Sunday, December 22, 2019

I Don't Understand.

Years ago I told you that I was well into my twenties before it occurred to me that eggs were not a dairy product. I know that seems obvious, but I had just never really thought about it. The eggs were next to the milk and butter at the grocery store so they were grouped together in my mind.

One day in college I was listing dairy products to a roommate for some reason (BYU was wild) and I included eggs in that list. This prompted months of mocking in my house. My roommates would regularly hold up a piece of bread, for example, and say things like "Eli, would you like some fish?" And then they'd all laugh hysterically to themselves.

The point is we were all single and no one wondered why.

That was probably 12 years ago. Sometimes I get into this habit of thinking, now that I'm in my mid-thirties, I probably know most basic things. Like, there's probably not going to be another "eggs aren't dairy???" mix-up at this point in my life.

But then this morning Skylar said something about his shirt being made of polyester and it suddenly occurred to me I have no idea what the hell polyester is. Does it come from animals? Is it made from the same material that gives us plastic? What actually is plastic? Is polyester found in nature or did we make it in a lab.

I have no. idea.


Also, what does it mean to split an atom? And why does it matter that we split an atom? And is that last question technically a pun?

I'm pretty sure there is not a single bird I could identify with 100% accuracy.

Why do freezers work? How have we created something that can get very cold? I understand stuff that can get hot, like stoves and ovens and microwaves because energy creates heat or whatever. But how is it possible that we've harnessed energy and made something very cold?

Also, that last thing was a lie. I don't understand microwaves. Not at all. If anyone tells you they do understand microwaves you should report them to the FBI because I'm pretty sure common citizens are not supposed to have that information.

Why does fog happen?

People joke about kids asking never-ending strings of questions like "why is the sky blue" but have you ever tried to give a legitimate answer to that question? I just tried and I couldn't do it. I got as far as "well space is black but the sun really lightens it up and for some reason that makes it blue."

Maybe I'm just a little dumb. But even in my mid-thirties I'm finding out there is a lot of basic stuff I don't know.

Please help me feel less dumb and tell me something you don't understand (or a misunderstanding you had for a very long time).

And also, enjoy our last Strangerville of the decade:


It’s our last Strangerville episode of the decade and we feel old. Also, a man takes the Strangerville Live stage to explain why he deserves to be our next governor.
Story
I Should Be Utah’s Next Governor, by Clint Betts
Production by Eli McCann & Meg Walter



~It Just Gets Stranger

53 comments:

  1. So, there’s this really fun kids show on Netflix called Ask the Storybots and they answer all sorts of questions and one of them is why the sky is blue. I get excited when new seasons come out because I like learning new things too. Plus there’s celebrities in each one (Snoop Dog, Weird Al) and catchy songs. My 4yo can sing you a song about the four forces that make an airplane fly.

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    1. I have learned A LOT from that show.

      Also, my kids ask me so many questions that I realize frequently how much I don’t know. “Let’s google that when we get home, kids!”

      Also having the internet at our fingertips means people wonder a lot less than they used to, and then I wonder if people remember less than they used to, because they don’t have to try to remember, because they know they can always look it up again.

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  2. Freezers don’t make things cold. They work by removing the heat which in turn reduces the temperature. The thing I don’t understand is how airplanes can fly. I know the technical explanation, I’ve had it explained to me by a pilot, “The lifties are more than the dragsies.” A friend who is a private pilot explained the differences in wing structure which produces blah, blah, blah...but I still don’t get it. And, I don’t quite believe it, either.

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    1. Airplanes fly by the same way vacuums can suck things up. When you pull the air in one direction, it pulls in everything around it.

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    2. Well now I want to know more about how vacuums work!

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    3. "When you pull the air in one direction, it pulls in everything around it."

      You would *think* that should help us understand better, but I'm here to tell ya nah. >.<

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    4. I understand how planes fly. I guess I can’t comprehend how something that huge can be air-bound. It defies logic.

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  3. I’ve told my kids that the science that makes the internet work is basically magic. I don’t understand at all how wireless anything works. I can vaguely accept telephones with cords and my voice traveling along them. But internet video calls? Photographs?! Voice recordings?!

