I gotta agree - poo pride is a bit out there… <shudder>
OK, one of my own, tho I generally don’t make a big deal about it. In my first engineering job, I never ever wore a dress or a skirt to work. Of course, the job involved a lot of climbing in and on airplanes, working with the guys in the machine shops, the welding shop, and the plating facility, so it wasn’t exactly a dressing-up place, but even when I knew I’d be at my desk all day, I kept my pants on.
I can give you a weird one. When I was but a wee one, my mother said something about having the back of the Crest (toothpaste) tube memorized. No idea why, but I thought it a good enough idea and challenge to do it myself. They don’t use this particular verbiage on the label anymore, but I still remember it thirty years later.
“Crest has been shown to be an effective decay preventive dentifrice when used in a concientiously applied program of oral hygeine and regular professional care.”
-Council on Dental Theraputics, American Dental Association
[QUOTE=FairyChatMom]
This thread will either be entertaining or it’ll sink like a rock, to my shame and embarrassment. I’m brave, so here goes…
I expect we’ve all run into people who take pride in, um, shall we call them unusual acts, situations, or accomplishments. My daughter just married into a family that has what I consider to be a real doozy.
We first met her then-future inlaws on Christmas Eve, 2006. They bragged to us that the TV in their family room had never been turned off in the 6 years they’d been living in that house. A year and a half later, we were helping our almost son-in-law move his stuff out of the house. No one was home. But the TV was on.
They did have to turn it off a month later when they moved, but I expect once it was plugged in, it went back into the permanent-on mode.
Can you top that?
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Nope, but I’d be proud if I hadn’t lost power in 6 years.
I remember that verbiage from Crest - I think it was recited on their TV commercials, too. Then one day, I heard another toothpaste use the same phrase and I thought it was pretty crummy of them to steal from Crest!
I work with a guy who is proud of the fact that he shot a dog that had come into his yard. He was “protecting his children”. Since it was midnight, said children were in the house asleep. So this unprintable unmentionable is off firing a pistol in a residential neighborhood for the fun of shooting a dog who is not doing a damed bit of harm.
I already didn’t care much for this guy. I really dislike him now.
I know a guy who will intentionally brag about the cost of something, and will inflate the price he paid. I don’t really get it. It makes him look like a fool who wastes money he doesn’t have.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
For some reason, I seem to have attracted a lot of these people into my life. Maybe it’s the IT field in general, maybe just my damned luck. Just tons and tons of people who think it’s some great cosmic achievement to work 80+ hours a week, have no personal life, alienate their family and lord it over ‘inferior’ people who don’t work so many hours.
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That’s probably because a lot of IT workers are dorks who are pretty alienated to begin with.
My MIL is proud to serve her meat gray. She prefers any meat that way. I think I may break my jaw if I keep (attempting) to eat her main dishes.
My SIL is proud that she never wants to go back to school/learn more. She’d rather “hang out” at the golf club with the other wives. (?)
I have a down the street neighbor who was proud that his girls were afraid of his raised voice. I confess I don’t understand people like him.
[QUOTE=Zsofia]
I’ve met quite a few people who are proud that they’ve never read a book, and people who are proud they don’t pay attention to news. Also people who are proud they don’t even own a television or only watch PBS, like that makes them superior people.
I myself am proud that I can touch my tongue to my nose.
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I was meeting with a hotel person while scouting for a book convention, and the salesperson bragged–yes, bragged!–that she had not read a book since college.
A funny thing to brag about at all, but especially when you’re trying to sell your hotel’s services to book people.
About not owning TV: Does not guarantee superiority but it is a pretty good indicator.
[QUOTE=Chimera]
The ones who really bug me are the people with a certain amount of knowledge and position in an obscure (or not so obscure) small pond. Ala the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Their entire world revolves around their dominance in something completely worthless to 99.999999999% of the people in the world, yet their arrogance and condescending behavior to people who don’t know or give a shit about their field is simply astonishing. Yeah - “You’re proud of that?”
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Collecting anything - even just knowledge - means constantly balancing the tradeoff between your passion and a healthy perspective on life. I’m into several obscure fields, and I have to watch myself every single day for signs of weenie-hood.
