wal martians..

[fiver]

yep it's sunday.
and we went down in the valley to go shooting as usual.
I broke out the old super-X2 and decided to give it a run since it's been looking pretty sad sitting in the gun cabinet for the last few[7] years.
I made the mistake of squirting a little oil down in it and it worked some of the dust and fouling loose and gummed up the trigger after the first 25 rounds..
not a huge loss since I had the SKB too and just switched guns out.
i'll pull the old gal down tomorrow and flush all the junk out of her and check things out.
it's the first trouble the gun has gave me since I bought it new sometime in the 90's.

anyway we stopped at the walmart so the oldest girl could get some new shoes.
I was wandering around the sporting section looking for a plaque mount for this years antlers.
as I walked down the aisle where they had the tarps stacked up.
there was a guy and what appeared to be his girl friend standing there looking confused.
as it turned out they were completely confused.
the guy looks up as I get closer and say's...
hey can I ask you a question.
me: sure man what's up.
him: this is probably gonna sound like the dumbest question you have ever heard
me: but?
him: okay,, this tarp says it is 12X24 and I want to cover my camper with it.
me:??? okay
him: does this mean it is 12' long and 24' wide, I mean my camper is not that wide but it is longer than 12'
me: thinking to myself [your shitting me right? where are the camera's?]
dude look,,,, and I put my hand out flat and explain to him he can turn the tarp sideways so that it is 12' wide and 24' long, or he can fold it in half [I close my hand] and have one 12'X12', or have one 24'wide and 12' long.
as I turn my hand sideways again it dawns on him what I'm saying.
I start walking away before my IQ drops any further.
but... I have to look back as I round the corner and he is standing there turning his had left and right trying to convince his G/F that the tarp works in 2 directions.


so how was your day?

 

[Brad]

I deal with the public all day, every day. Idiocy abounds. Common sense is anything but common.

Ever had to tell someone a drug could turn his stool Orange only to be asked what stool was? It was hard not to tell him it was what he was dumber than.....

 

[RBHarter]

I work in a place where there are 2 kinds of people those that get the short description of peanut butter on one slice jelly on the other and eat and those that you have to start with proper land selection for planting of the peanuts an Concord grapes while not conflicting with the iron and coal mining to make the knife and the construction of the blast furnace and peanut mill and disposal of waste and by products ..........

 

[oscarflytyer]

is it long by wide, or wide by long?!? lmoa!

 

[Ian]

The only idiot I had to deal with today was me, it was almost more than I could handle. I haven't been in a walmart in several years, sounds like I should go just for the comic relief.

So I changed out my outside air hose reel, which required powering down the shop air system. Good time to drain the liquid rust out of the compressor tank. While that was going I cracked the bleeder screw on the discharge water trap. Went about re-framing the hole by the garage door so the 50' self-retracting reel would fit where the 25' reel used to (it mounts inside with the roller fairlead fitting into a small hole in the siding so if you're outside and need air, just grab the end of the hose and pull). Got all that done and brackets built to hold the new reel in place, then went into the welding shop to close the valves and throw the switches again....where's the little plastic nut that holds the drain valve in the bottom of the poly cup on the water trap? It evidently caught a draft from the bleed-off air and spun off into a black hole. The male threads defied all my attempts at identification with both metric and standard pitch gauges, so no chance of turning a Delrin nut on my lathe. I finally gave up after an hour of searching for both the nut and a replacement from my extensive collection and changed the whole unit to a smaller one I'd picked up at a garage sale a few years ago, and miraculously it didn't leak.

I can't wait to go to work in the morning

 

[RicinYakima]

Yep, had our first snow today. Put the 5th wheel to sleep for the winter. Luckily, I bought 3 gallons of RV anti-freeze last year, so didn't have to go to Wallie-World this year.
Working as a firefighter/medic for 28 years, you can understand that I know how different people are. Our fire chief once hired a guy who was schooled in a church school, legal at that time in this state. Trying to teach him hydraulics to be a pump operator, he had never heard of "a+b=c", but could quote 500 bible verses. There are ignorant, dumb and un-educated people out there. They are all consumers and looking for "value" so hang out a Wallie-World.

