# Obvious things about real life you realize after the millionth time **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 9, 2016, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352 "2016-03-09T00:07:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/61 "2016-03-10T04:49:17Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > Back in 1993 or 1994, when I worked for Fisher Scientific, I was sent to Long Island for a week to get trained on the Brinkmann product line. One of my instructors actually had an olive-green complexion. > > He was from Peurto Rico. Is this a whoosh? Because I’m not getting it. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/62 "2016-03-10T05:34:24Z")
I just realized a day or two ago that (I’m assuming) Brianna is a diminutive of Brian. The difference in pronunciation threw me off! ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/63 "2016-03-10T05:35:59Z")
This is perfectly obvious to anyone who has had Internet access for any length of time, or who has an ounce of common sense. But the first time I read that organizing tip about packing a whole set of matched sheets inside the pillow case? I was entirely happy. How many hours did I waste before learning to fold all of the right bits for a bed and put them inside the danged pillow case? On a more profound level, I finally grasped the very obvious facts that one doesn’t base a relationship on s/he’d be perfect if only this important thing changed, nor should relationships end because of minor annoying details. The unimportant things will change - he might get fat, and start snoring, and go gray. So might I. But narcissism isn’t apt to lessen because you care. Unkindness may be learned or unlearned, but I am wise enough today to know that I’m not the person to teach that lesson to anyone except my own children. If I want a project, I’ll remodel the kitchen. In general, people other than my own children ought not be projects. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/64 "2016-03-10T06:10:11Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Also, from a young age I’ve always been aware that you die. Not that other people aren’t but I think most kinda try to put it out of their mind or pretend it doesn’t happen on some level. But not me. > > However, it wasn’t till much later that I it really hit me that there was an obvious corollary to that. Everything you do will have a last time you do it. Every damn good pizza, sunset, hike, or good belly laugh might be your last. And at some point every one of those things WILL be the last one. Yep, accepting my mortality is something I did fairly early in life too. But there are some blind spots. For example, with all the advice on good posture, stretching and exercise, I guess I just imagined my back as being immune to ageing as long as I took the right precautions. That I’ll be able to stand just as tall as I do now, in complete comfort, indefinitely. I was probably in my thirties when the thought occurred that the same changes to muscle strength, bone density etc that affect the rest of the body will affect the spine too. And that it’s a question of _postponing_ and _minimizing_ problems 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 6:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/65 "2016-03-10T06:14:45Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > Is that just an attempt to provoke someone’s gullibility? (Snip mine) Provoke one’s gullibility how? One grows corn from corn kernels and potatoes from sprouted potatoes. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/66 "2016-03-10T06:50:25Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > (Snip mine) > > Provoke one’s gullibility how? One grows corn from corn kernels and potatoes from sprouted potatoes. I thought you were making a joke that potatoes grew from corn kernels, and seeing if someone would believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/67 "2016-03-10T08:18:20Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > However, it wasn’t till much later that I it really hit me that there was an obvious corollary to that. Everything you do will have a last time you do it. Every damn good pizza, sunset, hike, or good belly laugh might be your last. And at some point every one of those things WILL be the last one. > [@wguy123](#): > > Enjoy every sandwich. I have in the past sometimes managed to greatly heighten my enjoyment of things (including sandwiches) by sitting and musing “What if this was the very last one?”. ---
**Author:** ![Always\_thinking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Always\_thinking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Always_thinking)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/68 "2016-03-10T08:21:05Z")
I realized when Mother Teresa died that no matter who you are, there are always people who don’t like you. I was surprised after she died, the number of people who went after her for things. I have no opinion of her one way or the other, but I was surprised at how many enemies she seemed to have. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/69 "2016-03-10T11:50:13Z")
There’s a quite simple thing that puzzled me a little, until relatively late in life: the business of “desert” vis-a-vis “desert island”. The latter expression seeming to crop up in the UK, more often than in any other context, via the radio programme “Desert Island Discs” --famous person of some kind, interviewed and asked which eight pieces of music they would take with them if they had to spend the rest of their life in solitude on an otherwise uninhabited island – don’t know if this programme has a North American counterpart. For a long while, I felt bafflement that “desert islands” on which people are cast away: are from context, plainly lush places in tropical oceans, with abundant vegetation and fresh water; whereas a “desert” is renownedly a big area of a continent, dry and very poor in water and pretty hostile to life in general. The penny finally dropped, that these are two different, though related, meanings of “desert”: the first refers to a place uninhabited, thus deserted by humans – for what could be any reason, or none. The second is deserted by most humans (thus it’s a “desert”) because conditions there are such that it’s very hard to make a living. ---
