# Painful confession time: Things you \*ought\* to know but \*don't\* **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 30, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836 "2010-04-30T06:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/161 "2010-05-18T21:36:28Z")
If you have a condom turned the wrong way, it’d be nearly impossible to unroll it to wrap (say) a banana. But it’d be easy enough if you tried the same experiment with (say) a pencil. I’m just sayin’ . . . ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/162 "2010-05-18T21:45:55Z")
:mad: I’ll have you know my tallywacker is a good single standard deviation above the mean, thank you very much. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![pretend\_my\_name\_is\_witty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@pretend\_my\_name\_is\_witty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pretend_my_name_is_witty)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/163 "2010-05-18T21:57:53Z")
Of course, on the internet, everyone has a 13-inch dong, **Auto**. Is that the internet mean or the actual mean to which you refer? [Here’s a good support page](http://www.cracked.com/blog/least-believable-page-on-the-web-large-penis-support-group) for those so well endowed. ---
**Author:** ![Autolycus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@Autolycus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autolycus)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/164 "2010-05-18T22:20:13Z")
OK, I got a C- in Statistics in college, but I never said anything about 13 inches… So, can we talk about something else now? :o ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/165 "2010-05-19T00:24:25Z")
> [@Autolycus](#): > > Oh, here’s something. I wasn’t aware that condoms apparently have a proper inside and outside. Honestly, besides lubrication and spermicide, I’m not quite sure what it matters, nor do I know how to tell right from wrong. I haven’t used condoms since long before I was married, but from what I recall, they have a kind of ring of rolled-up condom that needs to unroll. The ring needs to be on the outside, so it can roll down. If it’s on the inside, well, it just won’t work. But when you take them out of the packet they are the right way out, so unless you invert them before putting them on then you shouldn’t have any problems. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/166 "2010-05-19T00:34:04Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > I don’t know how electricity works. I mean, I got an A in physics A level, and I can tell you what will happen if you connect up such-and-such a circuit, and know that Power equals Ivy Watts and all that stuff, but … how does it actually _work_? > > I mean, the electricity comes into my house from the power station, and it goes out of my house to the power station again, as it’s a complete circuit, and it does useful stuff in my house, but how? There’s not “less” electricity flowing out of the house than there is flowing in, is there? And in any case, it’s AC, so the electricity is actually flowing into my house then out of my house in the same direction and back again, 50 times a second. How the hell does it do anything useful? I don’t know how it works, either. I don’t know how nuclear power plants, airplanes, cars, cell phones, TVs, iPods, and a host of other things work, either. (Oh, I know in a vague way, of course, but if I had to explain it…) I bring it up because I occasionally mull over my ignorance and fantasize that if I was sent back in time to the middle ages I would have to keep my mouth shut about modern life or they’d think I was mad, if not possessed. It’s amazing, how most of us go through modern life and would never be able to explain how ordinary things work. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/167 "2010-05-19T01:30:57Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > I bring it up because I occasionally mull over my ignorance and fantasize that if I was sent back in time to the middle ages I would have to keep my mouth shut about modern life or they’d think I was mad, if not possessed. It just depends on your tone. "All right you primitive _screwheads_, listen up! You see this? This . . . is my **BOOM STICK!** ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/168 "2010-05-19T02:21:08Z")
I am currently a welding manufacturing engineer. I don’t know how to do manual GMAW welding. It’s never come up (we’re almost 100% pure resistance welding in my field). I can instruct the repair welders how to do their job, but I can’t do their job. I can ensure that the GMAW robot/welder combination are working correctly, but I can’t do that job myself. I know the theory, but not the hands-on. If there’s an applications question, I can’t just answer outright; I have to consult the engineering specifications. If I have to make a feasibility or sourcing decision, I have to consult with my colleagues. Again, we’re virtually pure resistance welding (I’m a king there, because it’s an electrical process), but those GMAW applications cause me to have to learn really quick to provide an answer, every single time. Hell, I’ve considered community college welding classes to make up for that deficit, but I’m on the road way too often. Everything I know about GMAW, my suppliers have taught me. _This is a major embarrassment!_ ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/169 "2010-05-19T06:01:18Z")
I haven’t read all the posts in this thread, so I don’t know if anything like this has been brought up. I am completely ignorant of the workings of the stock market. I basically have no idea whatsoever what its function is, what all those people on the floor are doing as they mill about and look very exercised about something, what all the tiny numbers printed in the newspaper mean, how the psychology of the market works (“stocks tumbled today amid fears that yada yada yada…”). I’m totally clueless…and that goes, in fact, for almost anything having to do with financial matters. Talk to me about insurance policies, and my eyes are certain to glaze over quickly. I’ve had some money in mutual funds for several years, and the rep keeps calling me to say we should meet to go over them. I have no idea what I could possibly contribute to such a meeting, nor what I would come away from it with. I’m a reasonably intelligent individual with a fairly wide interest in and broad knowledge of a number of artistic, cultural, scientific, social and political disciplines…most anything _but_ the above. I really believe I was meant to be a part of some primitive society based on barter. That’s about as much as I could get a handle on. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836/170 "2010-05-19T06:21:44Z")
In grad school we played a drinking game called “Shame” - everyone took turns naming a famous work they hadn’t read (we were mostly lit/philosophy majors), and everyone else who hadn’t read it either had to take a drink. I’ve never properly read Romeo and Juliet or King Lear. I only recently read Richard III, Macbeth and Hamlet because I had to teach a class about those plays. I also am clueless when it comes to Korean geography, despite having lived here 13 years in total. Most things outside of Seoul are a mystery. I have no idea how our government works either, apart from the fact that we have a president and a national assembly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/painful-confession-time-things-you-ought-to-know-but-dont/537836.md?page=8)