# Odd things your elderly relatives were concerned with that caused you embarassment or confusion **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 21, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213 "2014-11-21T00:17:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/121 "2014-11-27T06:43:38Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > When I was little, my Mother would not let take baths/showers when it was raining. She was afraid I would get electrocuted if lightning struck the water. > > I have never heard of anyone getting electrocuted from lightning while taking a bath, but I still try to avoid showering when it is raining. However, it is not always practical. But I always still think about it. > [@qualityleashdog](#): > > My grandmother always warned me that you didn’t wash dishes or take a shower while it was raining, since lightning could run in on you through the pipes. Actually, that one’s [true](http://www.snopes.com/science/lightningbath.asp). In fact, I thought it was common knowledge? ---
**Author:** ![LindyHopper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ebca7d/32.png) [@LindyHopper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LindyHopper)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/122 "2014-11-27T10:05:15Z")
> [@Diceman](#): > > This sounds like my wife. She’s 41, and she firmly believes that going outside with wet hair will cause you catch a cold. I think it’s something her mother told her. I’ve tried to explain to my beloved that there are these things called “germs” that make you sick, and you get them by being around sick people. > > Nope. If you venture outside without waiting for your hair to dry fully, you’re gonna catch a cold. Yes, dear :rolleyes: Oh, for god’s sake. My wife still (kind of) believes this. More to the point, a classmate of mine, a few years ago, in PHARMACY SCHOOL, believed this. Once I said, “So, you think bacteria and viruses are more likely to infect you if you have wet hair?” She (my classmate) had the good grace to blush and say something like “well, I guess that sounds kind of stupid, doesn’t it?” Yes, Danielle. Yes, it does. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/123 "2014-11-27T11:49:30Z")
> [@Lorene89095](#): > > TV wrestling was real! Ah, one of my favorite examples of equivocation: In this context, real can mean “Not scripted” or real can mean “Not completely faked, as with wires and such”. A reporter could confront a wrestler about wrestling being faked in the first sense, and whether titles are determined via a fair process of pugilistic prowess. The wrestler can demonstrate that wrestling is not fake in the second sense, by demonstrating a vertical suplex on the reporter. The fallacy comes from confusing the two, possibly ending with a contusion from your confusion. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/124 "2014-11-27T13:09:28Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Actually, that one’s [true](http://www.snopes.com/science/lightningbath.asp). In fact, I thought it was common knowledge? During a proper thunderstorm fair enough, but if you couldn’t take a shower or wash dishes every time it _rained_, the UK would be in a pretty sorry state by now… ---
**Author:** ![Skara\_Brae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f0a364/32.png) [@Skara\_Brae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skara_Brae)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/125 "2014-11-27T14:52:25Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > During a proper thunderstorm fair enough, but if you couldn’t take a shower or wash dishes every time it _rained_, the UK would be in a pretty sorry state by now… That’s why the grunge movement started in Seattle, right? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ea5d25/32.png) [@No\_umlaut\_for\_U](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/No_umlaut_for_U)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/126 "2014-11-27T15:06:59Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > Yes, but **No umlaut for U** didn’t indicate whether his acquaintance was American. He could have been from one of the countries where driving barefoot means a fine and a stopped car or have been trained by someone who was. I drove in the Americas for over 6 years all counted and I still find it strange to see a car turning right on red, being from the half of the world where that would give the cops permission to play proctologist. American, semi-urban, upper Midwest mother of a friend. The only thing I have ever deduced is that it had something to do with statutory rape laws, not traffic regulations. ---
**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:** [November 27, 2014, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/127 "2014-11-27T15:55:49Z")
> [@Guinastasia](#): > > Actually, that one’s [true](http://www.snopes.com/science/lightningbath.asp). In fact, I thought it was common knowledge? It actually almost happened to my Mom years before I was born. She told the story from back in the 40’s of taking a shower in a half-ass apartment with jury-rigged above-ground plumbing in what was a converted garage. Lightning struck nearby outside and she got a very strong & fairly painful electric tingle from the shower spray. She wasn’t injured, but it made a believer out of her. It wouldn’t have taken too much more power to have injured or killed her. She was home alone. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/128 "2014-11-27T18:05:44Z")
