At the college I attend, we have “Scholars’ Bowls”, were local highschool teams come and compete in trivia-like games. The questions range from math and science, to current events and pop cultere. I am a school ambassader, so I take school at most of these events, so I get to hear the same questions numberous times.
I live in Alabama, so when the question, Name this southern rock group that recorded the hit “Sweet Home Alabama”, and whose led singer Ronnie Van Zant was killed in a 1977 plane crash", was asked, I assumed it would be a answered quickly. None of the students knew it. In this state, that song is played at every gathering of 2 or more people!
I was discussing President Bush with my friend (and we’re both over 45), and I made an offhand comment about his father being vice-president. She said something like “His father was never vice president!”
1: Prey Imprinting. Wasn’t gonna get into it, but I will. Ball Pythons typically will only attack/eat something that smells like whatever they’re used to eating. Given that I’ve fed mine rats for as long as I’ve had them, they only bite at rats. Unless the cat’s been rolling around in a rat cage, the snake wouldn’t consider it to be food. (That’s the reason why wild caught often have such a hard time living in captivity - they get used to eating some kind of African gerbil and won’t take mice or rats.) And the only reason it’d constrict is if it thought it was food.
2: Ball Python’s defense. They’re BALL pythons. They ball up to protect their head. They might strike. But not constrict. Back when I had just gotten my first BP, he got loose. Didn’t go Straight For The Cat, but hid. 3’ BP. I finally found him when my cat (barely larger than a kitten) was pawing at something under my pillow. BP was hiding under the pillow, and trying to get away from the cat, who thought it was a toy. Snake was all scratched to hell and back, and the cat wondered why we were yelling at it. Needless to say, I found the weakness in the cage, and Mr Snake never got out again.
Now, if you ignore the snake’s prey imprinting, defense mechanisms, then at 4+ feet, they might pose a danger to a full-grown male cat (what I was trying to adopt). However, one of the main reasons one should feed dead rats to your snake is that a medium rat (what you’d be feeding a 4’er) is plenty strong to bite a chunk out of your snake’s head. Now, a cat is considerably stronger than a rat, not to mention that they have claws.
If you ignore ALL that. Then yes, it might be an even fight between a 4.5’ BP (the biggest I had at the time was 3.5’) and a full-grown housecat. Most probable outcome, however, is that they both die.
My prenatal class was fun for just strange beliefs.
In my prenatal class one man insisted that he didnt need to learn about “cord care” for the baby, since his wife was having a Ceasarian Section, and thus his baby wouldn’t HAVE an umbilical cord, or a belly button.
At break one night we were talking and one classmate was cocerned…her baby was breech. Another woman kept giggling and said “I can’t believe you’d admit it to total strangers…” It turns out this woman was positive that breech babies came from having anal sex. Several of us women kept rephrasing things, sure she was just misunderstanding something… but no… she really belived this.
And now for an episode of “Shocking Ignorance: Self-Confessions”.
I was watching a televised poker game yesterday and one of the contestants was named Nguyen. As I heard the announcers repeatedly mention his name, I learned for the first time in my life that it’s pronounced like “win”. All of my life, I’ve thought it was pronounced approximately like it was spelled.
When I was a kid, my parents and I would often drive to visit relatives in another state, which involved some travel on three-number roads that went through small towns. I often saw Payless Drug stores, which didn’t exist in my own community, and I assumed that they were giving everything away for free. See, a sleeveless shirt had no sleeves, right? So a store that called itself “Payless” would be advertising the fact that they didn’t require payment.
I believed this until the day we had to stop at one of them to get aspirin or something. However, I had been conditioned by my parents not to bother them with any “Ohhhhhhhhh…I thought…” when a new idea dawned on me, so when I saw my dad take out his wallet, I said nothing. “I get it,” I thought to myself. “They just mean that you pay less than you would at other stores. Okay; gotcha.”
