[PRCo] Re: STUPIDITY (I can top yours, Fred)

[John F Bromley]

This gem reminded me of when I worked at a box boy at a local supermarket in
1955.  An American tourist came in for camping supplies (this was July) and
as I was lugging two tons of vittles to his truck he asked me how far north
he would have to go to see Eskimos and polar bears.  This wasn't the first
time but I was in a bad mood after lugging the crap and getting 25 cents for
the effort, so I said, go east to Highway 115, then up 35 to Peterborough,
you see all that by the time you hit town.  Hey thanks and away he trucked.

He came in again a week later on his way to his home (Lockport NY if you can
believe it, practically the snow capital of upper NY State next to Buffalo)
and complained to me that I hadn't given him valid information and that he
had seen no snow, no Eskimos, no polar bears and didn't I know that those
couldn't be seen in July until you get to Bancroft Ontario (for the
uninitiated about 60 mile farther north).  He was ticked and had asked the
boxboy in a Peterborough store and got that information, sagely passed to me
with a comment that "you must be an idiot not to know your own country very
well".  I've dined out on this for 45 years.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred W. Schneider III" <fschnei at supernet.com>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2001 10:30 AM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: STUPIDITY


>
>
>
> ROGER Jenkins wrote:
> >
> > I ran across an article in the local paper that was about a talk show
> > host from Canada that asked proposterous questions of Americans about
> > Canada .  One question asked was "did the yanks think that Canada should
> > support a Navy, even if it is landlocked ?"  The answer from a Floridian
> > was " If you dont have any seaports we have plenty that you could use "
> > Another question was asked about the 72 min. hour or the 20 hr days used
> > in Canada and was never challenged on its validity.
>
> No one has a patent on stupidity but we try awfully hard.  Some of you
> will remember the National Geographic quiz ... the one in which
> Americans came in dead last behind the British.  Ed Lybarger, John
> Swindler and I were eating dinner in a restaurant in Hampton Township,
> Cumberland County, PA, about eight miles west of Harrisburg.  For those
> of you who don't know all the state capitals, Harrisburg is it.  Well,
> we had just be discussing the test so I elected to have a little fun
> with the waitress ... told here we were from Ohio going to Philly on
> business tomorrow, that we'd stopped over night, and we thought that the
> state capitol was located in Harrisburg ... were we correct?  Her answer
> was priceless.  "I don't know.  I'm not in school anymore so I don't
> have to know!"
>
> And a few days later I asked a niece what country abuts the U. S. to the
> south.  I think she was a senior in high school at the time.  She
> replied, "Is it Mexico?"  After I told her that Izits don't count, she
> replied, "Well then, I don't know."  She married a doctor!!!!  Her
> incredibly bright younger sister is having trouble getting a job as a
> teacher.
>