Unintellegence Attacks Mid-West 2

[thekl0wn]

It seems like I'm surrounded by more sub-par intellectuals than most on here, so I thought I'd share a few recent incidents from people around me.

Incident #1: A guy I work with was asking about different sandwich selections at a local Subway restaurant, and made his decision, but needed to know the price. He asks the girl behind the counter, "How much is a foot-long?" Her reply was holding her hands about twelve inches apart, and saying, "About that much." Dead-serious. No smile.

Incident #2: A friend of mine calls me, and asks, "Is Alaska an island?" My reply was, "You're joking, right?" She was not, however. She saw a truck in Indiana with Alaskan plates, and couldn't figure out how it got to Indiana, and her husband told her they probably drove, and she thought that was funny because everyone knows trucks don't float. Her argument for thinking it was an island, is that when looking at a map of the United States, Alaska is typically shown in a separate box in the corner of the map... Right by Hawaii.

Incident #3: Same girl from incident #2. She was helping her husband fill out a job application, and was going through the checklist the employer sent along. One of the items on the checklist was, "Be sure to include your return mailing address on the envelope." She got a blank stare, and looks at her husband going, "Honey, I know what our mailing address is, but what's a return mailing address?"

Incident #4: Eating at Hacienda (local Mexican restaurant) a few months ago, I asked our waitress what day that Cinco de Mayo fell on this year. She said she would check, and walks over to a calender to see. She came back and said, "It looks like it's on the fifth of May this year." I found that funny enough in itself, but didn't laugh, and simply said, "No, I meant what day? As in Monday, Tuesday..." She then came back with another classic line, "Oh, so it's one of those holidays like Thanksgiving that falls on the last Thursday of the month."

Incident #5: Same girl from incident #2. We were swimming at her house one day, and she got home about the same time as her brother-in-law was leaving. Well, after he left I told her that he dropped a cigarette in the pool, and burnt a hole in the bottom. She looked down, and saw a brown sap stain on the bottom, and flew into a fury! She was out for blood! Well, we got her calmed down, and then I simply told her, "Think about it. How could a cigarette burn the bottom of a pool full of water?" Her reply, "I know. I know. It would float."

Let's hear some of yours.

 

[Gooser]

I remember being laughed at rather uproariously in my high school chemistry class when put 2 and 2 together and I posed the question. "Why don't we burn water for fuel?" We were studying electrolysis, and I figured it only made sense.

A couple of years later fuel cells were everywhere in the news. I sat alone, in smug celebration of my own imagination. A lot of good it did me.

--Gooser

 

[ESquared]

Here you go. A web ad I just ran across:


(follow link for full size)

Look at the butterfly. It's flying away from the flowers. There is no right answer. Which is exactly the right answer! The right answer is to not click on the stupid ad. They won't be able to tell what flower you clicked on anyway!

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[thekl0wn]

gbaughma,
She could probably use some! Her husband is an EMT/Medic, and I've been around when victims have freaked on-scene, and the medics will give them a short shot of Oxygen... Shuts them up quite fast!


I ate lunch with my father today. Our waitress noticed the fresh "train track" scar on my dad's right elbow, and asked about it. He told her about having his next surgery tomorrow on it, and she simply asked, "Do they let you off work for that?" I laughed inside, but didn't say a word.

 

[Gooser]

Actually, they could use an image map to tell which flower you clicked on, but likely they don't. Here's an idea... HAVE YOUR AD TELL ME ABOUT YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE!

(My apologies for the outburst.)

--Gooser

 

[ESquared]

No imagemap was present on the ad, which is why I said they can't tell what you click on.

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[Gooser]

Fair enough.

--Gooser

 

[gbaughma]

Heh... here's a true one that happened to me.

I work in a juvenile residential treatment facility / corrections facility. We have counselors here.

Well, I was sitting in my office when one of the counselors came in and was chit-chatting, when all of the sudden he gets kind of serious and asks me how I'm feeling. "Fine," I say.... he starts asking if I've been depressed, how things are going with my wife, etc. etc.

Finally, I looked at him and said "Why are you asking me all these questions???" He said "Well, I noticed your wrists..."

The night before, I was handling our iguana, trying to trim her toenails, and she had raked my arms several times!



Just my 2¢
-Cole's Law: Shredded cabbage

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[mjldba]

Many years ago in my community college days, I was in a Sociology class and I asked the instructor a question using some of the terms & phrases we were studying and sprinkled in a few unusual words.

I am far from a linguistic wordsmith but I tend to add to my vocabulary unconsciously ... it just happens and, voila, the words pop out in everyday conversation.

