BTW, I don’t mean that as tersely as it sounds. I concede that something that I thought was clueless isn’t necessarily so. It was early and I was uncaffeinated when I posted.
(I was trying to get enough coffee in to go out and run a few miles in 84% humidity, because yesterday’s 9.5 miles in 99% humidity wasn’t enough…so take anything *I *call unwise with that particular grain of salt…people who saw me out there might have thought that I wasn’t particularly brainy either)
Do you ever run into people who think Toronto is the capital of Canada, too? I haven’t run into that yet, but it must happen.
I know lots of people who think that, and I knew even more when I lived in Britain.
None of those people were Canadians, though…
Does Hank Yarbo on “Corner Gas” count? 
I used to have a co-“worker” who once asked me if Canada had a capital.
So, does it?
Of course. Otherwise, it’d be canada.
I had a college friend who was pretty clueless about Canada. He was pretty sure that there were no airports there, because airplanes can’t land in all that snow and ice. He was also sure that no Canadians had ever seen American TV shows such as (this was the topic of discussion) Happy Days. When told that that was not the case, he figured that all of those shows were dubbed into French.
I wasn’t going to post, but excuse me. points at location
Pretty darn important to me. Besides, one should at least know that Albany is the capital, especially if you live in NYC.
Some people can be pretty clueless about colder climes.
About 10 years ago, I worked for a major company doing work on Mutual Funds. It was winter (Minnesota) and it was 30 below in mid-morning. I had a conference call with people in the San Francisco area, and Jacksonville Florida.
They were absolutely amazed that I was at work in that weather. My response “Everyone is here. This kind of cold isn’t an excuse to miss work”. Your car started??? Yup, does every day. Some people have engine heaters, some don’t need 'em. My car started fine. Just let it run for a few minutes to warm up before driving and you’ll be fine. But…But…What about your office? Are the computers still working? Yeah, we have these things called Furnaces that keep our buildings nice and comfortable. Kinda like your A/C, which we use in the summer.
But hey, if you’ve never experienced it, then you would have no idea how to handle weather that cold, or that life could even go on as normal in that kind of sub-zero hell. And people get some pretty odd ideas into their heads about anything they don’t really know a lot about, so it’s no surprise that someone whose only knowledge of Canada is “cold, snow” would assume that it’s a land of perpetual cold and snow. Especially if the only TV show they’ve ever seen about it is Ice Road Truckers.
I knew about Ottawa but I only figured out a couple of years ago that Toronto is the capital of Ontario. :smack:
You mean the electricity didn’t freeze?
A FOAF moved here from SoCal, land of earthquakes, wildfires, and mudslides. He took all of that pretty well in stride, “but what happens if it snows?!?” He was sure he was going to die.
I gave her the straight dope (ignorance only held at bay, in this case) but I think I should have told her it was Green Bay because they used one of our cities because our model of government was older and therefore more respectable and reliable. I am 95% sure she would have bought it.
I also had to explain provinces to my entire staff once, because we got a new computer system that accommodated provincial codes as well as state postal codes. Nobody knew what those ON, QC, and NB funny letters meant.
When I married my wife, I knew that we had somewhat different views on money. The first several months were a bit iffy as she didn’t seem to understand that spending more than you make was a bad thing…(But we NEED this!)
I was starting to wonder if this would work out long term when she all of a sudden her attitude changed.
It was a couple years later I found out why. A friend of hers who got married at the near the same time (we flew out for the wedding) lost their home, their cars and got divorced because both were live for today types and assumed that everything would work out and nobody minded the finances…all within a few months.
I had a roommate like that. He was more or less content to live like a poor college student until the day he got a low limit credit card. He bought a few things and paid off the balance on time. Suddenly he was inundated with applications for all sorts of high limit gold cards. He got every single one of them. He turned into Mr. Generous, buying people fancy dinners and toys, and for himself buying musical instruments, nice clothes, a stereo system, and a (used but very nice) car. Within a few months he racked up about $35,000 in debt. Right about when all of the bills came due, he got a huge demotion at his job.
Within a year he filed for bankruptcy. But he kept the car.
But when you post that it was “like a citizen of Los Angeles not knowing that Sacramento is the state capital,” it seems to me that you’ve opened up the field a lot further than the simple comparison between Edmonton and Calgary. Or do you really believe that Sacramento is a match in terms of social influence, money, and population to the Los Angeles megalopolis?
Besides which, I may not have communicated it, but I wasn’t talking about recent transplants to the city. It was all the life-long residents of NYC who honestly, and firmly, believed things like that the Legislature actually sat in NYC. And who would look for hours for the State House in maps and phone books to prove it to me.
One day when I worked Armored, I was standing in line at Wendy’s in a questionable neighborhood when this guy walked up to me and started asking me about my job. His big question, which he kept repeating, was to ask how easy it would be to walk off with a bag of cash. Then he went into a similar tale as above, about him and his wife getting a credit card, then being flooded with card offers, taking them all and running straight into bankruptcy and losing their house. So now he was really interested in my job, because it can’t be that hard to steal some of the money, right? Where can he apply?
:rolleyes:
I should have done the world a favor and shot him in the head right there, but it might have disturbed the people eating and upset the restaurant management.
I had an exchange with a student worker the other day that I think’s worthy for this. She started out going to a private liberal arts college which, being Methodist church affiliated, has heftier religion course requirements than most colleges, and this is one reason she dropped out to come to ours (which is more “technical” school).
Me: So why’d you leave the other place?
Her: All those damned religion courses. I mean what do all these world religion courses in Christianity and Judaism and Islam have to do with my major?
Me: What was your major there?
Her: Political Science.
Me: Uh… war… Iraq… Islam… Religious Right… Alabama… Israel… West Bank… uh…
Her: When was the last time you needed to know religion to pass a law? (hands in supplicant positions as if to say q.e.d.)
It sounded rather resigned; as if, yes, we cannot hope to irradicate all Ignorance.
I was going to ask if that was your next entry, but you beat me to it.
Someone once insisted that Springfield was the capital of Massachusetts; this was a Massachusetts resident who was still in high-school (when we learn all those little details).
I didn’t even argue; I think I was terrified that, because one of us was horribly embarrassingly unbelievably wrong, I might be me.
I just read this on another message board: