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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To share the stupidest thing I have ever heard

793 replies

Sparklfairy · 10/10/2020 13:44

My friend is away in a country that a few days into her holiday brought in quarantine restrictions upon returning to the UK. No big deal to her, she can wfh and organise deliveries etc.

She just told me she was chatting around the pool and people are confused about when quarantine actually 'starts'. Most have convinced themselves it's the day after you land 'to give them time to go shopping and get food and everything ready and stuff'.

So you're quarantined, but you have a magical window of time where you can get supplies and merrily skip round the supermarket infecting everyone saying 'Oh, I'm not in quarantine until tomorrow'.

I'm not sure if they're spectacularly thick or just so entitled they've twisted the rules to suit themselves. I don't normally get annoyed about CV or what other people do but really!?

OP posts:
TheFormerPorpentinaScamander · 10/10/2020 19:14

I didn't know until I read this thread that George Eliot was a woman.

Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 10/10/2020 19:14

I'm guessing both the George Eliot and Evelyn Waugh things are generational. I was at school in the 1960s. It sounds to me, though I may be making false assumptions, that those defending librarians not knowing who George Eliot was, might be many decades younger than I am.

MintyMabel · 10/10/2020 19:16

When I worked as a waitress, I once ad a customer ask me what the difference was between the swordfish steak and the sirloin steak.

GilbertMarkham · 10/10/2020 19:16

@VinylDetective

In Florida a waiter, on being told we came from England, asked if we’d driven there.
Maybe they thought you meant New England.

My sister and her ex told Americans they were from Northern Ireland at a show in Orlando and they thought they were from Rhode Island.

ChocolateCherrybomb · 10/10/2020 19:17

Reading some of these corkers out to DH.
He tells me this.

He was in Home Bargains today. He had 6 packets of Halls Blackcurrant Soothers in his basket.
The checkout woman picks up a packet and waves them at a colleague and shouts "Oi, Ave these got paracetamol in".
They are sweets, OK they're soothing sweets but still just boiled sweets. How would they contain paracetamol.

GilbertMarkham · 10/10/2020 19:19

A (then) fellow IT professional,on hearing someone say about the invasion of Iraq, that they thought a country should not be invaded til it was proven they had/were going to do something (in terms of warfare obviously) said "but they have done something, they did September 11th".

ChickensMightFly · 10/10/2020 19:23

I was in Next looking at children's shoes and a gran, mum and toddler family group came in. Looked at a few shoes, then declared it was a waste of time as Little Johnny wasn't an average child like others so would not fit a size X. From the detailed conversion I heard they were not talking about width fittings or anything like arch height... just the size. They did not grasp that ALL children will go through size X at some point in their life on their way to size Y because it is in fact a point on a scale not an average of ordinary children's feet.

Butterer · 10/10/2020 19:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

BraveGoldie · 10/10/2020 19:25

@ABCDay

Is a haggis a living animal

Well, to be fair, it is. Only huntable at certain times of the year, hence it being a seasonal product.

And before anyone asks, yes it is true that their legs are different lengths on each side because it makes running round the hills easier.

My dad told me that too!!!! I thought he'd made it up!

Then again... he also told be he was a champion Brussels sprout catcher, because when Brussels sprouts became ripe they would spontaneously launch themselves into the air (around 35 feet) and he was the best in the county at catching them in a special net.... 😀

pudseypie · 10/10/2020 19:33

Years ago when I worked on a fashion retailers customer service phone line, a woman phoned in to ask what kind of animal a 'faux' was on her 'faux fur' jacket. Needless to say she was very relieved by my explanation.

Navillerax · 10/10/2020 19:35

I have a MA in English from a RG uni and ive never heard of Evelyn Waugh. Oops Grin. My DP (who is a doctor of English) had never heard of Shirley Jackson, which I found surprising.

Sometimes a lot of 'obvious' things pass a person by... but you make up for it by having in depth knowledge about things which are not 'obvious'

RaraRachael · 10/10/2020 19:35

I was once on a flight and seated behind me were two couples. The pilot announced, "Good morning my name is Fiona Thomson and I'll be your pilot today" One woman turned to the other and said, "Oh me, I wouldn't have booked this flight if I'd known it was going to be a woman pilot".

I couldn't believe what I was hearing Hmm

Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 10/10/2020 19:42

Has nobody heard of "Brideshead Revisited"?

WaxOnFeckOff · 10/10/2020 19:44

@ChickensMightFly

I was in Next looking at children's shoes and a gran, mum and toddler family group came in. Looked at a few shoes, then declared it was a waste of time as Little Johnny wasn't an average child like others so would not fit a size X. From the detailed conversion I heard they were not talking about width fittings or anything like arch height... just the size. They did not grasp that ALL children will go through size X at some point in their life on their way to size Y because it is in fact a point on a scale not an average of ordinary children's feet.
Did they think the sizes were ages? So size 5 for a 5 year old?
Butterer · 10/10/2020 19:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WaxOnFeckOff · 10/10/2020 19:46

My dad told me that too!!!! I thought he'd made it up!

