# Am I old or just not stupid? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 1, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445 "2025-01-01T16:43:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/41 "2025-01-02T15:53:29Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > I’m now scratching my head wondering why (and how) anyone would use tape to make a paper bag book cover? Where does the tape go and what is it for? The covers we made had four folds and just slipped on. I was (and 50+ years later still am) incapable of that. I must have ditched the class on origami. Nobody at the schools I went to were required to cover text books. Writing in them was a much greater sin than writing on them. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/42 "2025-01-02T15:55:47Z")
[This](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLsjmeVvMo8) explains the process. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/43 "2025-01-02T15:56:35Z")
We used tape also. But just a little. This video comes close to what we did. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1ICCcO-LFec/maxresdefault.jpg "How to Make a Paper Bag Book Cover HL") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ICCcO-LFec) ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/44 "2025-01-02T15:56:46Z")
It’s been a long time but I think the tape went over the edge and taped the inside bag to the outside bag so the cover couldn’t accidentally unfold and come off. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/45 "2025-01-02T16:07:42Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Heaven help you if you carry them by the handles, though, because at least one handle is bound to come unglued from the bag the first time you try. TJ’s have the same defect. Which is why their checker/baggers often double-bag. > [@doreen](#): > > It’s been a long time but I think the tape went over the edge and taped the inside bag to the outside bag so the cover couldn’t accidentally unfold and come off. That’s my recollection. It only took a couple inches of tape total for the four spots around the whole cover but they held together better. Thinking now about how the origami worked, I suspect that the more tightly you trimmed the bag to fit around the book, and therefore the smaller the section of bag available to tuck underneath, the more prone the cover was to unfolding and falling off. So there was sort of a tradeoff between more bag or more tape. This being a folk craft for kids, you did it how you were shown with no great experimentation. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/46 "2025-01-02T16:13:42Z")
I am too old to have experienced the Trapper Keeper first-hand, but we listened to this on one of our trips up to Durango: > **[Am I My Father's Trapper Keeper Keeper? - This American Life](https://www.thisamericanlife.org/815/how-i-learned-to-shave/act-one-15)** > > When Jackie read the obits for the man who had invented the famous Trapper Keeper notebook, she was very surprised. ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/47 "2025-01-02T16:15:40Z")
I can see where the tape might help out. But we were, of course, putting the covers on textbooks with rigid pasteboard binding. Flexing of the cover wasn’t a big problem. Plus, the cover stays on better without trimming as much as is shown in the video. I have nothing against using tape, but I never did it myself. I had at least five textbooks every semester for six years and got by just fine without it. ---
**Author:** ![sunacres](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/48 "2025-01-02T16:16:25Z")
> [@StringsandHammers](#): > > These jobs are here for one thing only: to enrich the top 1% of corporate America. You seem to be ignoring all of the minimum wage workers who work for small business. Shitty jobs are completely independent of corporate ownership. Your grievance seems to be that there isn’t enough social security for low paid workers, and I agree, but although income disparity is getting worse the safety net (in most places) is probably better now than ever. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/49 "2025-01-02T16:27:03Z")
I didn’t address minimum wage workers in small buainesses because it’s not rekevant to this duscussion on Subway. What I take issue with is simple: stereotyping a whole generation of younger people because one was terrible at their Subway job. I find that ridiculous. These are the bottom of the barrell jobs. MIT grads aren’t working at a Subway because they have better options. They’re out there sonewhere in the workforce, they’re just not working at Subway. Subway pays dirt wages so they get the lowest skilled workers. This ought not come as a surprise to anyone and it does not warrant sterotyping an entire generation as incompetent, shiftless, or lazy. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/50 "2025-01-02T16:27:38Z")
