Captain Know-It-All stories

[lilfox]

My SO. He seems to think that every strategy he has ever used for himself will work for me.

My DH is the opposite.  ONLY his strategies will ever work for him and no outside suggestion need apply.  His reasoning is, <DHstrategy> has never failed before and therefore it never will.  So he will continue to say years-expired medicines or canned food is still fine (because he's never gotten sick from it), reuse the same contact lens storage solution (because his eye problems can be blamed on mild cat allergies that he doesn't actually have), and not see a doctor about persistent but low-level health issues (because "it's just stress and all the doctor will say is, be less stressed").

At least with the expired stuff, I got rid of all of it when I moved in.  Sheesh!

BTW, I love the expression "vent a toe" because that absolutely does work for me.  

[DangerMouth]

My SO. He seems to think that every strategy he has ever used for himself will work for me.

My DH is the opposite.  ONLY his strategies will ever work for him and no outside suggestion need apply.  His reasoning is, <DHstrategy> has never failed before and therefore it never will.  So he will continue to say years-expired medicines or canned food is still fine (because he's never gotten sick from it), reuse the same contact lens storage solution (because his eye problems can be blamed on mild cat allergies that he doesn't actually have), and not see a doctor about persistent but low-level health issues (because "it's just stress and all the doctor will say is, be less stressed").

At least with the expired stuff, I got rid of all of it when I moved in.  Sheesh!

BTW, I love the expression "vent a toe" because that absolutely does work for me.  

Works for me too, but the idea of asking someone else to do that is weird.

[PeasNCues]

But I heard that you can make a rabbit 'faint' by flipping it over and stroking it's cheeks. True or hooey?

Some rabbits will go into what is called a "trance" if you hold them on their backs. Their bodies relax and then seem to be sleeping. The subject is, however, very contentious in the bunny-world because there is a debate as to whether the bunnies are really relaxed or if they are so stressed out that they simply go limp (playing dead type thing). It seems to depend on the bunny. Some go into the trance and enjoy it, other go into the trance because they are panicing.

I've never tried it with any of my bunnies.

I've never heard of stroking their cheeks making them trance. I know my rabbits enjoy that very much and will purr.

[DangerMouth]

But I heard that you can make a rabbit 'faint' by flipping it over and stroking it's cheeks. True or hooey?

Some rabbits will go into what is called a "trance" if you hold them on their backs. Their bodies relax and then seem to be sleeping. The subject is, however, very contentious in the bunny-world because there is a debate as to whether the bunnies are really relaxed or if they are so stressed out that they simply go limp (playing dead type thing). It seems to depend on the bunny. Some go into the trance and enjoy it, other go into the trance because they are panicing.

I've never tried it with any of my bunnies.

I've never heard of stroking their cheeks making them trance. I know my rabbits enjoy that very much and will purr.

Thank you! (I also didn't know that rabbits could purr).

[Sirius]

A sub-category is people who know you better than you know yourself. 

I'm in a group where by coincidence, we all own houses.  Several of us, including me, just bought our first homes and several are renovating, so we end up talking houses a lot.  This one charming woman has decided that since she's "older" (by 2 years,) she has infinite advice for me.  Every time I mention changing something, like painting walls or upgrading my hot water heater, she tells me I'm going to lower my resale value.  And no, I'm not painting things neon pink.  Even if I was, it's my house and that's kind of the point of having my own place! 

<snip>

Because of my sister's health issues she and her husband decided to build their new house so that it would be easily adaptable for someone using a walker or a wheelchair, e.g. wider doorways, grab bars in the bathrooms, etc.  Practically every builder who worked on her house told her she was lowering the resale value on their house by insisting on the innovations to make it easier to adapt.  She didn't fall for it; she got a copy of the Texas state building codes and studied it, to where she knew it as well as the builder, and whenever they'd tell her they couldn't do something by law she'd look it up, and 99% of the time they didn't know what they were talking about.  In fact, aside from the architect (who thought it was an excellent idea) and the person who put in her tile floors (who also thought it was an excellent idea) everyone else gave her a hard time.  Fortunately she's not one to back down, especially when she's done her homework and knows what she's talking about.  She told the person who put in her kitchen cabinets that if he didn't stop giving her a hard time about following the blueprints she'd fire his bu** and get someone else who would do it the right way.  Then the tile guy got after the cabinet guy, because the tile guy had referred him to Sis, and he felt that the tile guy was making him look bad.  He gave her a hard time about wanting the drawer for the knives to be on her left.  She told him, "I'm left-handed.  That's where I want the knife drawer."  Even after she told him why she wanted the knife drawer on the left he put it on the right, and she made him change it and not charge her for it since it was his mistake.  