He did, it's a joke. The equivalent would be thinking a black pudding was an animal.

Navillerax · 10/10/2020 19:49

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom

Has nobody heard of "Brideshead Revisited"?
I had heard of it, but never read it/owned a copy. I shall remember the author's name now, haha
TheFormerPorpentinaScamander · 10/10/2020 19:49

@Jaichangecentfoisdenom

Has nobody heard of "Brideshead Revisited"?
Yes. What's that got to do with anything?
Graphista · 10/10/2020 19:52

Anyone who’s worked in healthcare will tell you you need to dial way back on how intelligent you imagine the general population is.

So true - but also applies to the hcps!

Waves @Butterer

Told on here before, Young Male patient with diabetes, admitted due to poor control and nobody could seemingly figure out why his sugars were all over the shop!

He’d been advised on dietary management and religiously kept a food diary which didn’t show anything alarming...

I was a student at the time and it was me an another newly qualified nurse worked out what was happening

His mother kept giving him lucozade and they were both adamant it wasn’t that cos “it’s a health drink!”

Now yes they were numpties! But it hasn’t occurred to any of around a dozen hcps to notice that his stringent “food diary” didn’t note any drinks! They assumed he was only drinking water, but to be honest they should have queried even the lack of record of that as how much he was drinking even if only water would have had an effect too.

Heart sinking here at the thought of that wasted vienetta!

Does anyone else have the sneaking suspicion that the type of Americans that think electricity doesn't exist outside the US are the same type of people in the UK that think Africa (the country) is all poverty , famine and mud huts?

Yep!

As a Scot I’ve been asked multiple times if we have electricity, internet etc...by other Brits! A friend of the family is originally from an African country, a wealthy, developed country. He has over the decades he’s lived in the Uk become unfortunately rather used to even now people disbelieving that his family live in a city and there’s internet and everything! 🙄 quite recently someone apparently commented to him their surprise that they had their own tv stations!

Given that the messages are electrical impulses, maybe it's little emails being sent? Or a "the body" Whatsapp group where all the organs post stuff. The brain is also kind of capable of "muting notifications", isn't it?

Omg! This reminds me of a cartoon I used to love, think it was in the beano or dandy where the premise was there were little anthropomorphic beings inside your brain that “ran” your body! Can anyone tell me what it was called?!

I’d be so happy to be reminded!

”Why did they built so close to the freeway?" Tourist outside 14th century castle in Switzerland.

Yep! I used to live in an historic town, loads of tourists making comments like “why aren’t the roads wide enough for 2 cars?” (Roads and buildings that very much pre-date the invention of the cart let alone cars!) “they need to make the church bells quieter that could give you a headache”, “why isn’t the town hall in the centre of the town?” (As the town has evolved the “centre” has “moved” for various reasons eg geography limiting what building is possible in certain areas), “they should put central heating in its too cold” in hotels etc which are listed buildings or otherwise can’t be adapted as wouldn’t survive the structural change.

I can top you lot. The most ridiculously stupidest thing I’ve seen is a ‘friend’ on FB posting “Well done Boris you’re doing a fantastic job” we have a winner!

Navillerax · 10/10/2020 19:53

How I see it - if someone has not heard of a famous (or at least what we considered famous, which sometimes is regional/generational/etc) author, or painter, or musician - well, that gives you a great opportunity to introduce them to something really fantastic! I'd love to read or watch somethings for the 'first time' again

Fluffycloudland77 · 10/10/2020 19:56

The lucozade things reminded me. Woman in the dentists telling me all her teeth rotted cos she’s diabetic so she’s on lucozade constantly.

Thankfully dh came out at that point because I was itching to say something but she had that batshit vibe about her & I was trying to be non-committal.

Fink · 10/10/2020 19:58

I tried out for a University Challenge team as an undergraduate. A fellow hopeful had a degree majoring in English from an Ivy League University and was studying for a Masters in English literature at Oxford. Thought Evelyn Waugh was a woman. Now that's the kind of person I was a bit shocked with. If an average person on the street who wasn't an English major didn't know, I wouldn't think anything of it.

MollyButton · 10/10/2020 19:58

Jaichangecentfoisdenom

*Has nobody heard of "Brideshead Revisited"?

Only really in the context of it being on tv and boring, when I was growing up at least - it put me off seeking it out to read for pleasure in later life.*

Your generation....
Mine in the 70s early 80s - everyone watched it if only to get a glimpse of Anthony Andrews bum...
So regardless of education most women of a certain age have heard of Evelyn Waugh.

I am sad if Librarians haven't heard of George Eliot too.

NavyBerry · 10/10/2020 20:00

Smb very senior at work talking about a serious legal case they had to deal with recently in Czechoslovakia... so primitive

GabsAlot · 10/10/2020 20:01

i used to think things were in black and white when i was about 8

alot of americans have asked me if i know the queen-i must see her alot living so close

also that wales is in england-dh gets very pissed off

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