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Join the discussion and chat with other Mumsnetters about everyday life, relationships and parenting.

Does anything mundane still TOTALLY amaze you?

150 replies

TheLightSideOfTheMoon · 06/01/2021 11:09

Mine is laundry.

When I lived with my parents my stuff would go into the washing basket, it would be there for days to 'make up a load' (my parents CRAM their washing machine full), it would be washed, hung up to dry either on the line or on an airer, ironed, had to go into the 'airing cupboard' for at least two days and THEN would finallt be allowed to be put away.

So about a week, possibly more, before I'd see favoutite items.

Now I do a load a day, stick it in the washing machine, stick it in the drier, put it away. That's it.

Times have changed. I know this. However, it STILL blows my mind when I'm putting away the pyjamas I wore the previous night a few hours after I took them off.

Every. Single. Time. My little brain judt xan't comprehend that a few hours ago they were dirty and now they're clean.

Am I odd?

OP posts:
TheNemesisOfLame · 06/01/2021 13:42

Back to the radio thing. It freaks me a tiny bit because you can be surrounded by something and not know it until somebody invented a device to capture it in a way which we can interact with.

What else could be literally all around us...but we can't sense it / it doesn't interact with us in any way at all....

amusedbush · 06/01/2021 13:46

Another vote for pets. I find it funny that a dog lives in my house and I’m his best friend Grin

waltzingparrot · 06/01/2021 13:48

I can never get my head round that I could ring someone in Australia and not only can I hear them in real time, but it's their actual voice, not some automated voice but their actual voice that travelled along cables under the sea, or flew up to a satellite and back.

BearSoFair · 06/01/2021 13:48

Cameras. I understand them but it still blows my mind a bit that we came up with a way to capture moments in perfect detail to keep forever!

Justiceishalfblind · 06/01/2021 13:49

delightful!

"rslsys

Thermos flask
Keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
How does it know which is which 🤷"
Justiceishalfblind · 06/01/2021 13:50

My biopsy.

I stood next to a machine and a stapler suddenly "happened" at the back of my boob and then there was a teen tiny puncture hole.

unbelievable, and totally blew the mind of my ex doctor friend who stopped practising 20 year ago and had been briefing me expect an really difficult procedure.....

LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 06/01/2021 14:02

@abstractzebra

How is there always enough water coming from the ground and hills to permanently keep a river flowing, even when it hasn't rained for ages? I can't get my head around it!
Flipping HECK @abstractzebra I don't know but that's freaking me out! Why doesn't the water run out?
Eckhart · 06/01/2021 14:04

@amusedbush

Another vote for pets. I find it funny that a dog lives in my house and I’m his best friend Grin
He may feel the same way about you. I wonder what my dog thinks when she watches me get dressed. It must be 'What the hell are you doing??'
SunKeepsShining · 06/01/2021 14:05

@NotExactlyMrsCurrentAffairs

Kitchen cupboards, how do they stay on the walls with all that weight inside them? My cupboard is full with dinnerware and it's really heavy!
This! I always worry they are going to collapse!
LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett · 06/01/2021 14:05

Faxes. I worked in recruitment in the 90s and we would stay till after 6 (cos it was cheaper) to fax reference requests all over the world. And then they'd come back. I put a bit of paper through a machine then another bit of paper arrives with an answer. Bonkers.

And migrating birds. How do they know where to go, how?

amusedbush · 06/01/2021 14:25

@Eckhart

He gives me serious shit eye when I sing and dance. I obviously cramp his style Grin

Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 06/01/2021 14:31

@NotExactlyMrsCurrentAffairs

Kitchen cupboards, how do they stay on the walls with all that weight inside them? My cupboard is full with dinnerware and it's really heavy!
This is why I onmy keep light things in my top cupboards, accept one witch is alcohol but there's not much of that. My mum used to keep all her dishes in 4 top cupboards in her house. I absolutely hated it. Always pictured them falling on top of one of us. Really used to worry about the dog because his bowls were underneath the cupboards!
Iminaglasscaseofemotion · 06/01/2021 14:34

@Justiceishalfblind

delightful!

