# Weird little facts of life. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 28, 2008, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981 "2008-12-28T18:25:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/61 "2008-12-30T15:51:34Z")
When you are painting (in the decorating sense), there will always be at least one person who’ll tell you that you’ve missed a bit. ---
**Author:** ![Turek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/turek/32/18782_2.png) [@Turek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Turek)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/62 "2008-12-30T15:54:16Z")
> [@Kal](#): > > When you are painting (in the decorating sense), there will always be at least one person who’ll tell you that you’ve missed a bit. Good. I’d rather know while I was painting then realize it after I’d cleaned up and put everything away. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/63 "2008-12-30T16:41:38Z")
> [@Kal](#): > > When you are painting (in the decorating sense), there will always be at least one person who’ll tell you that you’ve missed a bit. No painting job can ever be done without a member of the family or a pet getting paint on themselves. No matter how careful you are. Oh, and if there’s a TV in the room, you will get one solitary gloop of paint on it. ---
**Author:** ![Kal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9de053/32.png) [@Kal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kal)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/64 "2008-12-30T17:02:14Z")
> [@Turek](#): > > Good. I’d rather know while I was painting then realize it after I’d cleaned up and put everything away. Oh, no. It’s a joke, akin to asking someone who just walks through the door soaking wet and holding a brolly if it’s raining outside. Painters hear it about 3,000 times a day. Another: Sticking up a ‘Wet Paint’ sign is just an invitation for people to touch the paint to make sure the sign isn’t lying to 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/65 "2008-12-30T17:18:06Z")
The more in a hurry you are, the longer it’ll take. ---
**Author:** ![butler1850](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@butler1850](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/butler1850)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/66 "2008-12-30T22:04:17Z")
Corollary to the soup statement: Coffee is only drinkable at the moment of dispensing if diluted by cream. If you’re a black coffee drinker, the cup will be too hot to hold, and cool down too fast (paper cups), or will stay hot longer than your drive (styrofoam cups. I’m looking at you Dunkin’s!) The window to drink the coffee will be no longer than 10 minutes between tolerably hot, and intolerably cold. ---
**Author:** ![Proudest\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/proudest_monkey/32/13257_2.png) [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/67 "2008-12-30T23:24:40Z")
\*If you wake up in the night and have to pee, you can’t tell yourself to roll over and forget about it until morning. You will lie there in drowsiness, thinking about how badly you want to stay in bed and fall back asleep, until you finally haul your ass to the bathroom and relieve your bladder. Then you can go back to sleep. \*When you are a kid, the years pass too slowly; when you’re a grown-up, the years pass too quickly. \*If you drop something on the floor, the chances of dropping it again increase by two. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/68 "2008-12-30T23:37:13Z")
Your own farts never smell bad. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/69 "2008-12-30T23:45:54Z")
If you plant your tomatoes a little early in the season, late spring rain will set in with a vengeance, and your damp tomato plants will get every known variation of fungal blight. If you wait a few weeks to try to avoid this, the nursery will be all out of your favorite variety. You finally find that variety of toothpaste/pantyhose/frozen pizza, etc. which is just perfect; but the next time you go to the store, they either don’t carry it anymore or the spin-offs of the product are so voluminous that it’s impossible to find or remember just which one it was you liked so much last time (I’m looking at you, Arm & Hammer baking soda toothpaste). The stinkier a perfume is, the more of it some dimwit at work will slather on. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/70 "2008-12-30T23:51:38Z")
> [@Duckster](#): > > Your own farts never smell bad. Emphatically not true! I ate some raw onions in my salad last night and I disgusted myself. My husband frequently grosses himself out with his own farts. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/71 "2008-12-30T23:53:41Z")
I am yet to produce a fart I was not proud of. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2008, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/72 "2008-12-30T23:57:49Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > the first and easiest cart to grab at the grocery store is the one with the wobbly front wheel. Not technically true. What really happens is that the squeaky wheel automatically and immediately shifts to the cart you pick. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the first or the last - it’s a side effect of the quantic nature of shopping trolleys. The dentist will always wait until you have lots of sharp bits of metal in your mouth to start a conversation. On the train, if you have purchased a ticket, no controller will ever show up. When you haven’t…yeah. Twice. The last cookie is the best. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/73 "2008-12-31T05:05:48Z")
Life in any era, caveman days to Ancient Rome to Middle Ages, to Colonial America, Victorian times, to present day - is the best time to be living on planet Earth IF you have a lot of money. You can’t ever have too much ketchup! (some people here think it’s a beverage). Ketchup lasts a long time in the pantry, unlike tissues and toilet paper. If there is a blizzard forecast and you run out to stock up on necessities - food, toilet paper, soda, pet food, beer - you will be snowed in the next day and find out you still forgot to buy something absolutely essential. Corollary: that niggling injury/illness you have will suddenly become a major injury/illness. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/74 "2008-12-31T14:59:09Z")
> [@Lobsang](#): > > I think advice given by others is often something you never thought about. I’ve had genuinely good advice from others. Other people can sometimes spur you on better than you can spur yourself on. > > Do as I say, not as I do (I’m learning the hard way so you don’t have to) I totally agree,I’m a mine of good advice but when I receive good advice its all too often a case of “Ah but I’m right and you don’t understand etc”,I have received very good advice in the past,sometimes from the most unlikely sources, that I’ve actually acted on but as I said its easier to give advice then act on it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/75 "2008-12-31T18:00:08Z")
As soon as there is epistemic justification for an ethical dilemma, someone will make an aesthetic assertion about ontological modality. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/76 "2008-12-31T19:05:10Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > As soon as there is epistemic justification for an ethical dilemma, someone will make an aesthetic assertion about ontological modality. Sooner or later, someone comes along with big words and big thoughts, and ruins the moment. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Chanteuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9de053/32.png) [@Chanteuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chanteuse)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2008, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/77 "2008-12-31T19:21:33Z")
The only clothing sizes I can find are just too small and just too big. If I lose 40 pounds, they will no longer have the “too small” size–but they WILL have the size I needed before I lost the weight. Similarly, all the children in town wear one of three different sizes and these are the same sizes as my own children. And their mothers all went shopping before I did. ---
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/78 "2009-01-01T02:09:32Z")
If you are a mid-menopausal woman like myself: you will have a hot flash _just_ when the ambient temp is a _bit_ on the warm side. As soon as you are outside in the cold winter air, you couldn’t _buy_ a hot flash. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/79 "2009-01-01T02:33:37Z")
Life is not fair The good guys don’t always win Bad guys do know how to shoot Sometimes people deserve the epic ass kickings they recieve Love is work The line between civilization and utter barbarity is thinner than you think. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981/80 "2009-01-01T03:01:28Z")
If there are bills in the mail, it’ll be early. If there are checks in the mail, it’ll be late. When you can’t make up your mind in a restaurant and end up ordering something you’re pretty sure will be good, as soon as you’ve ordered the waitperson will deliver what you really want to somebody at the table next to you. Whenever you post to one of these threads without reading every single response, the reply right before yours will say the same things yours does. (Yes I put this in here to CMA.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-little-facts-of-life/478981.md?page=5)