Your ignorance defeated – by the most unlikely sources.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

The case of the little girl, saving the lives of many by warning them about the tsunami:

Reminded me that I also could have done the same at that age (10). Unfortunately, I wonder if my family would have taken me seriously if I had told then that I knew that the sea retreating was an indication of a tsunami coming, since I learned that from…

A Lassie cartoon! *

Of course, years later, I confirmed that that silly cartoon (I mean, having animals acting more intelligently than people can not be taken seriously at all) was right!

So, do you have examples of knowledge gained by the boob tube, comics, or other unlikely sources that could or did save you from a predicament?

Mundane predicaments are also welcomed.

For example: During trivia games, many times I had to thank the Loony Tunes (Bugs Bunny) for referencing Hollywood so much.
[sub]*not 100% sure about what cartoon it was, I saw that USA’s 70’s cartoon dubbed to spanish in the late 70’s - early 80’s[/sub]

2

Gotta admit, I read the thread title and thought, “Oh God, another UL in the making.” Seems to check out though, so a big well done: can’t shake the Lisa image from my mind, though: {Homer} Mmm, beached fish… {Lisa} Dad, we have to RUN! Still no photos of Jesus/Buddha/Mohammed in the clouds yet, although I’m not holding my breath that they won’t appear.

3

(And, coincidently it occured on a Thai beach.)

So I’m at the beach with Mr Elbows, Mr Grumpy (half of another couple we know) and another male friend I’ll call Cake. (That would be the Thai pronounciation for ‘Craig’.)

Mr Elbows is floating about in the spectacularly beautiful and chrystal clear South China Sea, on an inner tube. It’s a postcard beautiful day and Mr Grumpy is bobbing in the water near by. I am 30 or 40 yrds away in shallower water, lost in my own world. Cake in lying on the beach catching some rays.

It becomes clear to me that the boneheads (Mr Elbows & Mr Grumpy) are playing about with something interesting. They are clustered together and intently looking at something in the water. So I moisie on over to have a look. Getting closer I see what they are so interested in. It’s a snake. Not a large snake but very colourful and clearly a water snake. Mostly they are just observing but they are getting awfully close in my opinion. Standing some distance from them I point out that while I could be mistaken, I once saw a National Geographic special on water snakes and I seemed to recall that they were highly poisonous. I even pointed out that I was certain I had heard the phrase ‘dead before you get out of the water’.

Of course, two big men, having already survived several months of hard travel through rougher spots than a bloody beach are not going to listen to the nervous musing of one small girl.

I get out of the water.

Now I join Cake on the beach and explain to him what I know and suspect. We can now see that Mr Grumpy is coming up on the beach. He has come to get a stick, but all he can find is the claw thingy that comes down with the coconuts, and back he goes.

Now they are sort of poking it / coralling it with this stick. One is floating as close as possible to the thing in his inner tube and the other is slapping the water with the stick.

Boneheads.

Cake and I sit watching intently from the beach. When along comes a young Thai man. Who cannot help but grow interested in what these two boneheaded white guys are up to. Cake and I are amused. He wades into the water till he is close enough to get a better look.

At which point he stops dead in his tracks and begins to slowly back out of the ocean. We can only see his back, of course, but we can clearly see the faces of Mr Grumpy and Mr Elbows. His behaviour has caught there attention in a way that my warning failed to. From the beach the only words we can hear the Thai fellow say are, ‘bite’ and ‘die’.

Cake and I are splitting our sides we’re laughing so hard as these two boneheads timidly drag their sorry asses up onto the beach leaving the highly poisonous water snake to go on it’s merry way unmolested.

It was several years ago now, but when we get together, Cake and I still laugh about the look on their faces when the that Thai guy started backing out of the sea.

(A little knowledge isn’t near as dangerous as a little testosterone if you ask me!)

4

Not so much a “predicament,” but definitely worth some ass-kissing points…
Taking an art history course in college - Medieval/Renaissance; we were shown Viking art. A slide of a large chest with three figures comes up, and the professor asks us who they represent.
“The three wise men,” I immediately say.
The prof is flummoxed. “How’d you know?”
“It’s written right there,” I say, pointing at the screen.

Growing up as Tolkien fans, my friend Colan and me taught ourselves to read Norse runes. And lo and behold, written on the trunk in runic was the word “MAGI.”

Geek power!

5

I don’t know if it qualifies, but as I posted in another thread about this topic, I’ve recently read Michener’s Hawaii. There was a chapter describing precisely the tsunami situation: first the water receded, leaving fish high and dry and flapping. A knowledgeable character in the story knows that a tsunami is on the way, and screams “Run! Run for higher ground!”. This was a vividly written scene and I think might have clued me in had I been in Phuket at the time. However, I’m sure I would have been ignored as a hysterical, silly western woman. Wouldn’t have kept me from running my ass off, though.

6

Cool story Daithi Lacha!

elbows: no matter that I am a guy; any snake in the sea I encounter I would stay away from! :slight_smile: