When I brought my friend (now my husband) to Georgia from Vegas, we stopped and got gas closer to my neck of the woods. When he got out of the car, he paused, alarmed, and asked, “what is that?” I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about until he pointed to the forest nearby. It was the insects in the trees.
He enjoys The Walking Dead and is impressed they remembered this detail about living in Georgia and put it in the sound effects.
Also, I was amused at what they call mountains in Vegas. They’re more like hills.
B–b–but, all he’d have to do is jump on the N bus! I mean, it’s 75c for a kid (okay, a whole $2 if he makes it to adulthood before he goes, but still worth it…).
Wait a minute, that’d also mean he’d never been to the SF Zoo, or Golden Gate Bridge, or Fort Funston, or a lot of field trips that almost all kids do in school. There are a lot of things most kids do that are on or near the ocean. Hmm, think maybe he meant he’d never been to a big wide sandy beach?
I don’t know if people remember this, but President H.W. Bush (the first Pres. Bush) once said during a TV address that someone had been arrested for selling crack right in front of the Whitehouse. It turns out that federal agents had found a crack dealer and then got him to deliver it to right in front of the Whitehouse. The kid (born and raised in DC) didn’t know where the Whitehouse was and the agents had to help him find it so they could arrest him for selling crack in front of the Whitehouse. DC is not a big town, so that’s pretty amazing and also: that was a total dick move by Bush.
These are both bringing to mind an anecdote I heard from a midwesterner visiting NYC. He tapped a guy on the shoulder and asked him how to get to some place or other. The New Yorker responded that he’d lived there for seventeen years and only knew directions to the three subway stations he went through each day.
I had a hard time believing this when I heard it. Now, not so much.
Yeah, one time I was on the Mall and a tourist asked me directions to the Surpeme Court and I was embarrased that I was only able to tell him “over thereish…, uh wait, or is that the Archives? uh…” as they slowly backed away.
I don’t think it very far-fetched. I’ve been a dog owner for 4 years, but I’ve never petted a dog. The thing jumps all over my lap when I sit but I give him no direct attention or touching/petting ever.I’ve never touched a cat either (I’ve had them do that obnoxious slithering thing around/to my leg while I’ve been standing, but I’ve never intentionally nor with my hand touched a cat.)
Now I’m not the least big scared, but I just don’t see the point. I get no pleasure out of touching pets. I have, however, ridden cows, pigs, horses, and a sheep so it isn’t an animal thing, it is a pet thing.
That all being said, I’ve never met a dog is a totally reasonable concept.
Maybe the kid is allergic and his parents have been keeping him aay from dogs for that reason. I grew up in the city and none of my friends or family had dogs. My country cousins did, but I steered clear of the jumping loud fuzzy ball of teeth. So yeah, I can totally understand not having “met” a dog.
Wow. What og-forsaken deprived lives, that they’ve never met a dog. The mind just doggles.
I grew up with dogs, from the days since before I was old enough to remember. We had an Airedale. Then we had a dachshund. The dachshund was like my little brother.
I’ve been more a dog-person than a people all my life. I go to public parks or walk in public places just to see how many doggies I can meet. (My record: 12 in one day, at a park in Pismo Beach heavily trafficked by people with their dogs.) These days, when I need some social contact, I go hang out at the dog park and play with as many dogs as I can.
OTOH, I lived in Hawaii for 4 years, and in all that time I never went to visit the Eiffel Tower.
ETA: Oh, and I should mention: OTOH, I never met a horse up close and personal until I was about 40. Then I found myself living in a guest house on a horse ranch with the landlord’s 7 horses and 6 dogs.
I was slightly south of Houston in a residential street in 2008 when it started SNOWING, the first real snowfall in more than twenty years. People were walking out their houses up and down the street in amazement, everyone who could came outside and just stared. It was a bizarre sight, even stranger the next day driving around and walking around a snowy landscape.
My wife had been to the beach once as a child, despite being within view of the ocean I’m pretty sure.
Not necessarily, working dogs often don’t care much for petting. I’ve known many (working and non-working) dogs who aren’t really the cuddly type, and they’re perfectly happy.
OTOH it sounds like this dog is looking for a snuggle, if he is jumping up on people’s laps. Hopefully there is someone else around who does the belly rubs.
I’d find the title more plausible than the explanation. I could easily see defining “meeting” a dog meaning more than just seeing one in the street that happened to walk by. You wouldn’t call that meeting a person, either. It would just basically mean the guy never had any friend who owned a dog and whose houses he’d been to.
And, seeing as he brought it up unbidden, I’d guess that, at some point, it would have become a point of pride. You don’t have to hate dogs to want to be able to say something novel when people talk about dogs–something that seems to instantly make you interesting.
It’s honestly a kind of creepy place with all the Neo-Confederate gear in the gift shop, and I can absolutely see never visiting. Kind of odd to not know it’s there from 10-15 miles out, though–you can practically SEE it from that distance.
This is a little more obscure, but I know a Black woman who lives about six blocks off the route of our very substantial Juneteenth parade. Until I pointed it out, she didn’t know that parade existed. She’d celebrated Juneteenth with family in Texas on occasion, but didn’t know about the parade right down the road.
Somewhat related, I used to work with a woman who grew up on a ski resort in France, and competed in the UK Winter Olympic ski team in her youth. Apparently one year, the team spent half their training time trying to help out a guy from somewhere African who’d been sent to compete in the ski jumping, having had a couple of goes on a dry slope, and never having seen snow, or anyone ski jumping. His country’s Olympic committee had just decided to enter people in every event thinking it would give them a better chance of placing, and he had no idea what he was supposed to be doing.
She said they did manage to coach him enough that he did complete one jump, but he had his eyes closed for the whole time, and was shaking like a leaf.
I also worked with a girl who grew up in Wales, but never saw a sheep except as a blob in the distance, and was shocked when I said I used to walk through a field with sheep in on the way to work, as she didn’t think they were safe to go in with.
I’ve been aware for a number of years that there is something known as a “gay pride parade” here every year, but to me it was more myth than, um, men. This year I was in it, and wow, what a huge freakin’ party. There were probably close to 10,000 people there. And City Hall flies a rainbow flag.
The next day I decided to Google it and see how many there have been. 42? Seriously? They’ve been going on since I was 8!