> [@ZonexandScout](#): > > I have nothing against using tape, but I never did it myself. I can’t remember. I think I used a little bit of tape, one bit at each corner, but I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/51 "2025-01-02T16:53:00Z")
For those curious geezers unfamiliar with “trapper keeper” which was a mystery to me until these cites: > **[Trapper Keeper](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trapper_Keeper)** > > Trapper Keeper is a brand of loose-leaf binder created by Mead. Popular with students in the United States and parts of Latin America from the 1970s to the 1990s, it featured sliding plastic rings (instead of standard snap-closed metal binder rings), folders, and pockets to keep schoolwork and papers, and a wrap-around flap with a Velcro closure (originally a metal snap closure). > Trapper Keepers usually had a theme, such as a cartoon, television show, or video game. Between 1988 and 1995, "Desig... > **[Amazon.com : Trapper Keeper Binder 1" Round Rings (Funky) : Office Products](https://www.amazon.com/Trapper-Keeper-Binder-Round-Rings/dp/B0B3MRYQ82)** > > Hook and loop closure traps stuff inside Includes 2 folders with vertical pockets that trap loose papers so they won’t fall out Common stats are printed on the folders 1” metal binder rings store folders and other 3-hole punched sheets Metal clip on... ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/52 "2025-01-02T16:59:24Z")
As to low end food service workers, I did some quickie research yesterday that will annoy a few folks of a more Progressive bent. Or those who of necessity work low end jobs, especially in food service. Check out the portfolio of this private equity firm: > **[Roark Capital Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roark_Capital_Group)** > > Roark Capital Management, LLC, also known as Roark Capital Group or simply Roark Capital, is an American private equity firm with around $37 billion in assets under management. The firm is focused on leveraged buyout investments in middle-market companies, primarily in the franchise/multi-location, restaurant and food, health and wellness, and business services sectors. It is named for Howard Roark, the protagonist in Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. The firm claims that its name is not mean Th... It’s more or less a who’s who of shitty exploitative places to work. And of exploitative franchisors. Which is the wannabe small-businessman’s version of min wage indentured servitude. Several of which brands have had their product line thoroughly enshittified along the way. I’m not surprised to find such outfits exist. Just saddened. And not for the first time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/53 "2025-01-02T17:05:48Z")
> [@Tibby](#): > > Where I grew up on the East Coast, turning grocery sacks into book covers in the 60s and 70s was a point of personal pride. Nowadays, the equivalent seems to be stickers all over one’s laptop. Sometimes hand-drawn (or painted) artwork, too, but always stickers. In addition to personal expression, I’m sure it also helps in recognizing which computer is whose. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/54 "2025-01-02T18:50:09Z")
I can’t say anything this generation with expertise, beyond what I saw when training new hires: 1. I had to constantly remind individuals among them to pay attention to the presentation, and not their phones. (Granted, the world now requires survival skills only practicable via phone that I largely lack). 2. So that it wasn’t all boring presentations, the module for lock-out/tag-out was hands-on: and a great many of the new-hires were unfamiliar with “righty-tightie/lefty-loose.” 3. Back to phones: one presentation was video of an employee who was injured when he robotically responded to his phone by removing his safety gloves to answer it, and caught his hand on moving machinery Of course, some bright outside watch-borrower had the great idea of putting all the training on a phone app. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/55 "2025-01-02T19:03:43Z")
Baby boomers largely invented cell phones, refined them, marketed them, distributed them to the masses, then shipped production overseas in order to maximize profits. They also deliberately made them insanely addictive, along with much of social media despite the fact that they were fully aware of the inherient dangers and how it literally changes how the brain works… This younger generation ain’t got a prayer. They were supposed to be protected by those who were wiser and more knowledgeable. That didn’t happen, they were betrayed by powerful money interests. Baby boomers utterly failed their fiduciary duty to protect their children’s generation and now what we’re left with is a God awful mess… Sink or swim son… ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/56 "2025-01-02T19:14:22Z")
Faugh! You’d think that Wikipedia article could include a picture of something that I would actually recognize as a Trapper Keeper, instead of whatever that pink thing is. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/57 "2025-01-02T19:17:44Z")
