<p>Laundry! Yes my daughter knew how to do laundry before she went but the school machines were totally different. Luckily, she went on a pre-orientation trip and I went up a week later to take a second load of stuff and decided to help her do her first few loads (from pre-o week). There were several confused looking students doing the same thing…the washers were front loaders with confusing instructions and device to swipe money with card was across the room instead of on machine. I ended up helping several kids figure it out. Months later she called to ask how to get cola out of a shirt (and, ohyeah, out of her apple keyboard!).</p>
<p>How to iron a pair of pants.</p>
<p>Two “Flat Tire” stories :</p>
<p>Back when my son was 15, we got a flat tire while driving through Vermont on vacation. I told him I would teach him how to change it, but he said, “What do I need to know that for?? Nobody gets flat tires any more”</p>
<p>After a few incredulous seconds, I pointed to the tire and said, “What do you call <em>this</em> ??” … alas, to no avail and he wandered off</p>
<p>Flash forward 4 yrs when he’s away at college in Florida 1500 miles from home when – you guessed it – he calls home in the middle of the night because he’s got a flat and he wants me to talk him through what to do</p>
<p>Luckily we had gotten him a AAA membership so I told him to just call them …</p>
<p>The next one happened to a friend. His 20 yr old son walks in the house one day and announces he has a flat, but he doesn’t have a clue what to do about it</p>
<p>Friend tells his son to go get the spare tire and jack out and friend’ll be out in a minute to teach him what son should have learned years ago</p>
<p>When he gets outside, son tells him the spare is “stuck” and he can’t get it out of the trunk. Seems son didn’t realize the spare tire is bolted to the car frame and you have to unscrew a plainly visible, huge wing-nut to free it up</p>
<p>“But…”, son says triumphantly, “I got the jack out, see??”</p>
<p>Dad goes: “Ummmmm… that’s not the jack; that’s the tire iron”</p>
<p>Son replies “Oh … what does the jack look like??”</p>
<p>Next time I’ll tell you guys all about the time we asked my 28 yr old daughter to open a bottle of wine for dinner. Apparently she’d never seen a corkscrew before because she gazed at it as perplexedly as one might if one were examining a spare part from a UFO engine </p>
<p>I tried to talk her through how to use it, but this was a complete disaster – including getting the foil off the bottle – so I ended up doing every step myself</p>
<p>Kids these days, huh ??</p>
<p>LOL ShannonE–I would say your 28 year old D has been drinking wine from bottles with screw caps!</p>
<p>And let’s hear it for AAA. :)</p>
<p>As I type, D is in the middle of a 5 hour drive home on the NY Thruway and Mass Pike, each of which have exits every 15 miles or so.</p>
<p>D: “Mom, how much is gas at home?”
Me: “I don’t know… Three-something.”
D: “But not $3.99, right?”
Me: “No, definitely lower, maybe 3.35?”
D: “Good, then I’m not buying gas here. I have enough to make it home. I have over a quarter of a tank.”
Me: “Where are you?”
D: “I don’t know. About 2 hours from home.” (Ah, the generation raised on GPS systems).
Me: “Maybe you should just get a few gallons, to be sure…”
D: “NOPE! Bye!”</p>
<p>She had to call AAA this morning to help fix her BF’s family’s flat tire. Any bets on whether she’ll be calling them twice in the same day, when she runs out of gas?</p>
<p>We had a toliet overflow last week and my husband called me to ask me how to turn our washing machiene of two years. (no…I am not kidding) I said on the top of the washer is a small door…open it and put in the soap in the marked space, and now the fabric softner. I then said turn the dial to “hot” and then hit the “start” button. He says the displays “close door”…“should I do that?” Uhhhh…yeah…that would be good.</p>
<p>Wow, good thing the display instructed him to close the door! LOL!</p>
<p>Two phone stories for ya … all just coincidentally involving young & probably blonde women</p>
<p>My wife is originally from Long Beach, CA — well, actually from a small subsection of LA called Wilmington just north of LB , a small area south of Carson whose main claim-to-fame is that it was made fun of in a Cheech and Chong movie</p>
<p>The first time we visited her old stomping grounds, we planned out our trip to include a night in Malibu </p>
<p>She calls the California State Travel & Tourism Board to get some info, like maybe a map or a book on the area</p>
<p>There was silence for a few seconds from the young-sounding woman who answered the phone there … then she asked wife, " How do you spell ‘Malibu’ ?? "</p>
<p>Next, my mother lived in Carlsbad New Mexico for 20 years, and during this time the Summer Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984</p>
<p>She wanted to see some event or other, so she called the U.S. Olympic committe to enquire about getting tickets</p>
