Wait. Um… what?
I still love what my Wife said when in a serious conversation "I was thinking the other day, and she said “Then I thought ‘whatever’”
Sometimes, that’s life. That’s profound. You just can’t always have or find a solution, but you must, and will move forward, whether you like it or not.
Yeah that’s a good one for us types who think too much.
I’m gonna put “We’ve gotta put our butts to the metal.” In my tool kit. If nothing else it will stop folks and make them try to puzzle that out. I like it.
That’s great. And I’ll take your “whatever” because I need some “whatever” in my life!
Like they said in the late 1960s:
Let it all hang out! Butts especially.
Earlier this week, while at work (a major Defense contractor), a co-worker asked me about what we did to Iran this summer. I had a conversation with the young gal–late twenties, early thirties–who had never heard of “Desert Storm” and had only heard of the “Cold War” in the context of current events with the US, China, & Russia. 
I had a good 15-minute crash course with her on how WWI led to WWII, which gave rise to the US/USSR Cold War and resulting arms race, and how I consider Desert Storm the last-gasp kinda/sorta-proxy war of Cold War 1.0. “The US’ success in Desert Storm demonstrated to our adversaries that they needed to bury their bunkers and facilities far underground, which we countered by developing the earth-penetrating ordnance recently dropped on Iran.”
Tripler
Oversimplification: None of this woulda happened if Gavrilo Princip missed.
Also, WWII brought rockets and missiles. The Cold War led to a missile race, with each side demonstrating they could lift bigger and bigger payloads (warheads, satellites). It also led to manned space flight and, ultimately, humans landing on the Moon.
I once had a co-worker, who knowing of my love of history, ask me which came first, the American Revolution or the Civil War?
The thing was he understood the basics of what the two wars had been about. So I can’t see how he didn’t realize that the war that established the United States as a country had to have been before any other war fought by the United States.
I could imagine a counterfactual in which the North Americans who wanted separation from England successfully fought a sorta-organized grassroots insurrection to drive out the English.
At which point the two North American factions, pro- and anti-slavery, immediately turned on each other fighting over which idea would rule their newly liberated land. Or if there were to be two countries here, not just one. And lastly, if two, where to put the border. Proving the old saw that “My enemy’s enemy is my friend … temporarily.”
In that way a north/south war could have preceded the formation of the USA.
But that counterfactual is so far from reality that anyone with much of any knowledge of either war would be very hard pressed to think my way is what really happened. IOW, your cow-orker is an idiot.
I’ve asked dumber questions, honestly. I’m not dumb. I just have a habit of saying stupid things.
Very many years ago we met up with an old college friend who was living in Japan. He mentioned traveling to Cambodia, and I asked if he drove there.
I then said, “that was very stupid,” and he said, “yes it was.”
My life is littered with memories of making a fool of myself, which is why I tend to clam up in new social situations.
All of which is to say, he might not be as stupid as you think. It might be he just has a chronic case of foot-in-mouth.
A few years ago I was being treated by a dentist who was telling me about her grandparents’ experience in Ukraine. With a jaw shot with Novocain and wads of cotton, my attempts to pronounce “Holodomor” would have reflected better on me if I hadn’t tried.
Well, you have to admit, the Dustbowl didn’t get a major league football team named after it.
Did he have a bitchin’ Camaro?
Speaking of other things I don’t know!
I had to look that song up.
I didn’t even know it was a song.
I guessed. Some band called the Dead Milkmen? Lyrics were funny. And relevant.
♫ Oh, how you gettin’ down to the shore?
Funny you should ask, I’ve got a car now
Ah wow, how’d ya get a car?
Oh, my folks drove it up here from the Bahamas
You’re kidding
I must be, the Bahamas are islands… ♫
Which I see even includes Bonaire, Saba, and St. Eustatius in the Caribbean Netherlands.
I’ve been to Amsterdam once when I was very young, but much more recently I’ve visited Bonaire three times for scuba diving.
These islands are like the equivalent of Hawaii for residents of the Netherlands, literally part of the Netherlands. (Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten are overseas territories that are more independent.)
France also has regions outside what we usually think of as France: