The "What are they thinking?" Thread

Last weekend we got our first IKEA here in San Diego. Well, good, BUT, I heard an announcer on the radio say that people camped out overnight to get into the store on opening day and that checkout lines took 3 or 4 hours to get through at some points.

What were they thinking? There’s an IKEA in Tustin; you can get there in an hour and a half or less. They could have gone there and back 4 or 5 times and not had to battle the crowds.

What makes people do this? It’s just a STORE, ferchrissakes. You’re getting a particle board bookcase, not a personal blessing from the Pope.

Mmmm, I like this.
Europe is in the throws of a petrol [that’s gas to uuuuuuu]- [and that’s a lot of u] - crisis. The lorry drivers have spat their dummies and thrown their toys out of their prams. So what did the Great British public do? They rushed to the supermarkets and bought up all the bread. So then we have a food crisis, and a lot of houses with freezers full of frozen loaf. The loaves will eventually get eaten I’m sure, but why do people do these things? They should use their loaf more… [I don’t think the puns THAT bad] :rolleyes:

Yeah, I know where you’re coming from. :confused:

I believe a dummy is what people in the US would call a pacifier, Gazoo.

In which case, the sentence is translated as:

“The truck drivers have spit out their pacifiers and thrown their toys out of their baby carriage.”

Okay, that makes a lot more sense to this American.

Reminds me of the Dave Barry column about trying to get directions in London…

“Just pop 'round to the left, and Jack’s a biscuit, there you are!”
“Jack’s a biscuit?”

My apologies to all the septics.

Okay, so it sounds like what he’s saying is that the truck drivers threw a fit about the high gas prices. Probably threatened to stop delivering so everyone went out and bought bread. They did the same thing here. Now I get it.

Really not wanting to hijack BUT, while we are on this transatlantic linguistic exchange, please can someone explain about Jack being a biscuit??

And what the heck is up with the ‘septic’ reference?

I think I fell off on the way to Euro-land…

Not sure about the biscuit, but I am a septic who moved to Blighty about 5 years ago. Its cockney rhyming slang, where you use (usually) a two word phrase that rhymes with one word, then you drop the second word. In this case, septic is from septic tank, which rhymes with yank, as in American.

Anyone here who can speak English? I need this translated into American. :wink:

Hey!! I resemble that comment!