<p>When the girl who answered that phone asked Mom what state she lived in, Mom naturally replied " New Mexico "</p>
<p>“Oh !!” the girl replied " … this is the <em>U.S.</em> Olympic Committee. … you have to call the Mexican Olympic Committee !! "</p>
<p>"No … I didn’t say ‘Mexico’ " Mon says " … I said NEW Mexico "</p>
<p>The girl’s response to this – I kid you not – was :</p>
<p>" New Mexico , old Mexico … it doesn’t make any difference … you have to call the <em>Mexican</em> Olympics !! "</p>
<p>Mom was never able to convince this girl that NM is a one of the STATES of the U.S. , and finally had to get a supervisor on the line to get her tickets !!</p>
<p>BONUS STORY =</p>
<p>Two weeks ago I was in my doctor’s office and he ordered an EKG. This young woman enters the exam room to do it and we start chatting and somehow she mentions how the Carolinas are said to be a good place to retire to</p>
<p>I told her that that was absolutely correct and that I had lived in Charleston SC for three years and that the city was – according to the novel-version of the story , and using my best southern drawl – "The birthplace of Rhett Butler , doncha know ?? "</p>
<p>“Who’s that ??” she asks</p>
<p>"You know … Rhett Butler … Scarlett O’Hara … ‘Gone With the Wind’ … "</p>
<p>“What’s that??” she aks puzzledly</p>
<p>“Oh … ya know … just based on ticket sales, the #1 movie ever made on the planet”</p>
<p>“Never heard of it” she sez</p>
<p>Yet another public school victim, I think, sadly …</p>
<p>ShannonEntropy, I love your stories, but PLEASE do not blame the ignorance of people you don’t know on the public schools. There are stupid people everywhere. I have friends who are products of both public and private schools, and I have worked for both public and private schools. Ignorance is not a product of where you go to school. Trust me.</p>
<p>My sis & BIL were amazed that a young man with a graduate degree in physical therapy (who was dating my niece at the time) was amazed and dazzled at their brilliance when they casually mentioned, “Oh, there’s the sunset, so that direction is west.” He looked stared at them and said, “Wow, does it ALWAYS set in the west?”</p>
<p>Another time when I called to make plane reservations to Montana, the person on the airline phone reservations line, said, “Where did you say you want to fly to?”
“Montana.”
Agent: “Sorry, we only fly in the US, don’t fly to foreign countries.”
Me: “Montana IS a state.”
Agent: “No seriously, we only fly in the US.”
Me: “OK, thanks.” Click & quickly dialing another airline (finally settling for United, which DOES serve Montana).</p>
<p>Another day, was walking with a very alert with several degrees including a master’s 80+ year-old in the parking lot. She was talking about how so many seniors are getting hit by cars. I mentioned how important it is to look out for the white backup lights when cars are reversing out of parking spaces. She looked at me stunned and said, “Wow, do ALL vehicles have such things? Does the white light always come on when folks are reversing?”</p>
<p>As was said above, there are folks who astound us who have all sorts of educational backgrounds, including public AND private education at all levels up through graduate degrees!</p>
<p>ShannonEntropy, Agreed … it is not the public schools…</p>
<p>An ivy league FA representative relayed a story about the student who came into the office absolutely irate that the school had stolen money from her paycheck - seems they’d never heard of withholding’s and taxes. Same representative tells of the student who tried to cash their W2 form…and was irate when the bank would not do so</p>
<p>Where did Michelle Bachman go to school? Remember when she didn’t know what state Lexngton & Concord were in…</p>
<p>Geez, my kid had to study the Revolutionare War every other yera since mid school.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well guess I gotta agree with you, Lafalum84 … it just seems to me that generally speaking, kids who’ve graduated from public schools have spent far too much time learning self-esteem — and not enough time learning anything else</p>
<p>This basic lack of knowledge pervades our society, as evidenced in the following tale i recently related =></p>
<pre><code>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13038929-post16.html
</code></pre>
<p>Shannon, despite your disclaimer, you’re not agreeing with me. You’re continuing to argue your stereotyped and negative point. As a graduate of public schools and a parent of 2 public school graduates, please do not assume that we spent all our time learning self-esteem. Perhaps that is true in your experience, but not in mine or my kids.</p>
<p>As for your link, people being too <em>stupid</em> to get out of jury duty might just feel obligated to do their civic duty as part of a civilized society, and again this bears no relationship to what school they attended. Perhaps the privileged children of private school get out of jury duty because they think they’re too good to waste their precious time. I don’t know. The point is irrelevant.</p>
<p>Our senior senator in HI, who is head of Senate Ways & Means is a proud product of public schools in our state & did a tour recently (with many bodyguards) of the 3 he attended–elementary, intermediate/middle, and high school. My BIL is a principal of the elementary school he attended and he was struck by how eloquent he is and what big shoes he will eventually leave to be filled as he is in his 80s.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You do realize that public education is based off you the parent, right? You pay tax dollars and you demand things to be done a certain way. </p>
<p>And you’re wrong anyway…But don’t let facts get in the way of your opinions…</p>
<p>The topic of this thread is funny phone calls we’ve all had from our kids , but the common element here is the fact that our college-age kids don’t seem to know much about living in the ‘real world’ </p>
<p>Try this on for size , parents =></p>
<p>[Are</a> we raising a generation of nincompoops? - Boston.com](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/09/27/are_we_raising_a_generation_of_nincompoops/]Are”>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2010/09/27/are_we_raising_a_generation_of_nincompoops/)</p>
<p>p.s. *" … you demand things to be done a certain way " *</p>
<p>You’ve obviously never heardof the immoveable object known as Teachers Unions</p>
<p>My daughter never ceases to amaze me , but not always in a good way [ fer ex, see the corkscrew story in Post # 123 supra ]</p>
<p>For obvious reasons [ hint = liability ] we wouldn’t let either of our kids drive until they turned 18 … on her 18th birthday, daughter took and failed the written exam</p>
<p>Now, people who can’t even speak English pass the written driver’s exam, so I asked her what the hey ?? She says the DMV guy calls her over and tells her she missed passing the test by ONE question</p>
<p>And the critical question she missed was "True or False : it is Illegal to drive SLOWER than the posted speed limit " She put TRUE</p>
<p>He says “Did you not understand the question ?? Or do you really think you’re not allowed to drive <em>slower</em> than the speed limit ??”</p>
<p>She goes: “I’ve never seen anyone drive <em>slower</em> than the speed limit … I thought you only got a speeding ticket if you were driving WAY over the limit !!”</p>
<p>She eventually passed the written test, then took and passed the road test. She needed a co-driver to get to that test – my wife – but was finally ready for her first ‘solo’ drive … she dropped my wife off from home, then took off down the road to meet a friend … she blew through a stop sign without even slowing down less than 1/8 mile from our house and immediately got pulled over by a cop</p>
<p>He took her license, then returned to her car a few minutes later, perplexed …</p>
<p>According to my computer , he says, this license was issued TODAY !!</p>
<p>Yep, she replies … about an hour ago</p>
<p>He was gonna give her a warning but ended up “getting her into the system” with a $75 ticket, which I made her pay herself</p>
<p>Now flash forward three years, when she’s 21</p>
<p>She got a speeding ticket on the interstate, and later told us she just wasn’t paying attention to her speed</p>
<p>“That’s the beauty of cruise control” , I say " … you never get speeding tickets "</p>
<p>“Cruise control ??” she says “What’s that ??”</p>
<p>Apparently she never noticed all those little buttons on the right hand side of her steering wheel, and drives over 1200 miles a month without it</p>
<p>So I guess we weren’t really surprised when she drove us one night to a relative’s rural house, located down some very dark two-lane roads. “There’s a lot of deer running around out here this time of year” I tell her " … so why don’t you flip on your brights ??"</p>
<p>“My what ??” she asks. By now she had been driving over 7 yrs, and had never even heard of this concept of “high beams” , let alone how to turn them on</p>
<p>All I can say is … <strong>I</strong> didn’t teach her how to drive !!</p>
<p>
Maybe you should have before you let her take the wheel of a car.</p>
<p>Not so much about instructions, but since it involves a phone…<br>
The day the last Harry Potter movie came out, my 13 year old daughter called the movie theater (we had prepaid tickets) to see what the line was like and figure out when to show up. After she dialed, she got this very funny/confused look on her face, said “what is this noise?” and handed the phone to me. It was a BUSY signal! She had apparently never heard one. She asked me what it was and what she should do. I explained that all the lines were taken up and told her to hang up and call again. She said what should she do if it made that sound again? I told her she had to keep trying until someone hung up. She looked confused again and I explained that there is a finite number of phone lines to businesses and someone else had to free up a line before she could get through. She finally got it but the confusion before was pretty darn funny.</p>