Aparrently I look like an idiot

[The Angel of Missouri]

I'm not any religion but I know what the holidays are (of most) and who the Pope is.. Sometimes it's common sense. It's like someone saying "Hola" and someone else not knowing it's "Hello" is Spanish. Sure, no one's going to make fun of them for not knowing another language but... blah.

Especially in the US, you should know what Lent is...

[XCashier]

Is it bad that I don't find that, or the "Who's Lent?" question stupid? Just because you don't know about a religion doesn't mean you're dumb.

Thank you! I was raised Methodist, and I'd never even heard of Lent until I was in my teens. Not every Christian sect observes Lent, after all.

[Pagan]

I'm not in any way, shape, or form Christian, but I've always know what Lent is. But that's probably because New Mexico is heavily Catholic!

[Simply Amazed]

That ranks up there with the coworker of my mother's who asked what religion the Pope is the head of.

Come to think of it, I see pictures and video's of the Pope and his travels and I've never once seen a picture of his wife.

[draggar]

About a week ago I had to close the seafood department in my store because the person that was supposed to didn't show up. I never really liked doing seafood because for some weird reason customers are a lot more annoying and sucky in front of the seafood counter than the deli counter even though they are the same people.

This one woman asked for three fillet's of haddock (pronouncing the word fillet as fillette) and as I am putting them on the scale in a sweet singsongy voice like you would hear when a mother is talking to her infant

"that's one, that's twooo, that's three...Very good"

I think maybe this was a failed attempt at being polite, but I always find patronizing to be more rude than being an outright a-hole.

You said haddock, I thought New England, then I looked at your profile.
Shaws or DeMoulas?

We had some winners when I managed a seafood dept about 45 minutes north of you in NH.

SC: Are these shrimp cooked?
Me: They're raw
SC: That doesn't answer my question

SC (calling in): I just bought a pound of your Maine coldwater shrink and they were all bad! Horrible! I'm calling the health departmnt to shut you down!:
Me: I'm sorry about that, how did you cook them?
SC: What do you mean how did I cook them?


SC: That Alaskan salmon, is it Atlantic or Pacific?

SC: What ocean are the freshwater mussles from?

Of course the calamari was always fun:
SC: Can I have a pound of the calamari?
I start to put the calamari into a container
SC: No, not the squid, just the calamari

SC: Can I have two pounds of calamari but don't give me any testicles.
(I had that one quite often)

SC (after ordering salmon fillets, cod, haddock, trout, mahi-mahi, and tuna steaks for her cookout): What's in the seafood stuffing?
Me: breadcrumbs, oil, imitation crabmeat.
SC: Oh, I guess I can't have stuffed salmon, I'm allergic to seafood.

SC: You know you have snails inside your display?
Me: Yes, they're $3.99 a pound
SC: People eat those?

SC: What's mahi-mahi?
Me: Dolphin
SC: Seriously.

SC: This preciously frozen haddock, is it fresh or previously frozen?

SC: how much is the seafood salad?
Me: $1,99 a pound.
SC: Is that real lobster in it?
(Yes, at $1.99 a pound, we have real lobster meat in our seafood salad especially when lobster salad is right next ot it at $18.99 a pound).

SC: Before you weigh the clams, can you take them all out of the shell?

OhI could fill up books.

[Simply Amazed]

Is it bad that I don't find that, or the "Who's Lent?" question stupid? Just because you don't know about a religion doesn't mean you're dumb. It just means you weren't raised in that religion. You hear about "the Pope" all the time and you can usually deduce that he's some kind of head of a religion, but they very rarely ever say "the Pope, head of the Catholic Church" or anything.

*shrug*

Maybe it's just me but I find nothing at all wrong with these questions.

I certainly wouldn't say the person is dumb but the person is definitely undereducated about the subject. Not that this is a problem because I surely don't think it is one.

What I wonder is about the pope above. Where I've lived, in every state, a common reply for an obvious question is "is the Pope catholic?"

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/203600.html describes what this means and why I'd say that someone who doesn't know this is undereducated. Someone who doesn't know that H2O = water isn't necessarily dumb either but again, who hasn't heard this?

So, I wouldn't call them dumb but I would want to check out the living conditions of the rock they've been living under if you know what I mean. I'd consider it odd and sheltered but not dumb.

[Rapscallion]

SC: Before you weigh the clams, can you take them all out of the shell?

I had one woman boast to me that she'd taken all the vine tomatoes off the vine so they would weigh less.

Oddly enough, we didn't like her.

Rapscallion

[Seshat]

Until this thread, I didn't know which language 'Hola' was 'hello' in. However, I don't live in a country where Spanish is often spoken. Ignorance is all relative - a fact which is common sense and important in one area is arcane in another.


A common task of the Australian police in country areas is tourist rescue. Drive along the main outback highways and find the tourists who've tried to drive north from Adelaide (or south from Darwin, any direction from Alice Springs, etc) on the assumption that there would be villages and towns and cities the whole way. Because there are in Europe/America/wherever they're from.

(Yes, there are warnings. Every Australian road map I've ever seen has them, and while I've never gone north from Adelaide, other outback roads I have travelled have 'no fuel or water for XXkm' signs on them as appropriate.)

In Australia, it's common sense that you check with the locals for fuel/water/weather conditions before you travel anywhere but the coast roads. But it seems that that's unique to thinly populated places.

[CrazedClerk]

I'm sorry but the woman who asked "who's Lent?" I think was a tad on the not so bright side.

Before I knew much about what Lent was, I at least knew it was SOMETHING and not SOMEONE. It's rather sad she didn't know at all.

[Pagan]

SC: Can I have two pounds of calamari but don't give me any testicles.
(I had that one quite often)



SC: What's mahi-mahi?
Me: Dolphin
SC: Seriously.

On the first one -
On the second one - ya might want to clarify it's dolphin fish, not Flipper!

[XCashier]

SC: Are these shrimp cooked?
Me: They're raw
SC: That doesn't answer my question

SC (calling in): I just bought a pound of your Maine coldwater shrink and they were all bad! Horrible! I'm calling the health departmnt to shut you down!:
Me: I'm sorry about that, how did you cook them?
SC: What do you mean how did I cook them?

SC (after ordering salmon fillets, cod, haddock, trout, mahi-mahi, and tuna steaks for her cookout): What's in the seafood stuffing?
Me: breadcrumbs, oil, imitation crabmeat.
SC: Oh, I guess I can't have stuffed salmon, I'm allergic to seafood.

Well, there go a few hundred more brain cells.

SC: What's mahi-mahi?
Me: Dolphin
SC: Seriously.

I thought mahi-mahi was a type of tuna?

[chainedbarista]

nope, that baby's tropical and a predator.
mmm, predator flesh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahi-mahi

[Rapscallion]

On the first one -

Psst - Tentacles

Rapscallion

[draggar]

On the first one -
On the second one - ya might want to clarify it's dolphin fish, not Flipper!

FIrst one, I'm thinking of the movie Better Off Dead right about now.. Squid have tentacles, but people always mispronounced them as testacles.

Second, Flipper was a porpoise.. (Plus it was fun to watch them squirm)

On a side note, how much longer until I can see my posts and don't have to wait for a mod to release it?

Oh, I guess now! Thank you! *Draggar does the happy dance*

[Primer]

On the second one - ya might want to clarify it's dolphin fish, not Flipper!

Pagan, you beat me to it. Mahi mahi is a very tasty dolphin fish.