# I'm surprised EVERYONE can't... **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 24, 2019, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231 "2019-10-24T12:40:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/61 "2019-10-24T20:04:02Z")
> [@enipla](#): > > Then I’m ying to your yang… BTW, it’s “yin” and “yang.” ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/62 "2019-10-24T20:09:02Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > Ummm? I’m a savant about dates. No, not historical dates. Dates of things that happened in my life. I asound my sibs, I can describe the weather, day of the week and what peoole were wearing. > IRL, right now, I’m not sure what day it is, go figure. I have that “gift,” as well. My memories do seem to be well-coded against years; i can usually attach a particular year to a memory of an event. While having a conversation with my sister-in-law the other day, she noticed this – “how is it you _always_ know when things happened? If you asked me what year something happened, I would have no idea!” ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/63 "2019-10-24T20:09:33Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > If he leaves from Tokyo at 8AM on the return trip he’ll get back to Houston before he leaves. > > An old joke talks about flying east over one time zone leaving at 9AM and arriving several hundred miles away at 9:10AM. “I sure want to see that plane take off!” There’s a true anecdote about some professional sports player (can’t recall if NBA or NFL) who refused to fly on an airplane that involved landing at an “earlier AM” than when the plane took off due to time zones - “I refuse to ride on a time machine!” ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/64 "2019-10-24T20:51:59Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Also, being from Chicago, the one basic directional rule is that the lake is always to the east. In Michigan, when heading towards the lake you are going west. Always messes me up. I’m usually pretty good at keeping track of cardinal directions, but moving from the East Coast to the West Coast completely threw me off. Up until that point in my life, if I was going towards the ocean I was going east, and if I was going towards the mountains I was going west. I spent years getting east and west mixed up in California before I got used to the idea that towards the ocean is west here, and the mountains are east. Unless you’re in Santa Barbara; then the ocean is south. ---
**Author:** ![jnglmassiv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f07891/32.png) [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/65 "2019-10-24T20:58:44Z")
I was reminded of one of these last night while driving home: actively drive a vehicle. I was steering around potholes, bumps, depressions, those thick plates that cover construction pits. I could see the person behind me in the mirror rolling right over the obstacles, headlights sweeping up and down as the suspension bounced. Years ago, a coworker was driving us to a job site and the wheels were driving over a parallel seam in the concrete on the interstate. 8 inches to the left or right would miss the seam and still be safely in the lane but he didn’t seem to be aware of the noise and shaking. > [@Calavera](#): > > Use or understand the phonetic alphabet. I’d have thought by osmosis everybody, even if they’ve never learned it would have picked up enough to understand the “real” NATO version, but what gets me is those who can’t comprehend the fact that I can’t tell the difference between “Bee” and “Pee” for example with your accent or lazy speech. They won’t understand B for Bravo or P for Papa, just keep repeating “Bee” or “Pee”, then eventually they’ll use something like P for Peter whilst somebody else will use B for Beta, not helpful. Oh, god, rhyming phonetics are terrible. “Ok, it’s J as in joy, S as in soy, M as in …umm…metal alloy, I as in Illinois, T as is toy, H as in …hamburgers… And that’s @… C as in cheeseburgers, E as in enjoy…” ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/66 "2019-10-24T21:07:08Z")
> [@Crafter\_Man](#): > > Googling things. > > Most of the engineers I work with perform new projects without doing any research whatsoever. They just feel around in the dark, so to speak. They don’t do any Google research on the subject because their search skills are extremely poor. They have no idea how to use parenthesis or choose the right search terms. I’m not entirely convinced Google still respects things like parentheses, unless you’ve invented an exciting new “synonym” for double quotes, but I do agree with you: Some people seem incapable of _not_ loading their search queries with nonsense, or trying to talk to Google as if it were a human being, or whatever the Hell they’re doing such that they can’t get a reasonable result. It’s probably related to how some people can’t ask a question, and must instead launch into a tangential discussion of sound and fury signifying some vague topic expressed in a Faulknerian fashion which inevitably mislikes coming to a definite point, much like my Aunt Bea, you know her?, she ran with the El Rukn, or was it the Rotary, back in Chicago, well, not Chicago so much as Cicero, and she always told me to keep my hands on my handle, and do you know something?, well, it’s not something so much as nothing, now that I try to think, but… yeah? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/67 "2019-10-24T21:09:04Z")
> [@Calavera](#): > > then eventually they’ll use something like P for Peter whilst somebody else will use B for Beta, not helpful. … and you just know they’ll say Peetah and Beetah, and not be able to think of anything else, or even understand why what they just said was completely useless. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/68 "2019-10-24T21:09:32Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > I’m not entirely convinced Google still respects things like parentheses… Oops, I meant quotes, not parentheses. :o ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2019, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/69 "2019-10-24T21:36:01Z")
I’m only averagely good at exact mental arithmetic, but I can give you a ballpark figure for rather complex calculations, also done with very big or small numbers, in a very short time. I can also very quickly add time stamps roughly, that derives from computing how many songs fit on the 45 minutes side of a C90 cassette from the time I still did mix tapes. I think this talent has to do with the fact that I’m an engineer, where an estimation is often sufficient. I can also guess distances and dimensions of things quite well. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/70 "2019-10-25T00:03:18Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > I’m quite confident that’s NOT what’s happening in those commercials. > > The ads are for Charmin, and they are touting the fact that it is soft but will not leave pieces of TP behind on your behind, a claim I’ve personally found to be completely false. Unless there’s some new spot I’ve not seen. Um, no, [this commercial](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IOIZzVGPYY) is pretty explicitly talking about skidmarks on the cub’s underwear. They even show a different brand leaving a smear behind. ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/71 "2019-10-25T00:28:40Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Cook stuff. > > I don’t mean prepare an intricate dish from rare and exotic ingredients using specialized techniques or anything like that, but merely being able to produce palatable food in a reasonable amount of time and effort. This is one of mine too. Not just making things from scratch, but even making things from boxes/partially home made. I get you don’t want to make fresh pasta and sauce every time you want that for dinner, but boiling water and throwing pasta in for 8 minutes while you warm up a jar of sauce is super easy and cheap, while maybe not as good as home made. But there are a lot of people who claim they can’t even do that. I bake a lot and sometimes I do the box stuff and when people compliment me, it’s like “I just followed the instructions.” Baking basic stuff is so easy if you follow the steps that they conveniently print on the box. “Mix box, egg, water, stir, pour into greased pan. Cook at 350 for 25 minutes.” I know fancy stuff is harder, but Duncan Hines cakes aren’t. And simple things like pancakes and grilled cheese just need patience and med/med-low heat. The other thing that baffles me is laundry. If you’re so wealthy you have cleaners, you never had a child puke in your bed at 2am on your last set of sheets? I’m not talking “Can I wash this dry clean only item in the machine?” or “Wow, this machine is way different than the one I had growing up and I don’t know what button to push” complex questions, but literally just a basic load. When in doubt, read the label. Cold water, gentle cycle, sorted by colors will work for most things, even if it’s not the best option. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/72 "2019-10-25T00:37:26Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > :eek: Is there an anecdote behind this? I’m just wondering how one would discover that those around them are having difficulties with this task… If you spend a few minutes on r/relationships (a subreddit), you’ll see quite a few posts about people with significant others with horrible personal hygiene. Inadequate ass-wiping is commonality. I was recently introduced to the term [“high wipe”](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=High%20Wipe). If someone calls you that, it means you stink because you aren’t wiping your ass properly. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/73 "2019-10-25T00:40:52Z")
That the natural world is not, um, manmade. it’s vastly more complex than the human-constructed world and filled with things which were not created with you, or your selfie, in mind. The ocean is not a movie. Large wild animals are not a petting opportunity. And so forth. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/74 "2019-10-25T01:27:34Z")
I learned recently that swimming is a race thing. White kids learn how to swim. Black kids (formerly banned from some public pools) often do not. Cooking is a basic thing…I know people who can’t boil an egg. For people who can handle the basics, I’m surprised that they can’t put a meal of more than one dish on the table in a reasonable amount of time. Today the Ukulele Lady asked for seared pork chops with shiitake mushrooms and a mustard vinaigrette, steamed broccoli with lemon and oil, and baked butternut squash. At 7 PM. I had it all on the table at 7 PM. Happy wife, happy life. ---