"rslsys

Thermos flask
Keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
How does it know which is which 🤷"</div></div>

It doesn't. It doesn't heat things up more or cool things down. It just keeps them the way they are because it's insulated.

NotanotherboxofFrogs · 06/01/2021 14:37

@notsosmoothie

Eggs.

Eggs are AMAZING.

An eggshell is strong enough to provide protection, but soft enough that a baby bird can break through it, and porous enough to breathe. They contain a ridiculous amount of nutrients, they're shaped to stop them falling out of nests / ledges.... they BLOW my little mind.

Mine is wondering what the thought process for the first person who boiled an egg. Did they look at the hen laying it and just think... Yum I want to eat that
Cloudhopping · 06/01/2021 14:43

That I’m grown up enough to drive an actual car!!! Never mind the fact that Ive been driving for 30 years, it still amazes me that I’m now a proper grown up.

dementedma · 06/01/2021 14:50

The Tube in London. Millions of people hurtling about and rarely more than a few minutes until another train comes along. Its bloody amazing.

KatnissNeverdone · 06/01/2021 14:52

That I'm an adult with responsibilities and have people who rely on me to keep them alive. And that I'm actually doing it.

growinggreyer · 06/01/2021 14:54

@waltzingparrot

I can never get my head round that I could ring someone in Australia and not only can I hear them in real time, but it's their actual voice, not some automated voice but their actual voice that travelled along cables under the sea, or flew up to a satellite and back.
It's not their voice, though. It sounds like their voice but it is an electronic signal that appoximates their voice. If you record someone speaking and then listen to it in the same room as them talking in real life you will notice how tinny and electronic the recording sounds. We just fill in the gaps in our mind so we don't notice.
abstractzebra · 06/01/2021 14:56

@LonnyVonnyWilsonFrickett
I know!
There was a programme about the River Thames and Griff Rhys Jones went to visit the source all the way over in Gloucestershire and it was just a little bubble coming out of the ground!
It's miles long and really wide in places.
How is it always full? Shock

umpteennamechanges · 06/01/2021 14:57

@Eckhart

"He may feel the same way about you. I wonder what my dog thinks when she watches me get dressed. It must be 'What the hell are you doing??"

We always chat to our cats and I often say things like..."Yes...Daddy has gone to take his fur off" or "Okay, you can sleep with us tonight. Let me just change into my night fur" Grin

TheSandman · 06/01/2021 15:03

Writing. I still find it amazing, despite having done it for nearly 60 years, that by looking at squiggles on a piece of paper I can see what someone else was thinking, minutes, day, weeks, years, or centuries ago.

It's the nearest thing to telepathy we'll ever have.

And pencils. Pencils are fucking amazing.

lifeinlimbo2020 · 06/01/2021 15:42

How are enough potatoes continuously provided for the whole country. Chips, roasties, wedges.... all the restaurants and take aways and pubs that use zillions of them. I don't understand how so many can be grown and sustained?!

AgeLikeWine · 06/01/2021 15:47

That horses grow into huge animals capable of carrying a person on their back, pulling a cart or a plough, jumping a 2m fence or running at 40 mph or cantering over 100km in a day, just by eating grass.

nostaples · 06/01/2021 15:54

Have aeroplanes been done yet? OMG. Tons of metal. Flying. In the air.

AgeLikeWine · 06/01/2021 15:59

Bird migration.

Swallows are tiny creatures, weighing around 20g. Yet somehow they manage to migrate seasonally for thousands of KM between Europe and Africa. How do do it? How do they know when to migrate, or where to go, or how to get there, or when they have arrived? The more you think about it, the more incomprehensible It seems.

I’m no ornithologist, so I have no idea of the extent to which scientists actually understand how bird migration works, rather than just observing & recording it. Perhaps some clever person could explain?