What was your "I can't believe I have to explain this to an adult" moment?

How to put phone in silent mode.

This happend multiple times. A lot people seem to not know that a Cow had to be pregnant to produce Milk...
- A cow is a mammal !?!? Shocked Pikachu

That in Judaism, Jesus isn't all that special.
- I thought that was obvious when they crucified him /s

why consumers pay tarrifs

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned tax brackets.
I laughed my ass off when my racist uncle smugly explained that he turned down a raise, because that would put him in an upper tax rate and cost him more money than the raise was worth.
Tried to explain how income tax works. Didn't go through that thick skull of his.
- Yep.
  A graduated tax structure is evidently just literally too complex for about half the population to understand.
  Throw 'how is Social Security funded' into that as well.
  The top bracket is 176,000 and everything above that.
  All it would take to keep Soc Sec funded is just add more brackets after that.
  But nope, America is full of morons who think that their dumb ass making 40k or 80k is going to see a higher tax bill if you explicitly only additionally tax those making stupendous amounts of money.
  
  Had an ex try and convince me that taking overtime pay instead of banking hours would net me less money for the same reason.
- Some people are terrible with money. Take my wife... (Please) - after 20 years she suddenly decided she wants a divorce. Rather than either of us keep our house, she wants to sell it and split the equity we get out of it. Fair enough, I can agree with that... But then she said she wanted to dump it on a flipper for 300k, when comparable houses have gone for 430-450. I said if you're going to let it go that cheap, let me buy you out. I crunched the numbers, we owe 150k, so I'd either refinance or assume the loan, and give her 75k (her half of the difference between the sale price and what we owe) - she accused me of trying to screw her over. "I'm not letting you have the house for $75k!" "That's right, you're not- we (the couple) would be selling it to me (the individual) for $300k, it's the same as dumping it on a flipper, just that I'm the flipper!" There was no getting through to her. Eventually she agreed to try and sell it properly for what it's worth.
  to me... Evidently she had made up her mind months ago, but wasn't going to tell me until her job situation improved...
- This misconception is widespread enough that I can only think that it is deliberately perpetuated by the ruling class to save them money. The number of people who are convinced that going up a tax bracket could mean you make less total money is astounding, and many of them are like your uncle— utterly convinced to the point that being informed correctly sounds like naivety to them.
  
  Another example is "Don't work overtime, the taxes cost more than you make."
  Unless your marginal tax rate for your overtime is > 100%, that's simply false. Given that all marginal income tax rates in the US are < 100% (that I know of).
- If you're on some social security program it could be wise to turn down a small raise. At least in some places. Once you earn above a certain limit those benefits stop and you actually lose money.
- I had to explain progressive taxation to a coworker a while ago. Admittedly he was in his mid 20s and was a self described bad student. To his credit he actually understood. He also went back to school some time later and got an undergraduate degree.
  Sometimes there's hope for people.
- I don't think tax brackets are explained very well. I'm relatively intelligent, and didn't understand until I was in my early 20s, at my first real job, and made a comment during the financial retirement introduction. Luckily the person leading the orientation took 30 seconds and blew my mind.
- Except you’re ignoring tax credits. There are a slew of tax credits that only apply at certain income levels and below. It is very possible that you can suddenly no longer qualify for a credit by getting a small raise which is less than what the credit would have given you.
  Always consult a tax advisor.
  
  Ah sorry, I live in a country where we don't require every single citizen to hire an accountant to file their taxes.
  My condolences.

I remember in 7th grade, our social studies class did a module on taxation and tariffs. Seemed pretty easy to understand at the time. Little did I know, later on, that many, many people would not understand this relatively simple concept.

The earth isn't flat.
Seriously, what the fuck.