 

[fiver]

that is not how you make a PB&J.

first you lightly toast the bread.
then you put PB on both slices of bread 1/8" thick [all the way to the edge]
then using a fork you put the jelly on in 9 individual 1/2"X1/2"X1/8" pieces and lightly press all the edges closed.

heathens around here.

 

[Bret4207]

Try convincing a college/university professor that just because he read an article on the internet about farming in England, that what he read doesn't necessarily apply in Northern NY. Or better, try to convince a female landlord that just because she has a 35 cent paper back book printed in 1954 regarding landlord rights in California that what she read doesn't apply in the mid 1990's in NY state and that yes, she really is under arrest!

As far as Wally World, I can remember a time when we didn't have the choice of Walmart, Lowes, Tractor Supply, Harbor Freight, etc. You went to the not so super sized local version of whatever store you might chose, bought either outrageously expensive American made products or outrageously expensive Chinese/Taiwanese/Indian/Korean/whatever products. People aren't stupid for shopping at Walmart or Harbor Freight, it's just convenient and the most inexpensive option in a time when money just doesn't go very far.

 

[JSH]

Oh, now you will get me started!
Had to go to SAMs Saturday and Wally World yesterday. If folks drive cars the way they push shopping carts.......I mean the dang isles are wider than some lanes on roads around here! Person looking at one side while standing on the other, fine I understand that and excuse myself when slipping past. Then you have the person that is totally oblivious to everything and stands with cart at an angle in the middle of the lane. I try to remain calm when standing there make eye contact with them, and they don't budge! EXCUUUSSSEEEE me, oh, am I in your way?

I choose not to go to Cabelas on most weekends. Well I had a project going. I figured they would not have what I was looking for, but gave it a shot. I was right, they didn't.
I perused through the gun library and a quick scan through the racks. Stupid runs wild in this area of the store.
Having to over hear how the 7.62x39 is an inferior cartridge and the SKS is a piece of junk. Some thoughts are this cartridge gets to 100, stops and falls to the ground.
Deer season encroaching and have to listen to that crap. "Why do they still make 30-30's, they are not much good for anything".
The 6.5 (enter your choice here) is a superior round in all ways shapes and forms.
The 6.5 is a new caliber, I am still trying to figure that one out. I played stupid, lol. I asked how it was new. They guy along with his nose picking, booger eating kid, proceeded to tell me how it was just brought out to the public with the 6.5 Creedmoor and that it had been a secret military cartridge for years.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing in his face.

Then I make a quick glance at the powder shelf, just to see what they had out and check prices.
Two guys standing there looking at load manuals. They were convinced that the top shelf was fast burning powders and the bottom was slow burning powders. I figured that out when they ran down a sales person and asked about 8lb jugs of pistol powder. He pointed to the bottom row. Oh, it's mixed in with slow powder. Why don't they put it with the pistol powders?

AND this is no joke, one of them made a comment to the effect, the bigger the number the slower the powder, because 800x can be used for pistol 4007 is rifle. Must really be a LOT slower.

I got the heck out of there in short order didn't spend a cent. That was about 45 minutes of my life I won't get back.
Jeff

 

[358156 hp]

The sad truth is that most people today would not have survived infancy even less than 100 years ago. They are smarter than those of us who can perform mental tasks in our heads, while they have an ap & 24 hour internet access.

 

[Pistolero]

What 358156 said.

Fortunately, there are still some out there who are NOT dumber than a box of rocks.

Remember, by definition, 100 is the average IQ. And (obviously, but it deserves a brief moment of
contemplation) half the people aren't that smart. A friend, laughing in his cube after I had
slammed the phone down after a particularly frustrating customer service attempt, made a humorous,
but absolutely true observation. "There aren't enough smart people to go around, so we have to use
stupid people for a lot of jobs. It isn't going to change." Yep, get used to it.

I shop at Walmart regularly. Oil is cheap, filters are cheap, my prescriptions are cheaper than
anywhere else, and they fairly often have other stuff I need, too. Some of the folks walking around are
pretty amazing, too, in a ludicrous way.

