I'm surprised that nobody mentioned tax brackets.
I laughed my ass off when my racist uncle smugly explained that he turned down a raise, because that would put him in an upper tax rate and cost him more money than the raise was worth.
Tried to explain how income tax works. Didn't go through that thick skull of his.
I remember in 7th grade, our social studies class did a module on taxation and tariffs. Seemed pretty easy to understand at the time. Little did I know, later on, that many, many people would not understand this relatively simple concept.
why consumers pay tarrifs
The earth isn't flat.
Seriously, what the fuck.
"Tax the rich" does not mean anybody wants to tax you for owning your home. Unless it's a fucking palace.
Ok so disclaimer, this isn't ... as derisive or as ... disdianful as something like 'I can't believe I had to explain to a 27 yo that chocolate milk does not come from brown cows' but... here goes:
About a decade ago I went on a movie date with a girl (in an actual theatre, before netflix existed... god maybe it was closer to two decades fuxk)
....30 minutes into the movie, she started going into a diabetic shock.
Before she almost entirely feinted, she told me what was going on, and was freaking out because she could not find her insulin pen in her purse.
She then completely passed out. Totally limp, sliding out of her seat, ragdoll limp.
I started going through the steps of doing a proper fireman carry, but she managed to regain enough consciousness that I could support about 75% of her weight and she and I could sort of stumble out of the theatre into the lobby.
Set her down in the lobby, on the ground, sort of slouched kind of upright against a wall, told a staff member to call 911.
While waiting, I bought the stupidest large sized coke I'd ever purchased, told her to focus on alternating between sipping it, and breathing, while I held her upper body and head so she wouldn't collapse and take her eye out with the straw.
... Within 10 minutes, the ambulance had not yet arrived, but she had moderately regained consciousness and composure.
By the time the ambulance did arrive, we basically all managed to figure out (as she regained more awareness) that she had a backup insulin pen in her car, the EMTs supervised its administration, and after about 45 minutes of observation, they said she was clear to go if I drove her home.
She made that decision with the EMTs, I had stepped back at that point, and I... told her I could drive her to the hospital, but she just wanted to go home, so I drove her home.
... Now, not to make light of her condition in anyway, at all, but...
... a few days later we were chatting and she said that at no point in her life (she'd had early onset diabetes, type 1, been living with it for a while) ...
... at no point had anyone told her or had she realized that a stupidly massive sugary drink does apparently function decently as an emergency, last ditch, make shift sugar boost... when you are in diabetic shock... from a lack of sugar.
I realize you would not want to depend on this method as your main way of handling diabetes (for numerous, numerous reasons), but it baffled me that someone with 10+ years living with diabetes... wouldn't know that?
Like, I know that just gulping down a huge soda potentially could have been too much sugar, but also, the paramedics were on the way, and I wasn't forcing her to drink the whole thing, she got maybe 2/3 of the way through it and had significantly recovered, told me she thought that was enough.
I dunno.
I'd be interested in the opinions of diabetics and people with actual medical knowledge on this.
The definition of "cardiovascular system." Budtenders are just built different.
Then there was the extremely wealthy guy who didn't know what I meant when I said "install." He actually asked me "What means "Install""? Native English speaker, over 50, owned a couple businesses. He'd never heard of installing a program or a dishwasher.
How to put phone in silent mode.
I work at a ski mountain, it was spring and the snow was melting. Had to explain that it needs to be below freezing out for the mountain to make more snow. "Fake" snow is still frozen water.
Something explained to me...
I was 41 when I realised that people actually see things in their minds eye. It is not just a metaphor.
Blew my mind, like it is some kind of superpower, you can just imagine stuff, and you see an image of it....
My partner is such a good cook, partly because she can combine flavours in her mind, to check if they will taste good together, that is just fucken cheating.
When people "get a song stuck in their head" they can literally hear it.... How the fuck do you get anything done, you crazy bastards.
My mom was proud that the neighborhood worked together to block an "ugly new cell tower" from being constructed in the area. Then she was upset that her cell service was spotty, in literally the same fucking breath.
I worked in a retail pharmacy so here is a list:
- Women do not have prostates
- During Fukishima nuclear incident, there would be no physical issues for people >5,000 miles away
- Antibiotics don't work on viruses
- Vaccines
- "Natural" medicines can significantly interact with other medicines
- What jock itch is and the astounding amount of men who thought it was normal
- Don't recklessly shove things into your eye, ear, nose, butt, penis/vagina (exceptions apply)
Having to explain that a certain infamous "Chinese alphabet" font¹ (favoured by tattoo joints everywhere) is not how you write in Chinese. There is a shocking number of people who have somehow managed to grow up not just to adulthood but to senior citizen levels who think that foreign languages are just English with a funky spelling; that grammar rules are otherwise the same, and that words translate one for one (and sometimes, in extreme cases, like the gibberish font, letter for letter).
¹ https://hanzismatter.removed/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html
I got a job building touch screen information kiosks for a fundraising thing a university was doing for one of its STEM programs. I had my hands full building this thing, so they got one of the students at the college who "does video" to put the content together. I got one chance to talk to this girl, I start in "So the monitors I'm using are standard 1920x1080, so aim for that resolution" and she stopped me to ask what that meant. So I'm now convinced she wasn't a member of the AV club or in some video production major...she was someone's niece who's on Tiktok.
I eventually get an email with the files she was supposed to send to me. Each kiosk was going to be programmed differently to display information about the thing it was standing next to. I get a bunch of video files in no folder structure with names that don't mean anything. "charlton.mp4" "untitled.mp4." "melissa.mp4"
I replied with an email asking "How am I supposed to know which of these videos goes with which kiosk?" How do you end up with most of a bachelor's degree like this?
I had to explain to an adult woman that prunes are to plums as raisins are to grapes.
Just before the US election, I had to explain to a coworker that JD Vance was not going to be Kamala Harris’ VP and vice versa. I knew this person for 9 years, never thought they were a genius or anything but damn, I was dumbfounded when she asked if I could believe it, I think she has always thought whichever side wins has to take the other sides VP. I immediately lost a lot of hope for us that day.
I think it was last year that I had to break it to my mother that pickles are not, in fact, a naturally occurring relative of cucumbers, but rather the result of placing cucumbers in some sort of brine. She's almost 70, and apparently believed there were pickle plants out there that you could just walk up to and grab a gherkin, or something.
About 30 years ago I had to explain to my boyfriend's mom that LGBTQI+ people do not just choose to be LGBTQI+.
I didn't know at the time whether I got through to her, but years later she told me she understood why that was true.
I once had to explain the concept of having multiple Internet browser tabs to an elderly woman. She was certain nobody else could ever manage accessing a webpage AND their email at the same time, and was angry at our 2fa system for requiring that.
Another time I had to explain to my romantic partner at the time that winter actually lasts from the 21st of December through the 20th of March. He was convinced that winter coincided with the Christmas season, and that spring started on January 1st.
I told me biss that i have agave syrup for margaritas and as a hiney substitute for when i have vegan friends over. He asked why vegans have a problem with hiney since insects aren't animals. I wasn't sure how to respond to that other than saying they absolutely are, so he googled it and had his kind absolutely blown
the Philippines is not in South America
Not 100% applicable but today I was catching up on Handmaids Tale and googled a bit of plot I couldn't remember and Google's little auto generated Q&A bit had stuff like
"Why did June kill Commander (spoiler)"
And
"Why do women dislike Serene Joy"
The fuck? People don't understand? Or just another reason to fear dumbass AIs?