More like this [https://www.reddit.com/r/The1980s/comments/1al1m9f/1980s\_trapper\_keeper/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/The1980s/comments/1al1m9f/1980s_trapper_keeper/#lightbox) [https://www.reddit.com/r/The1980s/comments/1al1m9f/1980s\_trapper\_keeper/](https://www.reddit.com/r/The1980s/comments/1al1m9f/1980s_trapper_keeper/) ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/58 "2025-01-02T19:28:20Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Faugh! You’d think that Wikipedia article could include a picture of something that I would actually recognize as a Trapper Keeper, instead of whatever that pink thing is. Completely agree. Oh, I _wanted_ a Trapper Keeper. I even wrote that on my list of school supplies to give to my parents instead of “binder” or whatever term it was the teacher told us…I got the Trapper Keeper. For my age group they were old news by the next year, and almost no one had them as far as I recall. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/59 "2025-01-02T19:36:16Z")
> [@StringsandHammers](#): > > I didn’t address minimum wage workers in small buainesses because it’s not rekevant to this duscussion on Subway. What I take issue with is simple: stereotyping a whole generation of younger people because one was terrible at their Subway job. I find that ridiculous. These are the bottom of the barrell jobs. MIT grads aren’t working at a Subway because they have better options. They’re out there sonewhere in the workforce, they’re just not working at Subway. > > Subway pays dirt wages so they get the lowest skilled workers. This ought not come as a surprise to anyone and it does not warrant sterotyping an entire generation as incompetent, shiftless, or lazy. Literally not being able to find your way out of a paper bag does seem pretty dumb to me. But as you pointed out, the Greatest Generation thought Boomers were pussies because they spent more time talking about “saving the world” and smoking weed before going on to run big corporations rather than learn how to kill a Nazi with their bare hands. Every generation presumably thinks the next one is “stupid” or “weak” because technology advances generally lets them enjoy an easier life where maybe a lot of skills aren’t needed anymore. That said, I think an over reliance on screens and online interactions and now “AI” does seem to be having a negative impact on young people learning basic skills needed to just interact with other humans in a meaningful way. Maybe this Subway worker wasn’t “dumb”. Maybe he just seems that way because he’s not use to dealing with a problem that requires a manual dexterity solution that doesn’t involve a keyboard and mouse. ---
**Author:** ![StringsandHammers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stringsandhammers/32/17933_2.png) [@StringsandHammers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StringsandHammers)\ **Post date:** [January 2, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445/60 "2025-01-02T20:24:58Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > > [@StringsandHammers](#): > > > > I didn’t address minimum wage workers in small buainesses because it’s not rekevant to this duscussion on Subway. What I take issue with is simple: stereotyping a whole generation of younger people because one was terrible at their Subway job. I find that ridiculous. These are the bottom of the barrell jobs. MIT grads aren’t working at a Subway because they have better options. They’re out there sonewhere in the workforce, they’re just not working at Subway. > > > > Subway pays dirt wages so they get the lowest skilled workers. This ought not come as a surprise to anyone and it does not warrant sterotyping an entire generation as incompetent, shiftless, or lazy. > > Literally not being able to find your way out of a paper bag does seem pretty dumb to me. But as you pointed out, the Greatest Generation thought Boomers were pussies because they spent more time talking about “saving the world” and smoking weed before going on to run big corporations rather than learn how to kill a Nazi with their bare hands. > > Every generation presumably thinks the next one is “stupid” or “weak” because technology advances generally lets them enjoy an easier life where maybe a lot of skills aren’t needed anymore. I simply don’t understand it from an evolutionary perspective. It took millions of years of evolution for homo sapiens to develop. How in the world did we reverse those millions of years of evolution in one generation and everyone become markedly dumber? I mean sure people may not share the same information as previous generations. Perhaps even lesThey may not know how to work an abacus but how can the general public be dumber in a span of a single generation? They share 99.9999% of the DNA as their parent’s generation. It defies logic imho. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/am-i-old-or-just-not-stupid/1012445.md?page=4)