Nude tights
I just ... why?
Pepper grinder fillers
You can get a thing to cut an avocado into dinosaur shapes and something else that turns an everyday apple into an exact replica of the moon, but there is apparently no little thing that helps you fill your pepper grinder without spilling peppercorns on the cat's head. Adjustable cone. That's all I'm saying.
Vaginal washes
"Intimate wipes", special soap and squirty stuff for your ladyparts, etc - I am mystified. Not critical and not dismissive, as I am sure there are some irregularities/disorders/illnesses that make odd smells come out and that can often be a sign of something else being awry, and I am definite that some ladies worry far too much about it because someone has told them they should, but every day? Really? Why?
I do not get it. In fact, I fear a problem being invented (or exaggerated) by the marketing johnnies to 'make a quick buck' out of ladies fearful of their own ladysmells. (Regular readers will be aware that I have had some issues with my own ladyparts in the past, mainly involving mint-based substances, but they were not 'vaginal washes', no: one was chewing gum, the other, minty shower gel; the final, green wax administered by a firm Dutch lady.)
I don't understand why they don't have actual compliments on them*. Imagine it: you open up a letter from your solicitor and there it is: name, address, phone number, fax number that never works and a tiny little line top right: "You have a fine mind", or "Your haircut suits you well", or "You opened that envelope nicely".
Margarine or 'spreads'
Why? (See 'marketing johnnies', above)
Cockroaches
I am too scared to Google them because I do not want to see a picture of them, but I do not understand why they exist. Apparently they serve no purpose, but that doesn't make sense either.
Being wilfully selfish
Like the lady in the hairdresser on Thursday who knew I was waiting, but kept yakking on about shampoo for 10 minutes, or the other lady who dragged a step next to my head (surprisingly, I was stretching, i.e. lying on the floor sticking my legs out, after a 'work out' in the gym) and then stamped up and down it shouting "et UN et DEUX et TROIS et QUATRE et ... CINQ! ET un ET deux ET trois ET quatre ET cinq!" at the top of her stupid voice whilst spraying me in her ladysweat. I just don't understand that sort of thing.
Tea in countries that are not Britain
Why are they scared to put in the teabag in the pot for you? I am not going to get all cunty about "oh bloody foreigners what do they know about making tea!!!" (they don't care, that's what) but I really do not understand the logic of letting the water cool down a bit before you put the 'tea' (often recycled pot-pourri) in the pot.
The cost of my dinner in this hotel tonightSteak, vegetables, glass of wine: $56. It is just as well I am not paying for it. Also, there was a cock on the plate that I did not order.
What don't you understand? I am not talking about algebra etc - NO-ONE understands that so no point worrying about it. I am talking about everyday things that you don't understand: that don't work, or don't make sense, or have a point, or an apparent purpose.
Come on! What have you got?
NWM
* Do not steal this idea from me. It is my pension plan.
28 comments:
The thing you HAVE to understand about cockroaches is they are one of the few things that will survive the (inevitable) nuclear war that will scorch humanity from the planet. So, be nice to the roaches, as in the future they will be your big bad bosses.
I am slightly mystified by the 'pizza wheel'. Why would one need a special device to cut up pizza? Moreover, one which looks like it should come with a theodolite and a surveyor attached to it. Surely scissors are perfectly acceptable as a method of cutting up pizza, or heaven forfend, a sharp knife?
There are many other things. You have set my tiny mind racing. I may have to get back to you.
I use a funnel to fill my pepper grinder. Fact.
i understand algebra. i don't understand people who aren't called Lucy.
I don't understand why there are fancy glass bottle stoppers for wine. Who the hell leaves wine?
Ali x
Chirruppy early morning news readers. Particularly ones who burble happily about how it's going to be 'another loooooovely day [forecast: 102] and then during the next waste-time-as-we-haven't-got-the-surfing-kitten-footage-spooled-yet section nod seriously and agree that "ooooh, it's going to be a scorcher, isn't it?"'
The continuing fashion for young men to wear their trousers 'round their knees. Stoopid. It just is.
Ongoing efforts to bring back the 80's - leave 'em where we put 'em. There's no need to revive jelly shoes and side ponytails people.
And that's just the start.
Oh, and I'm with Katy - I use a funnel. Works beeyewtifully.