The first time the family went to Disneyworld was in 1977, when I was 7 years old. On the way, we stopped in Jacksonville - Grandma and Grandpa had family there, and none of us kids had seen the ocean, so two birds with one stone, and all that. Grandma had been talking up the ocean to me and my siblings before and during the entire journey there. But for some reason, when we actually got to the beach, Grandma decided that we kids shouldn’t actually _get into_ the water, else an undertow pull us out to sea and we all drown\*. In one of the few times I ever saw my mother stand up to her mother, Mammahomie basically told Grandma, in so many words, that she didn’t drive twenty hours so her kids could _look at_ the ocean, that she was going to let us swim, and that she (Grandma) was just going to have to get over it. I remember frolicking about in the ocean that day, hearing the _literal_ wails of terror and agony from my grandmother, who sat on a nearby bench at times screaming, at times sobbing, the whole time we were at the beach that day. \*Yes, I _get_ that undertows are real, and people do drown from them, blah blah blah. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/129 "2014-11-27T18:41:35Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > During a proper thunderstorm fair enough, but if you couldn’t take a shower or wash dishes every time it _rained_, the UK would be in a pretty sorry state by now… Well yeah, just average rain, no. But thunderstorms? Yeah, stay away from water. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/130 "2014-11-27T23:35:15Z")
> [@Zorkmid](#): > > SHe also washed out and saved potato chip bags and paper towels, and refused to throw out spoiled food because wasting it was a sin. She grew up during the Depression and in hindsight I think she had a hoarding mentality to begin with. Heh. I cook in a retirement home. Some of the residents have had the “don’t waste food” thing drilled into them so hard that they have lost all concept of logic when it comes to that topic. They’ll get their meal, look at it, and decide it’s too much food for them to eat. So instead of just not eating it all, they’ll send the whole plate back and ask for a smaller portion. So … what do they think is going to happen to the food they sent back? Once it’s gone out to the dining room, we can’t serve it to somebody else, so it’s going into the trash. And we can’t just scrape half of the food off the plate, because that would look like crap, and the company insists that every plate look beautiful. So these folks, unwilling to “waste” half a plate of food, end up wasting an entire plate of food. And, unfortunately, a good number of these folks simply can’t remember to just ask for a half portion to begin with. And some of the ones who _do_ remember to ask, still do it in a way that ends up wasting food. Like, ordering half of a hamburger. > [@Recusant](#): > > Here’s an interesting one, told to me by a young man who popped out of a time portal and claimed to be Chefguy’s grandson: “My grandparents believed that there were apparently no reliable sources of information before the internet existed; that before this technological miracle popped into existence in the 1980’s, there were no such things as books, and no one ever bothered to fact-check dubious sounding information before parroting it. Also for some weird reason they thought it was inappropriate to open time portals right next to people in the past and start talking to them without giving any introduction or warning.” In defense of **Chefguy** , the number of “elderly” people I’ve seen in my career in foodservice, particularly here in a semi-rural, agricultural community, have led me to believe that things like “reading” (anything) and “hobbies” were rather rare among certain classes of that generation. I worked for years in a small diner that had a largely “older” clientele, and amongst that older crowd, there was exactly _one_ — a well-dressed, upper-class-type woman — who always had a book. And maybe one working class guy who would read the paper. The majority never had any reading material, and quite a few would come in alone, order coffee and breakfast, and just stare at the wall. The rest seemed to gather all of their information via “bullshitting” with their friends. OTOH, both of my grandmothers were avid readers. But, to be fair, one was a schoolteacher and the other was politically active (not running for office, but an active supporter of the Republican party. Though, despite being a diehard Republican, she was remarkably “progressive” in her thinking. I remember her becoming a fan of The Village People around 1979-80, when she was in her late-50s/early-60s, and saying, “Who cares if they’re gay? They make good music!”) > [@Monty](#): > > In no particular order (mainly because all of these things are equally embarrassing): > [ul][li]"Yet another ‘Black bastard’ will become president.