I was today years old when I realised.......

[cwtchesandprosecco]

What have you recently realised that’s made you feel like a bit of an idiot?

Mine is that I didn’t know you shouldn’t flush tampons down the toilet...... I swear I remember my mother telling me I could when I first started using them, and that’s what I’ve done for 14 years! It was only through a conversation with a friend (about whether you empty your bathroom bin before the cleaner comes.....) and subsequent google that I’ve found out you shouldn’t.....

So, what have you have you learnt recently that you definitely should have known before?

I thought limes were under ripe lemons 🙈

@ArmchairTraveller

My daughter was today years old when she realised that woodworm are also beetles and can fly. She’s 30.

Really?! That’s horrifying!

@BluTangClan

@ Andylion Mind your P's & Q's = Pleases and Than-Q's.

I had no idea. I guess that makes me today years old.

I’m always amazed by how many people still don’t know about the tampons flushing thing. Course, I do know that back in the day you could flush at will. In fact, when I first started using sanitary towels, I’m sure the packaging said to tear them in half and flush them down too. Have I just made that up?

But come on, those who still claim ignorance of the no-flush tampon rule ... You’ve never noticed the massive big signs in every public toilet anywhere saying “Do not flush sanitary products down the toilets”? And the handy bin provided for disposal instead?

@Andylion

Mind your P's and Q's means Remember your Please's and Thankyou,s
its shortened to P's & Q's
Also
Mind your pints and quarts. This is suggested as deriving from the practice of chalking up a tally of drinks in English pubs (on the slate). Publicans had to make sure to mark up the quart drinks as distinct from the pint drinks. This explanation is widely repeated but there's little to support it, apart from the fact that pint and quart begin with P and Q.

I also recently discovered when you snap your fingers, it's not the "snap" of your fingers that makes the noise. It's your middle finger hitting your palm.

When I read this I literally didn't believe you now I'm sat watching my fingers snap like a total twat!

The origin of “Mind your ps and qs” is widely disputed according to Wikipedia so I don’t think you can count the please and thank you thing as gospel tbh.

@Mehtothemeh
@Tempusfudgeit upthread said...

That the Tombliboos' names Un, Ooh and Ee are a play on one, two, three.

I had to explain to a friend (way before lockdown) that those skydiving simulators use fast-flowing air to keep you up.
Quote "I was really looking forward to them turning the gravity off!"

I thought "the cloud" was a cloud of data floating around in the airwaves.
Apparently it's just a load of servers.

I found out that it’s possible to make perfectly acceptable mayonnaise in 10 seconds with a stick blender (1 large egg, 250ml oil, plus mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste). I thought it was some arcane art and had been avoiding it for thirty years...

15yoDD recently informed me that, as I’m blonde, my mascara “needs” eyebrow pencil to balance it out. She was right.

I spent many years believing the following:

Jump - Van Halen "Can you see me standing here I've got my back against the wrecking machine" Only it's a 'record machine'. He's standing by the Jukebox not the JCB I thought he was.

Similarly Madonna isn't singing about a week in Blackpool on 'Holiday' as that would be a vacation.

The Wombles of Wimbledon are NOT 'Making a juice of the things that we find"

And no Jewels remain still gleaming in 3 lions. That would be the Jules Rimet.

I half listen to things. Thats my issue ☺️

Oh God I've been flushing tampons since I was 15

That segue is not pronounced seeeeg

I’m sure the packaging said to tear them in half and flush them down too. Have I just made that up?
No, it definitely used to say that!

I went to university in Newcastle. My friends would often suggest a night out at the mysteriously named “key side”. It was only about ten years later, it finally dawned on me that quay doesn’t rhyme with sway. God knows how I got into university.

Also, until I was about twenty eight, I thought Charlemagne was the pet name for Sean Connery’s umbrella in Indiana Jones. Remember when he uses it to scare the birds into the path of an attacking aeroplane? Afterwards, he says, “I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne: let my armies be the rocks, and the trees, and the birds in the skies.” I was staggered to discover he was an actual man, and not a brolly.

@FunTimes2020

I've never heard of "I was today years old". It makes no sense to me!

Can somebody explain it please? I know it doesn’t make sense but what are people using the phrase to mean? I don’t understand it

@cwtchesandprosecco

What have you recently realised that’s made you feel like a bit of an idiot?

Mine is that I didn’t know you shouldn’t flush tampons down the toilet...... I swear I remember my mother telling me I could when I first started using them, and that’s what I’ve done for 14 years! It was only through a conversation with a friend (about whether you empty your bathroom bin before the cleaner comes.....) and subsequent google that I’ve found out you shouldn’t.....

So, what have you have you learnt recently that you definitely should have known before?

OP im in my 40's and i only learnt this last year, from a drainage engineer who was unlocking the pipes! I always thought the bins in public loos were for sanitary towels.

@AlanThePig

I spent many years believing the following:

Jump - Van Halen "Can you see me standing here I've got my back against the wrecking machine" Only it's a 'record machine'. He's standing by the Jukebox not the JCB I thought he was.

Similarly Madonna isn't singing about a week in Blackpool on 'Holiday' as that would be a vacation.

The Wombles of Wimbledon are NOT 'Making a juice of the things that we find"

And no Jewels remain still gleaming in 3 lions. That would be the Jules Rimet.

I half listen to things. Thats my issue ☺️

I thought the Wombles were ‘common’ (as in no refined manners) as there is a rest in the song before the word common. Not sure how old I was when I found out a common was a patch of land. The song for me went ‘the wombles of Wimbledon, common are we’.

hours of fun. I'm doing it right now.

That a rabbit caught in the headlights is not a idiom that means it will just sit there looking confused waiting to be splatted.

It will run in the beam and not jump off to the dark side of the road.

Poor bunnies!

If and when I happens I try to stop and turn off he headlights to allow it time to find refuge out of the light. Not on a main road obviously.

Only realised recently that you can put potato waffles in the toaster. #gamechanger

@Fossie I also thought they were common, but my main belief was they were responsible for the UKs production of orange squash.
I was quite disappointed when I discovered they had no connection 😂

Sorry, not true. Mind your Ps and Qs come from the days of the printing press. The printing trays had p and q next to each other, but as they are in reverse you could easily pick up the wrong one. There are a lot of saying s that come from the days of typesetting.

Including "upper case" and lower case" (not exactly a saying, I know) which refers to physical cases of letters. The capital letters were in the upper case.

Can somebody explain it [today years old] please? I know it doesn’t make sense but what are people using the phrase to mean? I don’t understand it.

@Catlover77 - it means they found out today. "Today years old" is how old you are today.