I do not understand the iPad. Substandard netbook or pointlessly oversized palm thing? Perfectly sensible people are coming all over it, yet you can't open more than one application at a time and it doesn't have a USB port. Madness. Marketing gone mad.
Why anyone puts anything in coffee except, possibly, real milk.
Why hotels are full of bits of paper and cardboard explaining things most people know how to use, like phones and kettles and room service.
Why restaurants are slow to bring the bill when (a) you have finished spending money & are getting fed up (b) they get the table back to make more money from someone else.
The many and various hoover attachments of very specific design whose very specific purpose is surprisingly unclear.
Two-finger typing.
Using Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook, Ping, Posterous et al. all at once. Is there not a great deal of redundancy? And also, when is there time for sleep?
Skiing.
Blackcurrant anything.
Oh - also the GINORMOUS quantity of totally useless channels that come with my dish thingy whether I want them or not. Gimme the ten or so I actually watch and don't lumber me with seventy-leven religious whatsits and a billion or so shopping channels.
AND any of dozens of those identical plastic people that, god knows why, are apparently of endless fascination to the general public. Which brings up the ontological question - if we all stop watching, do they exist? I think it's worth a clinical test just out of scientific curiosity.
"Reality" TV. And I don't throw inverted commas around lightly.
I don't understand the appeal of Lady Gaga.
I don't understand why you'd update a Blackberry & make the plug/power thingy smaller & have an 'international pack' that only had a British plug in it.
I don't understand why someone doesn't tell that man from American Apparel to stop taking soft porn pictures to sell quite OK cotton tee shirts & stuff.
I don't understand 'power politics' at work; if you're a cunt you'll get found out in the end & ultimately not really be happy.
I don't understand why toilet paper is divided into such small squares. Who uses just just one sheet? Three or four, yes, but one? No. Unless your pet hamster has the runs.
I don't understand Y-fronts. On the odd occasion I've worn them (when I was three), I can remember fumbling around trying to get my willie through the Y and saying "sod this" in my squeaky voice and pulling said willie out of the side.
I don't understand morbidly obese people who complain that "it's a glandular problem". No it's not. It's all the cake and crisps you eat.
I don't understand why muesli comes in such small packs. Surely it's not that expensive to chuck some nuts, oats and a couple of fucking raisons together.
Non-alcoholic beer. Nuff said.
I don't understand why so many people are such utter, utter twunts.
People who make tea by putting a 2-cup teabag in an 8-oz mug instead of a proper tea pot. The tea is either understeeped and too weak or properly steeped but far too strong. Ugh. And blecchh! (As I am only third-generation Canadian, I like to fancy I have not completely lost the art of the properly made cup of tea. Making a bad cup of tea was a mortal sin in our house.)
People who feel they have editorial rights over everyone and everything else. I shall pick my own clothes, thankewverymuch. You get to dress yourself. I get to dress me. I won't laugh if you don't.
Why my deranged cat enjoys tipping over the wasterpaper basket.
I must stop now, lest I shift into full-on rant mode.
I don't understand people who think little yappy dogs are cute. They're not. Not only are little yappy dogs ugly, they're also cunts.
I don't understand the obsession some male toilet users have with putting those paper toilet seat covers down before they do a poo. Odd.
I realise it may be controversial but I don't understand chocolate and mint together. Would you brush your teeth with chocolate toothpaste?
I also don't understand chocolate and orange together.
And I don't believe in avocado. As a fellow avocado-non-understander once put it, "avocados are just green margarine."
Instant coffee.
Milk or sugar in tea.
Dear Ms Monkey,
I was a regular reader of your blog some years ago and then got a bit lost on the internet and what have you. Imagine my delight when I happened once again on NWM, still alive and kicking, and full of the marvelous quippery that made it so beloved in the first place. And you married that Canadian lad - caloo calay! So congratulations, and I am most pleased to find that in a sky of fly-by-nights, you are the one true constant. I salute you!
Ah, well, there Thesaurus. I don't understand why toothpaste comes in mint flavour. Who decided that, and not lemon flavour for example? And why do they only make yogurts in sweet flavours and not say, ham or chicken tikka. And why do most countries except the UK not have randomly bizarre crisp flavours like in the UK, where we have embraced crisp diversity, even if they mostly do taste terrible.
So, yeah. Who is the flavour tsar? Hmmm
I will spare you the many, many things I don't understand (particularly since Lucy Pepper had the best answer imaginable), but will only say that a better retirement-funding idea would be vaginal swipes with compliments on them.