**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:** [March 10, 2016, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/70 "2016-03-10T12:37:20Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > This is perfectly obvious to anyone who has had Internet access for any length of time, or who has an ounce of common sense. But the first time I read that organizing tip about packing a whole set of matched sheets inside the pillow case? I was entirely happy. How many hours did I waste before learning to fold all of the right bits for a bed and put them inside the danged pillow case? > … I must be stupid this morning because I don’t understand this at all. What are you trying to say? What was your old inefficient way and what is your new improved streamlined way? Right now I roughly fold top & bottom sheets plus the two pillow cases and stack them semi-neatly on a shelf in a cupboard. Each sheet set is its own stack, with a couple sets side by side on each shelf. To get fresh sheets, I grab one stack off one shelf. Seems decently efficient. Were I to stuff the two folded sheets and one folded pillowcase into the last pillow case then put that on the shelf that would be more total work to put away, not less. And no different work to get fresh sheets. Sure, one could just randomly stuff the two sheets & one pillowcase into the other like dirty laundry. That would save the labor of folding the sheets. But then one has this awkward big ball to try to stuff into a cupboard. Struggling with that seems like more total work not less. Not to mention leaving insane wrinkling in the sheets. Color me confused 😕 (and light blue I guess.) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/71 "2016-03-10T13:32:46Z")
Your method is the same one I follow, **LSLGuy**. The method **Lacunae** refers to involves folding, but placing the rest of the items inside the pillowcase rather than atop one another. This is what my mother does: each “type” of sheet goes in a different pile or piles, which may not even be in the same room. For example, all her bottom sheets are in my brothers’ old room (the fitted corners in one closet, the flat ones in another), but top sheets may be in my brothers’ old room or in hers. Pillowcases are in hers (not anywhere near the top sheets, of course, that would be too easy). Blankets, ah, there are… three different rooms they can be, off the top of my head, and two different closets in each of those rooms! Her mother and sister follow the same un-method. I’ve banned her from “putting things away” in my house. Repeatedly, but matricide is still illegal. ---
**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:** [March 10, 2016, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/72 "2016-03-10T13:44:45Z")
Thanks for the insight. That’s so beyond stupid it wouldn’t have occurred to me. Sheets are used as a set and therefore are stored together as a set. I store towels the same way, since I change them one bathroom-full at a time. One pile has a full set of bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths for that one bathroom. With multiple piles side by side on different shelves as needed. Obviously that storage arrangement would be silly for somebody who used a fresh bath towel for each bath/shower but only changed hand towels and washcloths, say, weekly. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/73 "2016-03-10T13:51:20Z")
One thing about the “put it in the pillow” method is that it’s great for traveling, such as if you’re going to a rented apartment or a camp. I think it’s kind of how I hit upon keeping the sets together… (I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t divine inspiration, not with those family antecedents). ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/74 "2016-03-10T14:03:01Z")
I learned how you can get a free post office box. There may be other ways, but for us, we live too close to the post office for them to deliver (it’s about a five minute walk.) When we moved into our house I asked the postmaster if this meant we got a free post office box, since USPS was the one refusing to deliver to our house. He checked the regulations and confirmed that yes, the fee would be waived. (I made sure our neighbors knew too.) We have to sign a paper every year confirming we haven’t moved, but other than that it’s been very convenient. Thanks, **LSLGuy** , for clarification. I read about the interstate rules several years ago and it appears I oversimplified some things. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/75 "2016-03-10T14:22:44Z")
Re bed sheets: I live alone. I have one bed and one set of sheets. I take the sheets off the bed, wash them, dry them, and put them back on the bed. \*Viola! \* ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/76 "2016-03-10T14:40:00Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > There isn’t a post office in the town I live in. We are serviced by the post office in the next town over. It doesn’t make sense to have a post office in every single town just so each town has it’s own post office. And many people don’t live in towns. Or even get mail delivery. My home address doesn’t have a zip code. Much to the confusement of any agency that wants your physical address. I just end up using the closest town zip code for my physical address, but my PO Box is in a different zip code for mailing. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/77 "2016-03-10T14:59:28Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Re bed sheets: I live alone. I have one bed and one set of sheets. I take the sheets off the bed, wash them, dry them, and put them back on the bed. \*Viola! \* Yeah!! That’s how I did things when I lived alone. And now the sheets are my gf’s purview, so all is well in my world.😃 ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/78 "2016-03-10T15:09:33Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > Yeah!! That’s how I did things when I lived alone. And now the sheets are my gf’s purview, so all is well in my world.😃 If your GF is Viola you’ve something more in common w/ ThelmaLou. I realized today, aged nearly 46, that my birthday is always the same day of the week as Xmas. Has always been. I never twigged to it till today and I \*\*look \*\*for coincidences like that so it ought to have been obvious to me well before now. ---
**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:** [March 10, 2016, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/79 "2016-03-10T16:35:26Z")
Lemme guess: your birthday is after Feb 29th. ---
**Author:** ![Lowdown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Lowdown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lowdown)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2016, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352/80 "2016-03-10T16:49:52Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > That not all gravy was beef gravy. Seriously. I was a picky eater as a kid and refused to eat any gravy unless it was beef gravy. So my parents just told me that it was all beef gravy, regardless of whether we were eating beef, pork, chicken, etc. It didn’t occur to me until I was in about 6th grade that they had been lying to me for all those years. I’ve never really been a picky eater, but as a kid I didn’t like oatmeal. I remember these exchanges: MOM: “Lowdown, what would you like for breakfast? Do you want some oatmeal?” ME: “No Mom. I don’t really like oatmeal.” MOM: “Okay. Well, how about some porridge?” ME: “YES! I love porridge.” MOM: \ ME: \ I’ve been using similar tactics on my three year old. Works out ok. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obvious-things-about-real-life-you-realize-after-the-millionth-time/748352.md?page=5)