**Author:** ![F.U.Shakespeare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@F.U.Shakespeare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/F.U.Shakespeare)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/75 "2019-10-25T01:42:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I look t the satellite antennas. I used to do this, but the increased use of offset feeds makes it harder to correlate elevation and azimuth. ---
**Author:** ![dorvann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df705f/32.png) [@dorvann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dorvann)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/76 "2019-10-25T03:32:31Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > There’s a true anecdote about some professional sports player (can’t recall if NBA or NFL) who refused to fly on an airplane that involved landing at an “earlier AM” than when the plane took off due to time zones - “I refuse to ride on a time machine!” I remember an interview Hulk Hogan once gave where he claimed he wrestled 400 days in a one year in the 80s because he was flying back and forth from the US to Japan across the International Date Line. (Of course, it could have just been an act —the old pro wrestling motto was “always be working” —maintaining that wrestling was real even during serious media interviews) ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/77 "2019-10-25T04:12:35Z")
Where North is. Timezones in the US. How to make up a recipe. Lefty loosy, righty tighty. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/78 "2019-10-25T05:20:37Z")
> [@Projammer](#): > > I’ve also experienced cashiers with a complete inability to cope with being handed odd amounts of change. Not just odd amounts of change. I went grocery shopping yesterday, and the bill came to $107 and change. I gave the cashier six $20 bills, and it took her over a minute of counting and re-counting to figure out how much I’d given her. Then the computer told her how much change to give me. > [@Velocity](#): > > There’s a true anecdote about some professional sports player (can’t recall if NBA or NFL) who refused to fly on an airplane that involved landing at an “earlier AM” than when the plane took off due to time zones - “I refuse to ride on a time machine!” I once had a friend who thought different time zones were actually in different times. He thought if you called California from New York, the call would take three hours to get there. I suppose calling west to east involved some kind of magic. But what baffles me is people who can’t follow a map without constantly turning it, depending on what direction they’re driving. I know that a lot of otherwise intelligent people need to do this. And apostrophes, especially “its” vs. “it’s”. ---
**Author:** ![pullin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c57346/32.png) [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/79 "2019-10-25T11:14:54Z")
Basic time and distance calculations, as applied to an urban environment. Driving around the city (DFW) I swear sometimes I’m the only one of 7 million people who understands this. The obvious example is Bubba frantically racing around me to get to the next stoplight – over and over and over down the highway, until I’m tempted to honk and wave at him each time we stop together. But I don’t. The more astonishing one is part of my normal drive now. A road with a normal speed limit of 50 has a temporary 40 mph limit for construction. For a whopping 2.4 miles. Texas has harsh penalties for speeding in construction zones, so I obey the 40 mph limit, even if I see no workers. Bubba\* doesn’t agree, and becomes (literally) enraged most of the time. He tailgates me, honks, screams at the gods, and pounds his steering wheel because my Corolla is causing him to be late. And he, like most drivers around here simply doesn’t have the cognitive and reasoning ability to understand my speed is making him 40 seconds later – to the stoplight ahead. Seriously. \*generic name – drives around in a tarted up F150 that’s never carried anything in the bed, etc. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Esturionette](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9d8465/32.png) [@Esturionette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esturionette)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2019, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231/80 "2019-10-25T12:54:09Z")
How to post a parcel. Working at the post office, it baffles me how many people try to give me an unwrapped item, saying “I want to post this to the address I have on my phone”. I don’t know about the US, but here in the UK it is the customer’s job to bring the item securely packaged and addressed, so that it only needs a postage label. The packing materials are there to buy and use before you get to the counter. Even the most basic stuff like where to put the address on the envelope or where to put the stamp. Why isn’t it obvious that the sender’s address needs to be visibly smaller than the receiver’s address? Once in a while we get a customer who walks in, looks around, and asks “do you have any stamps here?”. I’m always tempted to say no. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-surprised-everyone-cant/842231.md?page=5)