I just received a shipment from Lehmans. Enclosed was a newsletter where the President of the company was explaining why things were taking so long. He spoke about delays due to huge customer education problems. He refered to a sidebar for customers to read to determine the readiness to order product.

On the sidebar was a recent example of a store customer and the education problems they are facing(here is the gist of the conversation): A lady walked in to buy a grain mill. The salesman showed her a mill, explained how it worked and demonstrated it for her showing her the ground flour it produced. She looked at the flour then at the salesman and said, "Thats great but where does the bread come out."

The above story is comment enough............

-- ExCop (yinadral@juno.com), July 29, 1999

Answers

Unfortunately, she is probably the more "average" than those of us on this forum. I have always said that most would starve to death in a ripe garden with a milk cow.

-- Hannah (Hannah@Colonial America.com), July 29, 1999.

Great story, ExCop.

Did you hear about the woman who purchased a wood stove? She called the folks from whom she'd ordered it and said, "In reading the instructions that came with my wood stove, I notice that I need to have a chimney. I don't HAVE a chimney." She lives on the 13th floor of a Miami highrise.

I don't remember where I read that, but again it had to do with why orders were taking so long as folks spend time on the phone dealing with people who um...didn't do their research first?

-- Anita (spoonera@msn.com), July 29, 1999.

You wanna hear stories like these? Go to the alt.tech-support.recovery newsgroup. Its where computer tech support people vent about how stupid their customers or coworkers are.

The fact that people are stupid (and that includes everyone, we all make mistakes sometimes) is reason enough for me to prepare.

-- biker (y2kbiker@worldnet.att.net), July 29, 1999.

I don't worry much about the stupid people - except for the numbers. Many will die off pretty quick if TSHTF.

Once natural selection kicks in, its going to get tougher to survive by the week. And as time marches on, adversaries will be stronger, smarter, and tougher.

In order to survive, people will have to form groups. In real life, win-win isn't likely. Hard choices follow close behind.

-- Lead Mouse in the Wall (greytek@hotmail.com), July 29, 1999.

I have a friend who is an appliance repairman. One Thanksgiving he got a call from a woman who said her oven exploded. Upon walking into her kitchen there was ham all over the walls and ceiling. He asked her to explain what happened. She said she read the label on the can, turned the oven on to 350 degrees and placed the can of ham into the oven. The repairman told her she should have taken the ham out of the can and then place it in the oven to bake.

I have a friend who couldn't figure out why her baked chicken tasted like soap. She followed the recipe she said. She said I washed the chicken inside and out. I asked if she washed the chicken with water, she said I washed the chicken with Dawn soap...........stupid is as stupid does.

-- know2morons (know2morons@know2morons.com), July 29, 1999.

You want stupid? Go HERE. (DUH-2000)

And Anita, that's where the quote about the chimney came from...

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), July 29, 1999.

"To protect fools from the effects of their folly is to fill the world with fools" [Herbert Spencer]

Hopefully, we'll be able to see "evolution in action" in a few months.

-- A (A@AisA.com), July 29, 1999.

>> I have always said that most would starve to death in a ripe garden with a milk cow. <<

Maybe. But at least I know enough to get the cow *out* of that garden, muy pronto! Almost as bad a deer in the garden!

-- Brian McLaughlin (brianm@ims.com), July 29, 1999.

Don't know if you heard this one but ; A woman was sitting in her car in front of the store for a long time with her hand held to the back of her head. A clerk noticed that she looked frightened and went to see what was wrong. The woman said she had been shot in the head and she was holding her brains in. When the paramedics arrived they found that her canned biscuits had exploded from the back seat and hit her in the head and she was holding dough.... (supposed to be a true story.)

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), July 29, 1999.

Best laughs I had all week. On another forum, when posters were discussing various grain mills and how they performed, one participant asked, "When does the grain turn into bread?"

-- gilda (jess@listbot.com), July 29, 1999.

A man was in his front yard mowing the grass when his attractive blond female neighbor came out of the house and went straight to the mail box. She opened it, slammed it shut, and then stormed back in the house. A little later she came out of her house again, went to the mail box, opened it, and slammed it shut again. Angrily, back into the house she went. As the man was getting ready to edge the lawn, here she came out again, marched to the mail box, opened it and then slammed it closed harder than ever. Puzzled by her actions, the man asked her, "Is something wrong?" to which she replied, "There certainly is! My stupid computer keeps giving me a message saying 'YOU'VE GOT MAIL!'"

-- (not@blonde.either), July 29, 1999.

My favorite is folks buying pellet stoves for Y2K. Of course you have to have power to make them work. Electrical heaters would be cheaper in that case.

Another amazement of mine is during ice storms and the power goes out, folks meat spoils in the Freezer. Yet they have a huge natural freezer outside.

This is one thing that worries me more than anything. Lack of common sense.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), July 29, 1999.