[/li][li]Those damn Mexicans are taking over the country.[/li][li]If you can’t speak English, you can’t be American.[/li][li]Muslim veterans cannot join the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, or any other veterans’ organizations because “Muslims cannot love America”.[/li][li]Inter-racial marriage is wrong but a White man marrying a Black woman is better than a Black man marrying a White woman.[/li][li]“You know I’m not prejudice. All I know is ‘The robin doesn’t mate with the bluejay’.”[/ul][/li] > Yep. “Greatest Generation” my ass! I’m looking forward to when the generation that has so many people believing that nonsense is history. LOL. A couple years ago I was at my best friend’s 50th birthday party, and his brothers and parents were there. At one point, his dad cracked what he probably thought was a hilarious joke … except it was a horribly racist joke that slammed both blacks and Mexicans. My friend’s youngest brother, who doesn’t get along with his dad at all, said, “God, I can’t wait until _I’m_ 83 and can get away with saying whatever the hell I want!” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/131 "2014-11-28T01:00:29Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > I found out a few years ago that all my elderly aunts seriously thought women have one fewer rib than men do. Like, you know, on one side. Because of Adam. (Or that the Adam’s rib story was a just so story to explain it, I dunno.) 😕 Shouldn’t that be the other way around? It was (so da Bible say) Adam who gave up a rib to make Eve. ---
**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:** [November 28, 2014, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/132 "2014-11-28T01:57:19Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > The first time the family went to Disneyworld was in 1977, when I was 7 years old. On the way, we stopped in Jacksonville - Grandma and Grandpa had family there, and none of us kids had seen the ocean, so two birds with one stone, and all that. > > Grandma had been talking up the ocean to me and my siblings before and during the entire journey there. But for some reason, when we actually got to the beach, Grandma decided that we kids shouldn’t actually _get into_ the water, else an undertow pull us out to sea and we all drown\*. > > In one of the few times I ever saw my mother stand up to her mother, Mammahomie basically told Grandma, in so many words, that she didn’t drive twenty hours so her kids could _look at_ the ocean, that she was going to let us swim, and that she (Grandma) was just going to have to get over it. > > I remember frolicking about in the ocean that day, hearing the _literal_ wails of terror and agony from my grandmother, who sat on a nearby bench at times screaming, at times sobbing, the whole time we were at the beach that day. > > \*Yes, I _get_ that undertows are real, and people do drown from them, blah blah blah. I wonder what the weather and tide situation was that day. Some days are totally safe. Other days not so much. I also wonder if somebody wasn’t drowned nearby few days before. So Grandma’s worry-o-meter was primed to be maxed out. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/133 "2014-11-28T02:10:48Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > 😕 Shouldn’t that be the other way around? It was (so da Bible say) Adam who gave up a rib to make Eve. Read the first entry in this Cracked article: > **[4 Mind-Blowing Theories About Famous Lines in the Bible](https://www.cracked.com/blog/4-insane-but-convincing-theories-about-stuff-in-bible)** > > These people decided to look at the Good Book and douse the stories with a whole earthen vessel's worth of crazy. It wasn’t a rib … ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/134 "2014-11-28T08:44:10Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > Read the first entry in this Cracked article: > > [4 Mind-Blowing Theories About Famous Lines in the Bible | Cracked.com](http://www.cracked.com/blog/4-insane-but-convincing-theories-about-stuff-in-bible/) > > It wasn’t a rib … So you are saying that **Zsofia** ’s elderly aunts are getting their Biblical interpretations from recent issues of Cracked or the American Journal of Medical Genetics? (And the theory, of course, is a ludicrous bit of scientistic idiocy. The authors of the Book of Genesis were only negligibly