What about this discussion you get from some people:
Person: And I got to write off the whole amount off my taxes!
Me: But you would have only paid about 30% of that amount in taxes. You really did make a contribution that cost you. You didn’t get to donate to charity for free.
P: But I don’t have to claim it.
M: If you hadn’t given the money away, you would have kept about 70% for yourself. You chose to give away that amount certainly, although the tax write-off does soften the blow.
My father and greenhouse gasses … carbon sequestration in particular. He’s convinced that if we bury our excessive production of CO2 then we’ll run out of oxygen to breathe. It doesn’t matter how much I point out that CO2 is 450 ppm and O2 20% of the air, so it’s mathematically impossible. Not to mention that if we ever got CO2 down to a natural level we’d stop burying it about then.
We’ve gone around 20 times in a row sometimes. “But we need oxygen to breathe!”
Kid: What? Why don’t I have as many stamps as Ellie? I have three missing here!
Me: Were you sick for a bit or something?
K: Yeah.
M: And when you came back, did you make up the work you missed?
K: But I didn’t know we did something.
M: Am I in the habit of having you kids just sitting around picking your noses?
K: [Mumble]
M: Did you come to me and ask?
K: No…
M: And there you go. I can not remember to chase you down. If you cared enough you would have thought to ask someone, anyone.
I have a student now who is convinced he is some kind of reincarnation of James Dean (although he probably would have no idea who that was), and he can’t be bothered with details like learning or paperwork. So he chats through the class about half the time, and then doesn’t ask me to stamp his classwork sheet even though I’ve been walking around stamping everyone else. Good luck on that transcript, buddy!
Oh god, this reminds me, the whole three years I lived in Chicago, my mom, who lives in California, couldn’t figure out what time zone I lived in. EVERY SINGLE TIME I talked to her on the phone, we’d have a variant of this conversation:
Her: So, it’s 6 o’clock there?
Me: No, it’s 5.
Her: Wait, isn’t Chicago in the Eastern Time Zone?
Me: No, it’s still in Central.
And now that I live in Michigan, we have the opposite conversation - she is now totally convinced I’m in the CTZ, despite my assurances that I’m in the ETZ.
And THIS is reminding me of one of the funniest conversations I’ve ever had, with my host mom in Bulgaria. I know I’ve told this story on the Dope before, but whatever.
So, I lived with my host mom for three months, from April-June 2006, and then I went off to another village and lived by myself, but I would still go visit every once in awhile because I adore my host family. My host mom was obsessed with the idea that my parents would come visit Bulgaria and she would feed them a lot and was always talking about it. (Naturally, it never happened.) I was visiting in January 2007, and we had the following conversation:
My host mom: How long will it take for your parents to come to Bulgaria?
Me: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe…17 hours in a plane.
My host mom: What if they drove?
I have a moment of confusion. Did she just ask me how long it would take for my parents to DRIVE from America to Bulgaria? Keep in mind we were having this conversation in Bulgarian, which is NOT my first language. I decided I had misunderstood.
Me: What?
My host mom: How long if they drove? she mimes driving
Me: They…can’t drive. There’s an ocean between America and Bulgaria.
Heh. Most of my college teachers looked upon the syllabus as a source for inspiration, not hard and fast guidelines. I would have killed for a professor who followed the syllabus so closely.
I used to work in an office where they kept the back-up switchboard. If you dialed a non-existent internal number, the call would be routed through to my office. I would answer and tell the person they dialed the wrong number. And several times, I’d have people argue the point with me and insist they had dialed the correct number.
I finally just told them, “Well, the phone thinks you dialed the wrong number.”
I know! Hence Matt waving various sections of his wallet in mother-in-law’s face for half an hour over our ossified crème brûlée.
We could have done with your alternative explanation over the meal, but I doubt it would have helped.
I hate having the conversation with people. We got more of it in the I win, I win thread.
Ok, so you’d rather pay $1000 to a bank because it means you’ll pay $300 less in taxes? Now you’re out $1000 rather than the $300 you’d be paying in taxes.
Because you think the deduction is more important.
Oh wait, no…you’re only out $910. Because you didn’t have to pay the taxes on that $300.
Gotcha. This was quite a while ago. Oh, I just remembered another one he told me: He would answer a call by saying, “City, please,” and the caller would often get confused and say, “But I don’t want the city police!”
There was a Flinstones cartoon in the '70s. Seems a burglar had tied up two women, and gagged them. They managed to get to the phone and told the operator, ‘Get me the police!’ Only they were gagged, so whoever was talking wasn’t speaking clearly. The operator says, ‘I’m sorry, we don’t have a listing for Gummy duPleez.’
I had a similar issue with a former boss. He couldn’t get a machine to work and was asking me to help. He kept insisting that he was right and it was wrong. Finally I just said “Yeah, well this machine here is calling you a liar… I’d kick its ass” He actually seemed to consider it before he realized that I was making fun of him.
Inflation really got going in the sixties, so you’re lucky he wasn’t waxing nostalgic about prices in 1961. I’m amused to recall the Hunter Davies bio of the Beatles suggesting that in 1961 Brian Epstein’s half-guinea ties were part of the impressive sartorial figure he cut. But that would be equal to 10 and sixpence in the old system, at the time, right? Or 55p if you made decimalization retroactive.
Client: I’ll pay you $100.00 US dollars, that’s $270.00 EC
Me: The rate is 2.67 for cash
Client: The bank gives me at 2.7
Me: The rate is fixed, it’s not changed in the last million years
Client: The bank gives me at 2.7
Me: calls the effing bank The rate is 2.67 for cash
Client: The bank gives me at 2.7
Me: Well, if you’d like to take your 100.00 to the bank and return with EC you’ll make $3.00 because the bank appears to have a special rate for you, our rate here for cash is $2.67 because that’s what the bank will give me. If you take it into town you can get 2.7 on the black market.
Client: Oh, so you CAN get 2.7.
Me: If I shut the shop and spend a hour or so going to town and back.
Client: Drive all the way to town for $3.00, well, it’s hardly worth it is it? Why don’t you give me 2.7
Me: Because I’m going to put it in the bank at a rate of $2.67
Client: Sure, how do I know you’re not going to drive to town and make $3.00 EC from every hundred I give you.
Me: You don’t, but I’m going to put it in the bank at a rate of $2.67
I’ve simplified the amount which would normally be more than $100.00 US - so it might be worth her changing it on the black market if she could be bothered to go to town, however I’ve had this same conversation over $20.00 US too.
The same neighbor who doesn’t understand the reduced energy rate plan mentioned upthread is the same one who thinks that our water rates should go down since we’ve been told to reduce our water usage.
Um…reducing how much water you use doesn’t make the rates go down, any more than not driving your car makes the gasoline prices go down.
Right?