Rather than answer the question himself, he said "Who can answer Mike's question"?

No one responded.

Instructor: "Becky, can YOU answer Mike's question"?

Becky: "No"

Instructor: "Why not"?

Becky: "Because I never know what he's talking about".

 

[medic]

ESquared,

I was in an astronomy class at a local community college. The instructor asked the class what they thought the most common element in the atmosphere was. Being somewhat of a science type guy, I immediately answered with "Nitrogen!"

Nearly the entire class burst out laughing at me.

The instructor had to silence them, saying "Don't laugh, he's right!"

At least, you got vindicated.

My teacher in high school was teaching us how to read coordinates on the map using latitude and longitude. I figured the teacher got the two coordinates swapped when she mentioned 120 degrees north latitude, 15 degrees east longitude. Having a good understanding of math, I knew going north (or south) from the equator is only up to 90 degrees. All my classmates sided with our teacher when I tried correcting her and I looked stupid for being the only one having a different understanding of the subject.

I just hope none of them get into a life threatening situation for incorrectly applying that knowledge.

 

[SantaMufasa]

she mentioned 120 degrees north latitude, 15 degrees east longitude

I believe the best defense/argument against that kind of stupid is to simply ask the teacher to point out that location on the globe. To where would she point?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[ESquared]

Hmmm the doctored football image is no longer available.

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[medic]

To where would she point?

She did point where it's at on a map we were using (I wished we had a globe instead). She was actually refering to 120 degrees east, 15 degrees north.

The way she read the map, I should have probably asked her to point where 120 degrees south, 15 degrees east is. That could have probably opened her mind as she would find herself pointing at the same location.

 

[SantaMufasa]

...or, since she thought she was at "120 degrees north latitude, 15 degrees east longitude", ask her to move her finger due south 15 degrees and ask her the new co-ordinates...Her finger would still be at 120 degrees, but on the equator...That would fry her bacon.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[medic]

...ask her to move her finger due south 15 degrees and ask her the new co-ordinates...

She would read that as 120 degrees north, zero degrees east.

 

[SantaMufasa]

She would read that as 120 degrees north, zero degrees east.

...Thus emphasising her stupidity, since by moving her finger south, she couldn't possibly remain in the same north latitude as before (unless, of course, she was blonde, at which point anything goes and all bets are off when it comes to logic. <grin> )

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I provide low-cost, remote Database Administration services: www.dasages.com]

 

[ESquared]

There's nothing quite like that moment of incredulous helplessness when you realize the person you're interacting with thinks you're stupid because he is.

Like the class laughing at Nitrogen. If the instructor hadn't been there, what would I have said that didn't sound to them like an utterly stupid person lamely making utterly stupid excuses for an utterly stupid idea?

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[Turkbear]

Hi,
Maybe:

"The question was about 'Earth's atmosphere' and that actually is Nitrogen, not Oxygen"


Would have allowed them to save face by saying they misheard the question...



To Paraphrase:"The Help you get is proportional to the Help you give.."

 

[medic]

And imagine how I felt very frustrated because I was the one who looked stupid when I couldn't find anybody in the class who could understand it. :-(

 

[ESquared]

A mini intelligence test:

In a conference room at work you're working with an MS Access database with a coworker up on the big screen. In your ADO code you keep getting an error about computer "VIRUSTEST1" having the database locked.

You'd really like to get whoever is using the VIRUSTEST1 computer out of the database so you can do your work, but you don't know where that might be or who might be using it.

What's the first thing you should check?

[spoiler Answer]You should check to see what the computer name is of the computer you're using. You'd see that it is VIRUSTEST1 and there is no one else accessing the database.[/spoiler]

[COLOR=#aa88aa black]Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.[/color]

 

[Skie]

Last year, I went to a pizza place with family. We ordered some drinks and pizza. Despite having only one drink size on the menu, we all received child sized cups despite all the tables around us having regular sized cups. When we asked about the drink size, we were told that they were out of the bigger cups. About 3 minutes later, a table recently seated receives the regular sized cups. So, we ask again, and this time we were told that she couldn't reach the cups but she'd get us some bigger cups now.

Later the waitress brings out the bill and it's a flat dollar amount that seems a bit higher than it should be. There's no break down of the bill, so my brother-in-law asks about the amount. She tells him the bill is "about $70". He asks her what she means by "about", and she states that Joe (I don't recall the name) told her the bill was "about $70". So, my brother-in-law quickly calculates the bill from the prices on the menu and tells her to tell Joe that the bill is actually $59.38 (or whatever it actually was).