My sweet, slightly dingy cousin pipes up from the back seat of the car as we pass a retail strip mall with one of those banner signs advertising the following:
“SMALL LOCAL STORE’S UNFINISHED FURNITURE - CLEARANCE SALE!”
Cousin: “Why the hell would anyone buy unfinished furniture?”
She was around twenty-one or twenty-two at the time. Not a kid.
Hey, maybe some people like buying tables without legs, bunk beds without slats, bureaus without drawers, you know.
The other day I asked one of the dermatologists I work for, “What do you think- maybe one in fifteen “bug bites” is actually a bug bite?” He said “Less.” I said, “So, what, one in ten?” He just looked at me for a second and said, “No, that would be more.” Doh!
My former manager and his wife took his powerboat on a cruise up the inland passage to Alaska with another couple. The other guy’s wife looks around at the towering mountains emerging from the water all around them, and says, “Wow! I wonder how far above sea level we are?”
My family was taking a car trip back in the early 90s. Dad’s driving, Mom’s reading the paper, and my ten-year-old sister and me are in the back. My sister spots a headline over Mom’s shoulder. It reads “Perot Talks to Congress”. She reads it aloud: Parrot Talks to Congress.
We had a good time squawking, “BrAAk! Two Thirds Majority. BrAAk!” It was like an Onion headline.
Had, not one, but several co-workers make a similar comment one time.
Hottest day on record in almost 100 years.
And of course we had a power outage.
I commented that I felt sorry for my husband, who was home that day in the blistering heat, and no relief in sight, because we had no electricity, and therefore no air conditioner.
Only one of the several people I mentioned this to did not say, “Well, why doesn’t he at least plug in a fan, then?” :smack:
Well, yes, thermostats run on electricity…which is part of the control circuit for your water heater. If the control circuit doesn’t have power, it can’t regulate water temperature, so it shuts down. Better than having the burner light and continually heat your water until the T&P valve opens to expel the steam out of the heater.
My husband used to work for a medical collections company. They would send letters to people asking them to call, and get letters back. The problem? They had a 1-877 number, and the recipients of the letters didn’t have long-distance service on their phone. Either that, or they were trying to dodge the bill.
Playing Texas Hold’m poker with some buddies, the community cards were three aces, a queen, and a five.
I had a pocket pair of tens and I was in the pot with one other guy. He called my last bet, and asked what I had. I said I had a pair of 10’s. He proudly says, “I win, I got trip aces”
I’ve never owned a gas HWH that needed an electric connection. This helped a lot when we went without power after an ice storm several years back. Could always take a hot shower by candlelight to warm up.
I’ve also been around other gas appliances that would work without electricity. Older stoves with pilot lights and such. Not all thermostats need electricity.
I have, in recent weeks, written about a zillion news stories about a certain well known figure in my industry – call him Juan Smithson. I’ve sent out press releases on Juan Smithson, discussed him with my co-workers, added him to the schedule at a conference we’re running, and arranged a date to conduct an interview with Juan Smithson.
And today when my boss cc’d me on an e-mail that referred to the guy as Mr. Smithson, all I could think was, “Who the hell is Mr. Smithson?”
I’m assuming he wasn’t kidding, and that it wasn’t the formal type of game where you have to call your own hand. Your declaration that your best hand was a pair of tens was indeed beaten by his better hand of trip aces. But you both would have been beaten by a guy with pocket twos who said that he had the boat.
My mother and my girlfriend are both twins*, and, despite being otherwise intelligent, and having been around it my entire life, I continually fall into this trap. I usually catch myself about halfway through the question.
“I went shopping for <sister>'s birthday.”
“Oh? When’s… it going to get there?”
“I got <sister> a <present>”
“Is it her… uh, something she likes?”
*not to each other, of course.
my HWH never needed electricity, which as you said is a blessing when the power goes out and it’s cold. Also most gas stoves I’ve encountered really only use electricity for the starter, the gas will still run when the power’s out so you light it using a match and still cook yourself a big ol’ bowl of hot soup =)
I can’t remember if I’ve told this on the SDMB before. If I have, sorry.
My first three months in Bulgaria, I lived with a host mom. She is the kindest, most generous person you could ever meet, but she is, basically, a peasant. I was visiting her for a weekend after I had moved to another part of the country, and we were discussing my parents hypothetical trip to Bulgaria (which never happened anyway).
My host mom: How long will it take them to get here?
Me: I don’t know…maybe 17 or 18 hours.
Her: In a plane?
Me: Yup.
Her: What if they drove?
Me, thinking I misunderstood: What?
Her, miming steering a wheel: How long would it take them to drive?
Me: They can’t drive. There’s an ocean between America and Bulgaria.
Her: Oh. How long if they took the bus?
Sometimes I wonder what the world looks like to my host mom.
Oh! She campaigned for the current mayor of her village, and in return, she was awarded the position of mayor of another, neighboring village. When she told me this, I was horrified for a moment, then I asked her how many people live in this other village. Sixty, she told me. So it’s probably okay.