Having fun with one of those “Duh” quizzes (Plane crashes on the border of US and Canada, where would you bury the survivors? etc.) one question was, “Does Great Britain have a Fourth of July?”
Woman answered, “Yes, but they call it Bastille Day.”
Also, back when George Harrison was all over the news after his house was invaded and he was attacked, I mentioned to a group how awful it was that George Harrison was stabbed.
Woman asked, “Was he someone you went to school with?”
This is true. In fact, I’m still gobsmacked thinking about it, eighteen months later.
Me - “Did you kow your car has a puncture?”
**Dopey girl in our office ** - “Yeah, I saw that, but it’s only at the bottom, so I can still drive on it. It’s only when the entire tyre is flat that you have to get it changed. Did you not know that? I thought you’d have known that.
Giggle giggle giggle”
I thought that no amount of ignorance could surprise me anymore, until today. Our history class began its obligatory annual unit on World War Two (the teacher isn’t very smart either so she lets the book teach us), and I heard one girl call out “Who were the Nazz-eyes?”
I should add that I did question her and she was totally serious. And that this was supposedly an honors class (although most of the people in the class are thicker than concrete slabs). I don’t know if she even had the option of not taking history last year, let alone in her life.
On the side, I have no idea why I use this signature.
I am well aware of prey imprinting. I’ve also seen balls get pissed and lash out. I wasn’t saying it was likely, but it could happen. You’re right, they’d probably both die.
A few days ago while at my local Pub have drinks I got into a heated argument with this guy. He was telling me that it didnt matter what I thought about politics because I wasnt old enough to vote. He said the voting age is 21 in California (where I live BTW) and that there was no way I was 21 or older. I tried to explain to him that first of all- the VOTING AGE IS 18 and that I had been voting for quite a long while- and also that I legally had to be 21 years old at least to be sitting next to him at a bar. He got very angry and told me that I was stupid and this and that. Half the bar overheard the conversation and eventually he left the bar because ’ “WE” were ALL stupid’!!
But this one takes the cake!
This girl I was friends with up until a year or so ago didnt know what a Goose was. As in the bird! CAN YOU BELEIVE THAT!!!
A roommate I had in college was talking to an elementary education major one time. He was telling her about how he had lived in London all through high school. The next thing she asks is, “So, do you speak French, then?”
“Ummm, noooo…why do you ask that?”
“Well isn’t that what they speak in England?”
(trying not to laugh)“No, they speak English in England”.
That was seriously ackward. And just think, that woman could be responsible for educating somebody’s children one day. :eek:
My mother has a classic one she likes to tell. She was taking a college bio. course, which involved disecting cats. Naturally, the cats in question are usually alley cats. So when they cut into it’s stomach, it was full of worms. My mother’s lab partner turned to her and remarked, “Ohhhh, I didn’t know cats ate worms!”
I believe the teacher responded by telling the girl that it didn’t taste sweet because the taste buds for sweetness were on the tip of the toungue, not at the back of the throat!
Hey, Hey, I can’t tell the difference between them when they’re next to each other. (Dyslexics Untie!) I have to hold up my left hand to see the “L” Left= Less. And I’s a smart gril.
When I was in freshman English in high school (now more than for-tay years ago )I was asked to use the word in a sentence to demonstrate that I knew what it meant. I wrote, “Artur Rubinstein’s forte is his piano.” I guess the teacher wasn’t a musician.
BTW) and that there was no way I was 21 or older. I tried to explain to him that first of all- the VOTING AGE IS 18 and that I had been voting for quite a long while- and also that I legally had to be 21 years old at least to be sitting next to him at a bar. He got very angry and told me that I was stupid and this and that. Half the bar overheard the conversation and eventually he left the bar because ’ “WE” were ALL stupid’!!
)I was asked to use the word in a sentence to demonstrate that I knew what it meant. I wrote, “Artur Rubinstein’s forte is his piano.” I guess the teacher wasn’t a musician.