Bill

 

[Maven]

Well, to quote H.L.Mencken, "No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

 

[RicinYakima]

358156 HP, I'm sorry but I disagree with the smart phone and 24 hour internet statement. They can not discriminate between truth and lies, fiction and half truths, and much else. Wikipedia is a prime example; anyone can write or modify articles EXCEPT if you pay them to freeze an article. So it is about 99% accurate, but not always. Now smart people with apps and internet can test 15 different sites and usually give you a pretty straight up answer, but high IQ and education does not make people smart. Ric

 

[Brad]

Smart and educated are two different things.
I know intelligent people who are well educated and I know educated people who are idiots.
Smart people know what they don't know.

 

[GaryN]

True story: I have a cousin who got straight "A" s in school. She became a nurse. She's very slow when it comes to common sense.Before she left home they were taking down the Christmas tree and she said: "Dad what is that wet looking stuff under the tree. It tastes salty". The dad said: "Well, I did just take the cat out".

 

[KHornet]

Takes all kinds, sometimes I really wish it didn't!

Paul

 

[Bret4207]

A couple of truisms that apply to this discussion- "That man is obviously educated beyond his intelligence!" I think that was Jerry Clower. "Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence!" Anonymous.

It doesn't matter what you do, someone is going to believe just the opposite of what the truth is. I sit on our Town Board. For some reason, during an employee wage meeting with a union rep, we got going on health issues. I mentioned an odd "thing" I had turn up shortly after returning from working 9/11 the first few weeks. They board member sitting next to me, a very successful dairy farmer/investor worth at least a couple mill (he thinks no one knows) opined that "It was probably radiation poisoning from the nukes they've proven took out the towers." I just stared at him for a second and, stupidly, said, "Whut?". He began a discourse on the "proof" he heard about on the internet. I finally told him I'd been standing at Ground Zero with a radiation detector on my belt that goes off when a guy that had a stress test drives by 50 feet away or when a large load of kitty litter goes by in a tractor trailer. He shook his head, gave me a condescending look and said, "That's what they want you to think."

They walk among us...........

 

[smokeywolf]

About a year ago, I took the older of my two teenagers to the doctor. I was paying that particular bill myself. It was $182.00 and I handed over two $100 bills. Office girl (around 40 years old) couldn't figure out how much change she should return to me. Mind you, this is a major university healthcare center. I turned and looked at my son and his look was of total disbelief.
Had the younger of my two teens at the same doctor about 3 weeks ago. Same girl was at the counter. The copay was $28.00, I gave her two $20.00 bills. Again, she couldn't figure it out. I told her she owed me $12.00 and 3 other women in the office broke into laughter.
On the way out the door my son said, "how does she get a job like that, much less keep it?"

 

[Maven]

This just in: Our local newspaper had a story this AM about a woman who drove her automobile into the Neversink River near Port Jervis, NY. She told her rescuers she was just following her GPS [instructions]. Mencken was right!!!

 

[Pistolero]

Smokywolf - yes, have seen similar situations at McD's. I even had one sweet young thing just literally freeze when
I gave a slight over payment to make the change work out to an even dime. She looked at the money, then at the
cash register, then at the money in her hand, then the cash register, then just literally froze, for about 30 seconds which
seems like five minutes when it happens. Several times, very quietly to avoid embarrassing her, I said, "just give me
a dime." Literally no reaction, not a muscle moved, and tears started running down her cheek, looking down. Finally a manager
came up, put an arm around her shoulder and walked her gently to the back of the place. I felt really bad for her, but
couldn't see what I had done wrong.

Some folks apparently cannot process even very simple math at all.

Imagine what happens when folks like your doc office lady or the McD's girl have to decide on a home loan, or a car loan, or
a retirement investment. I really do feel sorry for them, they are so vulnerable to make horrible life planning errors because
they have apparently no ability to deal with numbers. If you can't grasp simple addition and subtraction, compound interest will
be identical to magic.

Bill