She also said that she wasn't worried about resale value since, as she told me, "I'm not leaving that house until I'm carried out feet first."  You know, I'd hate to work for my sister.  Then again, maybe not.

[Suze]

I've seen some bunnys at fiber fairs that their owners will put them on their back to brush their tummys....

most of them start purring

I picked one up from some lady who had just bought it -- she was trying to cuddle it and poor bunny wanted nothing more to do than escape. up and over her sholder

I put it in a baby cradle carry - head under my chin and he just went to sleep all calm and purry.  Wasn't exactly on his back but his feet were sticking out sideways...

[PeasNCues]

Yeah not all bunnies will trance. 

[Poirot]

To be fair, he makes a point...though not quite correctly. Menstruation is about physics, aerodynamics and geometry. As is "How much force will it take for me the throw this man through that wall and leave his femurs bent into obtuse angles?"

Then topography enters the subject, as in "What's the shortest distance between me and the nearest pint of Ben and Jerry's?"
[/quote]

  I love me some Auntie Venom!

[hobish]

SO (Max) does this to some extent, not so much about what he knows**, but what he can do. Really, it is to laugh. According to him, he is a better driver than Mario Andretti, a better skier than Jean Claude Killy, a better gymnast than Olga Korbut (I'm using old examples here, cuz we're old ). If there is anything he hasn't done, it's only because he doesn't want to, but with a bit of training, no doubt he could be at the top of the game in golf, bowling, tennis, whatever

Don't get him started on writers. Stephen King? Horrible writer. JK Rowling? A hack. CS Lewis? A christian apologist and a one-trick pony. And so on, often without having read a single book by whatever author he is ripping to shreds. Really, if he weren't so charming I would have throttled him in his sleep years ago.

**He seriously knows a lot. Genius IQ and fairly well read, he has an engaging, enquiring mind, and 9 times out of ten, he turns out right in our arguments. It's interesting that he is far more modest about his real gifts than his imagined ones

Uh-oh. I think we’re dating the same guy.

I have mentioned my friend Che before – she is a doctor, and bossy, and argumentative, and a know-it-all – and to top it off she is also beautiful, so she is a little intimidating, too. I am always glad when she is around so Gish has someone else to argue with. When those two are going at it, even someone with personal and first-hand experience with whatever they are arguing about can’t get a word in. He adores her. Mr. Che and I just leave them alone; we go off and have drinks and be silly and leave them to be supercilious together.


...wow, 6 new replies while i was typing!

[Stormtreader]

And for conspiracy theorists, the complete lack of evidence to back up their woo-woo theories is PROOF of how well the government has covered up the fact that all US presidents since JFK have been space aliens.  ("It must be true," my grandmother said.  "I read it in the Weekly World News, and the government wouldn't let them print it if it wasn't true."  OK, granny, whatever.)

So the government doesnt want you to know about stuff, but will still proofread the leaks to make sure that all that facts theyre revealing are right? I love the thought that theres a department somewhere saying "All right, you got us, but for the record there was actually 3 aliens not 4, and they were blue. Ok then, off you go, you make sure its all correct now!"

[EngineerChick]

To be fair, he makes a point...though not quite correctly. Menstruation is about physics, aerodynamics and geometry. As is "How much force will it take for me the throw this man through that wall and leave his femurs bent into obtuse angles?"

Then topography enters the subject, as in "What's the shortest distance between me and the nearest pint of Ben and Jerry's?"

Auntie Venom, I love you.  I will have to remember this, and attempt to use it in conversation.  

"Maybe it's a tumor?" Honestly, who does that?  

He may have been trying to be funny and quote from Kindergarten Cop, where a child makes that comment to Arnold Schwartzenegger (sp?) when he mentions he has a headache.  My dad makes that comment to us all the time when we say we have a headache.  Of course, he also says it to his brother, who actually does have a brain tumor.  Both find it quite hilarious.