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    1. I’m totally with you on wireless anything. Completely lost

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  4. *cracks knuckles*

    *accidentally spelled it "kracks" on first attempt*

    ELECTRICITY. How is this a thing? How does it work? How does it go from ... wherever ... to ... power lines, I think? To my house? Is it ... a tangible thing? What IS it? It's basically real life magic, and that's supposedly a sin, so am I Amish now? I don't know.

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  5. My 11 year old just pointed out that if your birthday is on December 31st you never get to say "My Birthday, next year...." Also: https://xkcd.com/1818/

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    1. I don't get the birthday thing...

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  6. I do not understand technology. Like, at all. I reap the benefits but I don’t understand how brilliant someone has to be to say, hey, if we line all these 1s and 0s up in a particular order, they’ll somehow create a graphic, or run a program? Idk basically all of that just makes me feel like I am more closely related to monkeys than humans, and even monkeys are sometimes better at using tools (and eating bananas) than me.

    I also had lots of misconceptions as a child, like that the DO NOT PASS sign meant you LITERALLY COULDN’T PASS THE SIGN. The point is I have somehow managed to hold a job into my thirties like WHY DID ANYONE HIRE SOMEONE WHO DOESN’T UNDERSTAND DO NOT PASS SIGNS.

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    1. I did this as a kid too!!!! I remember quietly thinking to myself, “Uh-oh, we passed it again.” But never once did I think to verbalize my thoughts on my mother regularly ignoring and breaking the law. Just internally shook my head at us rebellious lawbreakers.

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    2. Littering Highway Unlawful signs never made sense to me as a kid. Breaking it down...littering is unlawful, meaning not full of law, meaning there’s not a law against it? So go ahead and litter these sections of highway? It seemed like that’s how some people understood it based on trash along the highway, so...?

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    3. When I was little and couldn’t read well I thought the sign read pass with car instead of pass with care and I thought you couldn’t walk past that sign because you had to be in a car.

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    4. I never got the Ped xing sign until I was in my twenties.

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  7. I was in my 30s and, while driving, I saw a sign for a Notary Public and almost wrecked. Up until then I thought it was a Noter Republic.

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    1. ... well you just saved me from spending the rest of my life with the same misconception, and I'm only 24 so if we just keep passing this info down the line someday everyone will understand this from childhood!

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  8. One day I was eating crackers and stopped, thinking "why do crackers always have holes?" (Releases steam) , but I googled it and found my second- favorite website ever (what could possibly be better than this?) Todayifoundout.com.

    They have fantastic stuff, including (I'm not lying) a very lengthy article on how (in)efficient a hamster-powered house would be, including all the cost break downs.

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    1. I feel like some sort of hallucinogenic product had to be involved in the work up of that hamster question. People never fail to surprise and/or amaze me! :D

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  9. My 4 year old asks me questions every day that I can't answer. Keeps me humble. I mean sure I'm doing well at work, but I have no idea how voices are transmitted for phone calls on cell phones. Zero. And why do we have lightning? Why did all the dinosaurs die but we still have crocodiles? How does Velcro work? So many questions.

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  10. I've been trying, for the past week, to understand how and why Cats (the movie, the play, the lifestyle) exists. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND why someone took a bunch of poems about cats and set them to music, and then that music WON AWARDS. HOW???? Has the whole world been on a slow drip of LSD since the 80s? Am I living in a Truman Show for someone who loves cats to the point they willed this into existence? Is there any way to escape from the horror of people dressed as cat-things? HELP.

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    Replies
    1. HARD SAME. I adore musical theater. But...Cats??????

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  11. How do speakers make sound? Like, what in them makes the actual sound?

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  12. I regularly forget what the WiFi symbol is. So I eat data like it’s a free buffet...but then I deny it to my husband and gas light him into thinking that there was a legit reason for not using WiFi all month ans he’s the CRAZY one who doesn’t understand my job! Also I legit know how microwaves work. It’s my claim to fame with kids. Microwaves resonate with the natural frequency of the oxygen molecules, resulting in those molecules oscillating neck and forth creating friction in the food items.

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  13. Until 9th grade I thought "a lot" was one word. And it would have been much longer if my 9th grade English teacher didn't give a short blurb about how it's two words.

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  14. I was 25 when I found out that a lamb was a baby sheep... I sheets thought they were two separate animals? I guess I missed barnyard animal day in kindergarten...

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    1. I was at least in my 30s, if not my 40s before I realized that mules and donkeys were different animals. And I grew up surrounded by them. yeah, I don't know how I missed that lesson.

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  15. The sheer number of things I don't understand that have been mentioned here is kind of stressing me out. A nice place to learn stuff is on Reddit's Explain It Like I'm 5. I would say that I basically don't understand how the world works, electricity, internet, telephones, space travel, why cars go, and I'm always amazed that someone managed to invent those things. But CATS, the play, Cats is just awesome and fun. I understand Cats, the play. The lifestyle? I just don't even want to know anything about that.

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  16. I have no concept of fabrics. Like, what is silk? I mean, I know where it comes from, but it’s only been in the past year or so (I’m 30) that I figured out that satin was the shiny one, not silk. I don’t think I could identify silk if my Life depended on it. Polyester is totally 100% plastic... right??? Linen is like cotton? and wool is... um... well from sheep, but how does it feel? People say scratchy so I’m pretty sure wool is actually the same as Velcro. Rayon?? Corduroy?? Chiffon?? There’s more?!?!?!

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    1. Hahaha!!! Fabric is one thing I understand, EXCEPT FOR WOOL. In some forms it IS basically Velcro, but then there’s a type called Merino Wool that is amazingly soft and wonderful. But why the difference??? How do they make it do that??? Also why does some fabric “breathe” and other fabric is sweaty (like polyester)??? And how did someone invent industrial weaving machines? And how long did it take to make fabric before then? How did anyone ever get enough fabric to wear clothes? Ok I lied I guess I am not as comfortable with fabric as I thought. Haha.

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    2. The difference in Merino wool is that it comes from a breed of sheep called Merino sheep. The wool is naturally soft.

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    3. I wonder how people didn’t just freeze to death before sewing machines were around. Like it blows my ever-lovin’ mind to think that at one point, people had to collect all the ... plant matter? or kill a RAGING BUFFALO?? idk, but they somehow had to get the fibers. Then they had to COBSTRUCT A FREAKING LOOM AND CARVE NEEDLES OUT OF BONE OR SOMETHING... and then somehow make a garment to wear with it?? It’s so hard to get things to fit right when you sew them by hand. Like just how.

      AND ANOTHER THING!!

      Who looked at a chicken and thought, I want to eat whatever’s inside that animal. Better yet, I think I’ll eat whatever is inside whatever comes out its bum.

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  17. So, in your defense, eggs have historically Ben grouped with dairy in the 4 food groups, and they are in the dairy section of the grocery store, so there.

    I was about 12 years old when I was tasked with the family night lesson on the Nativity. I started telling the story of how Joseph and Mary had to flee to Bethlehem because they couldn’t pay their taxes. Yep, that’s right, Joseph and Mary were fugitive tax evaders. I think my father was in morbid shock (ward gospel doctrine teacher) that his own child didn’t know the real story.... lol

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  18. Sounds like some sciencing needs to commence.

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  19. At the age of 23 I engaged in a strenuous argument with my sister and my parents, because I was 100% certain armadillos were the size of cows and that the one my sister pointed out on the side of the road in west Texas had to be a newborn baby. It's been almost twenty more years and they still tease me. For anyone who hasn't ever seen an armadillo in person, they are possum or large rabbit size....

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  20. Where does medicine come from? I go to the pharmacy and they get it from the back. But where does it come from? Are we harvesting tree bark and turning it into antidepressants somewhere? Who makes ibuprofen and where does one obtain mass amounts of chemicals? Walter White has not been sufficent explanation.

    Also, what makes an ingredient not an active ingredient? Why does some of the stuff have a point and the rest not?

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    1. The inactive ingredients are usually the things that hold the pills together.

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  21. Ok one of my favorite quiche recipes is from a blog and it is titled “Dairy Free Veggie Quiche...WITH EGGS!” The author goes in to explain that she, too, used to think that eggs were a dairy product and the title is a nod to that. So you’re not alone there.

