Videogames. For anyone under 40 they just seem to be part of the cultural landscape, so much so that when Google did a front page based on Pac-Man they didn’t include any instructions for how to play.
Oh, and health clubs. Completely baffling.
Scrapbooking. Who’s doing this? Here in L.A. I even see actual scrapbooking stores. Are there really enough people scrapbooking to keep these stores afloat? Can’t you just buy all that crap at Big Lots or Michaels?
Meanwhile here I’m all confused about large groups of people who never went to summer camp and, in fact, didn’t think anybody did. Weren’t you in Girl Scouts?
Everywhere I go, I see people playing with their Smartphones. I have never owned a Smartphone. What is so important on their Smartphone that they have to completely disengage from their environment?
Just this morning I took the trash out to the curb. Head pounding from drinking too much alcohol the night before, I spotted a guy jogging. Ran right by me.
I thought to myself: “Man, we are from two COMPLETELY different worlds.”
watching sports
television
cosmetic surgery
junk food
fast food
driving for pleasure
Lawyers and accountants. I’ve never known anyone who just “has” one of these. You just look one up if you need one.
Also, kids on sports teams, where the family goes and cheers at all the games and the community is all into it. That kind of thing wasn’t big where I grew up in Montreal, but on TV it seems like it’s the normal American experience, so maybe I’ll start seeing it as my friends’ kids get older?
Oh, and that thing where a stranger at the bar buys you a drink. Or even a guy you just meet at a bar. I’ve never ever had someone (other than friends and guys I was officially dating) buy me a drink at a bar.
Going on an organized holiday. I deal with these people every day. Their flights are booked through their agent, their transfers to the hotel, they have a rep at the hotel, they book tours through the tour desk.
Of course I’ve been on holiday, camping, staying with friends, guest house for a couple of days but never a package tour, never a hotel.
Breakfast.
I’m not talking about something like a muffin or a bowl of cereal in the morning, however I don’t do that either, but are there really people that make eggs, bacon, waffles, pancakes, hashbrowns, etc. every morning, like something out of Leave It to Beaver?
It is very rare that I’m even hungry when I wake up, let alone making a meal out of the occasion.
Also: Brunch.
WTF? Who does brunch anymore? Is it a formal thing? Did it start out as a hoity-toity thing then turn into a hoi polloi thing? Is it a hobbit thing? Will “linner” soon be a thing that people do?
As someone in business I have an accountant and a law firm I have a business relationship with. I don’t have a lawyer “on retainer” though, who has a lawyer on retainer? I guess really wealthy people might have a personal lawyer on retainer.
In some scenario where I became a L&O defendant I’d definitely call the “lawyer I’ve worked with” through my business. He isn’t a criminal lawyer but I’m sure he’s competent enough at the early stages and will get me in contact with a criminal lawyer.
I’d think anyone who has ever used a lawyer’s services at all might do the same, like if you get arrested you might call up the guy who helped you with your will. Not because he’s necessarily the guy you’d want defending you in court, but you know him (and may have his number available) and I’d expect he’d be able to refer you to a good criminal defense attorney.
We always did it after church on Sundays when I was a kid.
In the years I had a my own business I had a lawyer, accountant, insurance agent, travel agent, limo driver, marketing consultant, etc. But none of them were on retainer. They were just long term relationships with professionals. It’s not at all unusual for a businessman. I also had a guy who specialized in ‘odd removals’, but rarely had to use him.
I think this only happens if you have big tits. (Supposedly this is how my sister became an alcoholic before she was legally allowed to drink, but she’s a notorious liar).
I’ve never had a bird crap on my head.
There’s this woman on the Cooking Channel who has a show called French Cooking At Home or something like that, and she once had a program on luxurious foods, which she mentioned several times as being affordable. Among these luxuries were foie gras and lobster and salmon roe. Man, let me tell you, when I need an affordable pick-me-up, I run straight to the goose liver pate.
Yeah, I have those, so who knows what the problem was.
The other stuff that is “common” but completely outside of any of my experiences with reality are those idiots in infomercials who can’t function like normal people when they’re using the old, unimproved version of a blanket, potholder, or what have you.
I’m barely an A, but I’ve had this happen several times. I must just look like I’ll put out or something.
Along the lines of the lawyer comments, having my people call your people.
I can’t imagine having a personal assistant. I think it’d be simultaneously cool and pathetic.
Obviously - nobody whose name I don’t know has ever bought me a drink.
I was in Boy Scouts, and our camp lasted for a week. A lot of the kids I knew spent a week at church camps and such, but never any longer than that.
All the TV shows and movies I saw and stories I read about kids going away to camp had them going for many weeks at a time. I didn’t know anybody who did that.