I also don't understand using a plastic bowl in the sink to do the dishes in. There's a perfectly good sink just underneath the plastic bowl. Just use that.
Don't waste money on expensive binoculars. Stand closer to the object you want to see.
Katyboo1 - Here in the antipodes there was an attempt at an orange flavoured Listerine but frankly it was just odd. Like rinsing your mouth with cordial. Not freshening at all.
Also chip/crisp manufacturers in these parts have recently got more adventurous with their flavours in these parts: tzatziki, olive and feta or meat pie and tomato sauce flavours anyone?
Okay here is what I don't understand:
1. why people think Russell Brand is funny. This may be the main thing I don't understand.
2. chocolate oranges. Ruin perfectly good chocolate.
3. Why nobody in America seemingly notices the high-pitched, whiny, infantile, nasal way all the women seem to speak now? They certainly didn't speak like that in 1962, as any casual exposure to Doris Day or Katharine Hepburn will assure you. This problem RUINS Mad Men (as well as every other dramatic work emanating from the USA), and yet no one seems to notice!! My bf and I do nothing but imitate them all the way through, and yet no one notices. Why is that?
4. why anyone would dislike puns.
5. the kids nowadays. That's it, I think.
I don't understand why, when you ask for a cup of tea in Britain these days (sadly even our own country can no longer get it right), you get the teabag as well. Actually no, that's not the bit I don't understand. I can understand that people have varying ideas about how long the teabag should be left in, so it does make some point to leave the teabag removal to the customer (although if like me you like it weak, you get all urgent about removing it which can cause all sorts of additional problems, but anyway). No. What I REALLY DON'T understand is why they don't provide anywhere for you to put it once you have removed it!
SURELY nobody likes to drink ordinary tea (not any of that herbal nonsense) with the teabag still in the mug? SURELY everyone wants to take it out at some point, even if that point is later for some than for others?
But WHAT THE COCK are you supposed to do with it once it is out?
Sometimes there are special stations for Sorting Your Drink Out. At these stations they have spoons and sugar and milk and all sorts. But do they have somewhere to put your wet hot actually-rather-stainsome teabag? Do they fuck. So you have to leave it in a little puddle and feel bad about the inconvenience it will cause to the next people who arrive.
Alternatively there is no station, and you proceed directly to your seat, at which point you then have to create a wet and actually-rather-stainsome puddle on your own cocking table, right next to your own flippin' elbow.
Sometimes there are napkins and you can wrap the bag in the napkin. The wettage still leaks out though, so then you have a wet brown napkin which is gradually seeping tea.
SURELY I AM NOT THE FIRST PERSON TO HAVE BEEN INCONVENIENCED IN THIS WAY.
Is there some kind of weird teabag-blindness affliction which is only caught by people who work in, and run, establishments where tea is served? Are they somehow incapable of noticing the unpleasantly-wet-and-stainsome teabags scattered about their premises at the end of every day?
IT MAKES NO SENSE.
I have other things which I am similarly confused about, but I have used my word allowance - and several other people's besides - on this one, so I will shut up now.
I am reading your comments with gigantic eyes!!! It is not just things you don't LIKE, it is things that MAKE NO SENSE even if you look at them objectively. (See the Squirrel's extraordinarily - in fact record-breakingly long - comment above.)
I shall be reading more (once I have recovered from Squirrel's comment, which is taking up my entire computer) in due course, but suffice to say that no, it makes no sense to not be called Lucy, Orange Listerine = doesn't make sense; orange chocolate makes sense (if you don't like it, that's another thing); mint toothpaste makes sense (fresh, clean, people used to chew on mint leaves to make their mouths taste fresher, etc etc). I also loathe avocados, for example, but it makes sense to me that some people would like the texture as much as it makes me want to rip my eyes out.
Oh yes.
Tee hee. Sorry.
Saucers are not acceptable by the way. In case anyone suggests them. And anyway you don't always get one. But it is just plain daft to have one's cup evicted from one's saucer by a messy usurping teabag. And they can't share the same saucer because then the tea gets all over the bottom of the cup and drips down your front.
I don't understand Quantum Mechanics or Keynsian Economics.
Holy Shit, I forgot how fucking funy you are. I haven't been lurking in a bit, this was just my call to come back. Thanks, I needed that!
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