[Piratelvr1121]

I had to haul out the medical encyclopedia with DH one day.  He was insisting men have one less rib than women, which was proof of his own religious belief.  "See the page labeled 'male skeleton' here?  See that all the ribs are paired?  Where is the missing one?"  He then tried to argue that maybe it was one pair less, so I made him count the ribs on the male skeleton and the female skeleton.  I'm fairly certain that it didn't change his views on evolution vs. religion (he tried to argue "But that's just a picture!"), but it did make him much more cautious about disseminating his dogma as 'truth'.

Okay, I've been lurking on this thread for a while but this is the one that made me go "Gaaah!!"

I have had that very same argument - with a fellow scientist no less!  I did an internship in a skeleton lab.  I saw male and female skeletons laid out, side by side.  I counted the ribs myself.  Don't tell me I'm wrong!  *deep breath*

I try really hard not to be a "know-it-all" but when I am right, I have a hard time letting it be.

My freshman year of high school I had a biology teacher who taught us this.

And speaking of teachers, my dad told me of one nun (he went to Catholic school) who told them that Q is ALWAYS followed by a U, NO exceptions.  Someone raised their hand and said "Isn't there a country whose name ends in Q?"  She said "I'll believe it when I see it!"

[Sirius]

But I heard that you can make a rabbit 'faint' by flipping it over and stroking it's cheeks. True or hooey?

Some rabbits will go into what is called a "trance" if you hold them on their backs. Their bodies relax and then seem to be sleeping. The subject is, however, very contentious in the bunny-world because there is a debate as to whether the bunnies are really relaxed or if they are so stressed out that they simply go limp (playing dead type thing). It seems to depend on the bunny. Some go into the trance and enjoy it, other go into the trance because they are panicing.

I've never tried it with any of my bunnies.

I've never heard of stroking their cheeks making them trance. I know my rabbits enjoy that very much and will purr.

My dad told me that if you pick up a guinea pig by their tail their eyes will drop out.  At least he was kidding.  (Guinea pigs don't have tails.)  Also, if you rub a guinea pig who's been around people for awhile and isn't afraid of them on the back just right, they make a trilling noise like a purr.  I've done this myself; the guinea pigs we had when I was a teenager liked to be held and petted.  The female guinea pig liked dog biscuits, as I discovered once while passing out dog biscuits while holding her, and finding her munching on the dog biscuits.  We also discovered that guinea pigs have different nutritional requirements than rabbits; they require more Vitamin C.  We found this out because the pet shop owner where we got our male guinea pig (Spot) told us to feed him rabbit pellets, and he got scurvy and his teeth fell out.  My mother took him to the veterinary teaching hospital that was close to where we lived at the time, and apparently they didn't get a lot of guinea pigs because he had quite a crowd.  Mom said they took his blood pressure by wrapping the cuff around his waist (I would have liked to have seen that!) and he wasn't amused when he was given a shot of Vitamin C.  After we started feeding him food specially made for guinea pigs and plenty of vegetables his teeth grew back.  I discovered this when he bit me as I was feeding him some shaved carrot.

[2littlemonkeys]

My FIL is one such person.  You cannot talk about anything with him sharing his knowledge about the subject.  For instance, we just had parent-teacher conferences.  The schools here rely heavily on standardized testing to assess how the student is doing.  DD is in kindergarten and had a rough start, so she didn't do great on the first round of tests (she did much better on the second round and we'll see how she does this next month).  But her low score was obviously because the whole thing is a popularity contest.  In spite of the glowing report her teacher gave to us about DD's general demeanor and class seat work.  

Also, I went to Notre Dame.  Even though I didn't.      

[Ceallach]

DH.  I was really sad when the second mine explosion at Pike River happened and that there was now no chance that anybody was alive down there.  I said something to DH about it being very sad, and he responded:

DH:  Oh they were all already dead.
Me:  You don't know that for sure.
DH:  Yes, because nobody could survive XYZ... <big long technical explanation about mining and gasses, oxygen etc>. They were already dead, they were just waiting for the right time to break the news to the families.

Now, I'm sure DH's knowledge of science is accurate.  He's a very intelligent man.  But as I explained to him later that day, it's not nice to phrase your theories as absolute verbatim fact - it's kind of a conversation stopper. Plus his theory was also making insinuations on the characters of the rescuers and authorities involved. He realised what I mean.  The thing is, it's great to share a theory or interesting information, but he often makes up his mind about something and refuses to actually discuss it.  To be fair, I'm too far the other way and like to speculate constantly about hypothetical scenarios....