    When I was little I SWORE that babies were born from their mother’s belly buttons. Because what ELSE is a belly button for??? Nothing, that’s what. I told my younger siblings this so much and so convincingly that they believed me. I was mortified when i found out where they really came from and I never relayed the info to them. They are still mad at me for feeding them the belly button birth lie.

    My sister and I thought for a long time that to get pregnant you had to “sleep in a bed with a peanut”. One of her friends had told her that and swore it was true. So we used to check our beds for stray peanuts because we didn’t want to accidentally fall asleep with one in there and wake up pregnant. It was terrifying. But now it is hilarious.

    My parents used to use the phrase “do not pass go, do not collect $200” when they were telling me to stop doing something. We played Monopoly. I should have understood the reference. But instead, I didn’t know where “go” was. Is it a sign? Like an Exit sign? Where was it? How could I pass it? Where would the money come from? Was I about to get $200 and then I jinxed it with my sassy attitude???

    One last one. From my kids. We listen to some kids podcasts that have ads in them “for the parents”. Apparently these soak in for the kids too. The other night I was tucking my 4yo in and he said “Mom I have two questions. One...what is policy genius? And two, what is life insurance???”

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  22. Also computer. My husband builds his own. He has tried to explain them to me. I just accept that they are magic and “processors” “cores” “motherboard” and “graphics card” must be incantations.

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  23. I vividly remember when I realized why the card game Uno is called uno—I was in my twenties, well-educated, and had been playing Uno since I was a small child. Not sure why the lightbulb finally went on. 😂

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  24. I can’t figure out how people figure things out. Who was the first person to encounter tobacco and thought it would be a great idea to put it in a pipe and smoke it? Did they try other things before hitting on tobacco? Who figured out that you could chew on willow twigs and it would help relieve pain? Who thought of cutting off a sheep’s coat and making clothing from it? Who figured out how to make soap? It’s all so mystifying.

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    1. I’m amazed when I think about how someone invented bread. Like who ever figured out yeast and flour when looking at wheat growing in a field? Or sugar from beets or sugar cane? Someone (or many people) invented that. How much trial and error was involved?? Am I just really dumb? It has never occurred to me, when looking at a plant, to wonder what I could turn it into if I just dried/processed/ground it up/etc.

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  25. So I've painted with acrylic paint for awhile and never thought of what it was made of until my roommate showed me her acrylic YARN that she had. And this was just a month ago. I had never thought of anything acrylic as being a type of plastic and that I had been painting with plastic for years!

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  26. After FIVE years of my marriage I found out that my husband thought all chicken eggs were brown and we just bought ones that had been dyed white. ��

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  27. I have no idea how copiers work. It’s magic I guess.

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  28. I thought pineapple was a kind of citrus fruit literally until about a week and a half ago (I’m 41). I don’t know where I got that idea, but it still really makes sense to me, so I don’t fully accept that they’re not. Also, I know *technically* narwhals are real, but I don’t buy that either - totally made up.

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    1. ... but what is pineapple if not a citrus fruit? It has a citrus like flavor... I'm pretty sure it's a fruit... so confused now

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  29. What the heck is "extra virgin" olive oil, and how does one figure out if an olive is a virgin or not? In fact, how does one even know the gender of an olive and therefore determine if they are a virgin or not? Can you tell if an olive is a virgin because its hymen is intact, or is there some other way? What if they lie and tell you they are a virgin and they aren't? I don't want to judge my olives by what they look like, but are some olives really slutty and therefore, you just know they are not a virgin, and sure as heck, are not an extra virgin? Also, if olives can be extra virgin, can a person be an extra virgin? Is that what happens if you keep someone locked in a tower like Rapunzel, or is extra virgin the term someone should use when they have had sex but then decide that they want to pretend that they haven't, so they reclaim their virginity -- only this time it is "extra" virginity. Yes, and back to those olives, just what does that all mean? BTW, I actually hate olives, so I suppose it doesn't really matter, does it?

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  30. I think the egg/dairy debacle is a common one. I have a dairy intolerance and almost everyone I encounter thinks that includes eggs. I'm fairly certain that on the food pyramid they were together, just to confuse us and make us look dumb.

    Also the internet. My kids asked me what it was and how it works and I had to change the subject. I have no idea how or what it is. It just seems like some sort of magic.

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