"You play D&D?  You must be d@ting/married to the DM.  Bet your characters never die, har har."  Actually, we got to know each other at a D&D group DMed by somebody else, then got married.  And I have lost a lot of characters in his game world.  By the way, thanks for insulting me by insinuating that I can't play and am only there because of my Scrabble skills, and then insulting my husband by accusing him of playing favorites.

Then there was the jerk who asked what my character looked like and looked surprised when I described her as muscular and plain, with a nose that had been broken and set a bit crooked and a few scars along her forearms, a short haircut to fit under her helmet and worn but well-cared-for clothes and armor.  He pointed to a picture of what the DM's girlfriend's character was supposed to look like.  Apparently I was supposed to be a heavily made up, long-haired, well-stacked sorceress who wandered around the wilderness in high heels and lingerie.

He didn't stick around for long.

My fighter character used to braid her hair and coil it around her head for extra padding under the helm. And my DH doesn't favor my character over any of the others, either...so far we haven't lost a player character, but according to my DH, that's because our teamwork is frighteningly good. Actually, when I DM, I think I'm harder on his character than he is on mine when he's the DM. Just ask him about the time I had a village's worth of teenage girls following his human paladin everywhere. Yes, my husband's paladin had groupies  .

And yes, the assumptions people make about gamers can be pretty amusing...for example, I do not now, nor have I ever, lived in my parents' basement. But guess where my non-gamer sister lives right now. To be fair, it's more like an apartment and it's partly to help her and her DH save for a house of their own. And since our folks are getting older, it actually gives me some peace of mind to know that my sister is right there.

[jenny_islander]

I think the problem with pit bulls is that you can't tell from looking at them whether they are:

1. Normal, which is to say, not dog-safe, but bred to be utterly nonaggressive toward humans (under reasonable conditions, including basic training, being treated humanely, and not being frightened, ill, or in pain).

2. Descended from modern pit fighting and/or drug dealer protection lines.  These dogs are bred for aggression, plain and simple, and have been observed trying to kill each other as puppies.  Rescues find them extremely hard to handle because their natural state is psychotic.  Luckily (at least for the pitties), druggies and dog fighters appear to be turning more to chows to get their super-aggressive dogs.

3. Born normal and raised by drug dealers, "having a mean dog makes me macho" jerks, or similar people who use brutality to make a normal dog into a killer.  I knew one of these dogs once.  He ended his life by jumping through a plate glass window in an attempt to attack his owner, who kept him chained up outside all the time and beat him with a belt "in order to make him a better guard dog."  Some of these dogs can be rescued, retrained, and rehomed with people who treat them well.

4. Feral, from any bloodline; these dogs can be very dangerous because they don't have a natural fear of humans (being dogs) and they don't listen to humans either (being completely untrained).  Feral life is very rough on a dog, BTW, and quite a few adult ferals who are captured and retrained settle happily into life in a human family.  Interestingly, some of them appear to go through a period of nightmares and other symptoms of what in a human would be called PTSD.

I guess the moral of the story is, be very very careful around any dog that's wandering around without supervision, especially a big one.

Oh, and two dogs have attacked me with deadly intent in my life.  (The psycho pit bull attacked my dog, but not me.)  One was a puny, weedy-looking Labrador and the other was a teacup poodle about the size of my foot!

Back on topic: "If you love cats, you must hate dogs, or vice versa.  If you like cats and I like dogs, we can't get along."  Actually I like both and think that the ideal household should contain at least one of each, although I don't have a dog at present.  I'm bipetsual.