closer in time to when human ancestors had penis bones than we are now, and if they knew enough about evolution to understand that humans were evolved from animals with such bones, they did a _very_ good job of hiding it.) ---
**Author:** ![Tread](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Tread](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tread)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/135 "2014-11-28T09:04:31Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > LOL. A couple years ago I was at my best friend’s 50th birthday party, and his brothers and parents were there. At one point, his dad cracked what he probably thought was a hilarious joke … except it was a horribly racist joke that slammed both blacks and Mexicans. My friend’s youngest brother, who doesn’t get along with his dad at all, said, “God, I can’t wait until _I’m_ 83 and can get away with saying whatever the hell I want!” Sooooo, what was the joke,? … just for the sake of full disclosure of course ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/136 "2014-11-28T12:29:01Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > So you are saying that **Zsofia** ’s elderly aunts are getting their Biblical interpretations from recent issues of Cracked or the American Journal of Medical Genetics? No, I’m sayng, “check out this amusing and somewhat-related article”. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/137 "2014-11-28T13:06:12Z")
One of my 2.5-year-olds was enjoying a raw onion ring he’d grabbed off of someone’s hamburger plate, when my mom warned my wife not to let him eat it because kids his age don’t have the taste buds to have any burning sensation (plausible but who knows) and so he might burn his mouth and never know it (from an onion? No…). ---
**Author:** ![Reno\_Nevada](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Reno\_Nevada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reno_Nevada)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/138 "2014-11-28T21:52:02Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > An early episode of Mythbusters investigated the “snapping cable can cut a person in half” idea. While there’s no doubt that such a thing can kill a person, their conclusions were that death would be due to internal injuries. Try as they might, they couldn’t sever a dead pig. Does anyone here have eyewitness evidence to the contrary? The Navy training film they showed us when teaching us to handle lines was narrated by a guy who had his legs cut off by a snapping line. An old shellback in the audience said “I was there on that other ship when that happened!” As a matter of fact, this being the 21st century, I can even [cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGH_GUbdTeQ)the film. It leaves an impression if you are about to be handling mooring lines. That said, it is basically IMPOSSIBLE for this to happen on a ship that is already moored. It is only a danger when the ship is moving–coming in to moor, or under tow, or similar. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2014, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/139 "2014-11-28T23:09:50Z")
> [@Reno\_Nevada](#): > > The Navy training film they showed us when teaching us to handle lines was narrated by a guy who had his legs cut off by a snapping line. An old shellback in the audience said “I was there on that other ship when that happened!” > > As a matter of fact, this being the 21st century, I can even [cite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGH_GUbdTeQ)the film. It leaves an impression if you are about to be handling mooring lines. > > That said, it is basically IMPOSSIBLE for this to happen on a ship that is already moored. It is only a danger when the ship is moving–coming in to moor, or under tow, or similar. My brother served on several Navy carriers, and they were all warned about the risks of this happening if a landing plane broke an arrestor cable. Though he said it never happened while he was there, they certain;y talked as if it was possible and certainly tried hard to keep all unneeded people off the flight deck when recovering aircraft. ---
**Author:** ![FordTaurusSHO94](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f07891/32.png) [@FordTaurusSHO94](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FordTaurusSHO94)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2014, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213/140 "2014-11-29T01:14:25Z")
I do a lot of off-roading and anytime someone is trying to pull someone out of a stuck or using a winch, I get beyond the range of the cable or strap. I hate chains, those make bullets when a link breaks. Luckily, most of us use rope on our winches now and it just falls when it snaps. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/odd-things-your-elderly-relatives-were-concerned-with-that-caused-you-embarassment-or-confusion/705213.md?page=8)