What obvious adult discoveries made you feel a bit of a plonker?

[Airconfan]

What’s something you learnt as an adult that made you think that’s completely obvious and yet I have never considered that….i feel like a bit of a plonker?

Mine was when taking tablets, the more you drink with it the better it will dissolve. I think alot of tablets are testing with the assumption people will drink 250ml alongside it.

When you start a thread in the middle of the night as your breastfeeding and it provides lots of information to help keep you awake. I feel like I’ve learnt loads!

I'm not sure they are right.!

You might want to fact check some of the claims though! Although most have already been corrected

Emperor penguins are absolutely HUGE! I thought they were calf height like the others. They can be 4ft 5 or so.

I was aware of who Elliot Ness was.
I'd thought that the writers of the Family Ness had been making a clever joke.

On the bird theme.... I realised aged 45 that nests are only used for a couple of months for the eggs and baby chicks. I thought birds used them all year round and just made new ones every spring!

I love that!

Until I was about 38, I thought that a yellow dandelion and a dandelion clock were two different flowers. Like different varieties of dandelion. Just never made the connection, obviously makes sense now 😂

I got pregnant on my next cycle after mine. He’s nearly 5 now. I always picture trees on scary cartoons wafting away lol

That approximate means close to not exact. as a child I read a lot on my own and I always understood. approximate to mean exact... it might explain why maths was not my strong subject at school 🤣 there were other words as well. I had the wrong understanding of - I can't think of them at the moment though...

Thinking of it. it's possible that there are more I don't know that I don't know yet 🤣

This is me.
It's dripping down my chin,sometimes slops onto my top..
No one else in my family.have this problem.
I think it's because I wet.the brush first(this is how I was shown by my.dad,i always rinse..kinda have too)
I also use an electric brush but move it.like I would a Manuel which i think creates more froth and spit

I always thought Timbuktu was fictional too, until I was in my 20s! Also I thought Kathmandu was made up, especially as I heard a story when I was a child about cats going to visit Kathmandu!

Morning fellow Notlob'er, oddly I only found out that Monty Python first called our esteemed town Notlob, it was in the Dead Parrot sketch. I remember all these words and many others, my Dad would talk about a prestinct and would have it that it was precint, no middle t . Someone else has mentioned chimley, I recall chimbley being used. Sometimes miss the old town but have read some sad things about it now.

Have you never tried Rocky Mountain Oysters?

No Way!!
Maybe it was real!

At work I used to drink this pickle spritz (pickle juice, lemon juice and sparking water with ice) to be “healthy” and I would always wake up puffy and I didn’t know why until my how husband told me salt makes you retain water.

This one is also genuinely really embarrassing but I didn’t get my period till I was almost 17 so don’t judge. I thought you could hold it in like a wee and I just thought people who used pads were kind of lazy. Thank god I didn’t fucking say this to any women, I actually said it to my gay friend in passing and he looked at me horrified and said “no babe, that’s not how that works” and explained it to me.

I’ve tried to rectify this with my own kids, they are 6 and 7 and know about periods. The youngest doesn’t know - I thought we should cover shapes and colours before we do the menstrual cycle lol. I’ve also tried to explain it in a way that won’t scare my daughter, as I remember being terrified to get my period because of my mum and sister talking about cramps.

lol! Reminds me of a former friend who was a personal trainer and used to say ‘skelington’ (for skeleton) even in her 50s. I didn’t have the heart to correct her, although I was waiting for her to tell me one that that she had realized her mistake but she didn’t. She is in her 60s now and almost certainly still says it like a 5yo! 🤣

Holland is not a country, but it was referred to in English as Holland a country, which is in fact the name of a Provence. The correct name for it in English is The Netherlands. which is what the Dutch prefer it to be called nowadays. Their Dutch word is indeed Nederland.

They have a wonderful magical theme park for younger children called Efteling. (Fly into Eindhoven)

Holland was a former province of the Netherlands. Now it's North Holland and South Holland.

Well I was trying not to be too pedantic. So while we’re on it, Tipperary, an actual place, both town and country in Ireland was historically divided into North and South.

I found out from my recently adult children doing driving lessons that cars have an internal arrow to show which side the petrol tank is on, very helpful when driving a hired car. It can be an arrow or the nozzle itself near to the petrol pump gauge.

In DH's small home town in Ireland, there's a pub called the Canal Turn.

I won't bother explaining the rest 😆

I always swallow the 'froth'. I realise you're not meant to, but I am nearly 45 and not dead yet.

My favourite use of "skellington" is Cream, .

Every couple of months, we have a Mumsnetter with a 'broken' washing machine - who never knew there's a filter you're supposed to clean out.

I always thought that the manger that Baby Jesus slept in meant the shed they kept the animals in and not an animal feeding trough, which now seems painfully obvious!