Ok so disclaimer, this isn't ... as derisive or as ... disdianful as something like 'I can't believe I had to explain to a 27 yo that chocolate milk does not come from brown cows' but... here goes:
About a decade ago I went on a movie date with a girl (in an actual theatre, before netflix existed... god maybe it was closer to two decades fuxk)
....30 minutes into the movie, she started going into a diabetic shock.
Before she almost entirely feinted, she told me what was going on, and was freaking out because she could not find her insulin pen in her purse.
She then completely passed out. Totally limp, sliding out of her seat, ragdoll limp.
I started going through the steps of doing a proper fireman carry, but she managed to regain enough consciousness that I could support about 75% of her weight and she and I could sort of stumble out of the theatre into the lobby.
Set her down in the lobby, on the ground, sort of slouched kind of upright against a wall, told a staff member to call 911.
While waiting, I bought the stupidest large sized coke I'd ever purchased, told her to focus on alternating between sipping it, and breathing, while I held her upper body and head so she wouldn't collapse and take her eye out with the straw.
... Within 10 minutes, the ambulance had not yet arrived, but she had moderately regained consciousness and composure.
By the time the ambulance did arrive, we basically all managed to figure out (as she regained more awareness) that she had a backup insulin pen in her car, the EMTs supervised its administration, and after about 45 minutes of observation, they said she was clear to go if I drove her home.
She made that decision with the EMTs, I had stepped back at that point, and I... told her I could drive her to the hospital, but she just wanted to go home, so I drove her home.
... Now, not to make light of her condition in anyway, at all, but...
... a few days later we were chatting and she said that at no point in her life (she'd had early onset diabetes, type 1, been living with it for a while) ...
... at no point had anyone told her or had she realized that a stupidly massive sugary drink does apparently function decently as an emergency, last ditch, make shift sugar boost... when you are in diabetic shock... from a lack of sugar.
I realize you would not want to depend on this method as your main way of handling diabetes (for numerous, numerous reasons), but it baffled me that someone with 10+ years living with diabetes... wouldn't know that?
Like, I know that just gulping down a huge soda potentially could have been too much sugar, but also, the paramedics were on the way, and I wasn't forcing her to drink the whole thing, she got maybe 2/3 of the way through it and had significantly recovered, told me she thought that was enough.
I dunno.
I'd be interested in the opinions of diabetics and people with actual medical knowledge on this.
- I briefly took insulin for type 2, and it was made very clear to me what the symptoms for low blood sugar were and what to do about it. It seems like a banana is the preferred way, but I think things like M&Ms and juice are also popular choices.
  So I’m also baffled that someone with type 1 for so long wouldn’t know that.
  Also, just a small correction to your story. Insulin is used to lower blood sugar. If she was passing out from low blood sugar, she wouldn’t be taking insulin. She probably had some sort of glucagon pen
  
  Ah ok, I did get the insulin/glucagon thing wrong.
  In my defense, her speech was quite slurred... and I didn't / don't have diabetes or regularly care for someone who does.
  (Sadly, she ghosted me a few weeks later. Months later I ran into a mutual friend who explained to me she was so embarassed by the whole thing she just... bailed.)
  But ok, I'm glad that you also find it odd that she had no idea to use sugar to... manage a low sugar situation... when she'd had diabetes for about a decade up till that point.
- It's definitely a little weird. Just about thing first thing you realize (or should), is that sugar=carbs. You also know, and are told repeatedly, what to avoid (and thus what to go for in the case of an emergency). The nurses/doctors always told us that the expensive shit wasn't necessary. The glucagon shot is expensive, and only is really needed if you're unconscious, which makes it sort of useless to carry because the people around you who know you're diabetic are (I guess maybe not...) usually informed enough to shove something like orange juice or soda at you, well before you go unconscious. You (or the parent) keep something like soda, cake frosting / honey, or candy bars in proximity. Heck, I use granola bars because those little shits will spike the blood sugar faster than a candy bar, and they don't melt. My car has them, my backpack has them; I once carried the little juicy juice boxes but those spoil faster in heat/cold/physical bruising cycles of being carried around.
  Even in just the context of day-to-day life, I know to control the blood sugar by what I eat. If I'm going low, I can have a very small amount of those no-no items, like soda or a candy bar. I also know that if I consume that, the blood sugar will spike before the insulin kicks in (it's really hard to give the insulin ahead enough of time to stop the spike without also driving the blood sugar low first). It's why they're avoided in the first place. That makes the poor girl's lack of awareness of it sound really, really odd.
  It sucks that she felt embarrassed about it. I get tired of the comments/thoughts that behaviors are diabetes-driven from people who know me, so I get it. It can be quite the source of amusement though. There are stories in my family of the ones with diabetes doing some crazy things, and I've got a few of my own that I joke about. Waking up with a low blood sugar makes me think the dreams were real, as an example. Sure, everyone's got some sleep paralysis thoughts, but try huddling under your covers for an entire morning thinking you're about to get busted by cops for murdering abe lincoln.

The definition of "cardiovascular system." Budtenders are just built different.
Then there was the extremely wealthy guy who didn't know what I meant when I said "install." He actually asked me "What means "Install""? Native English speaker, over 50, owned a couple businesses. He'd never heard of installing a program or a dishwasher.

Having to explain that a certain infamous "Chinese alphabet" font¹ (favoured by tattoo joints everywhere) is not how you write in Chinese. There is a shocking number of people who have somehow managed to grow up not just to adulthood but to senior citizen levels who think that foreign languages are just English with a funky spelling; that grammar rules are otherwise the same, and that words translate one for one (and sometimes, in extreme cases, like the gibberish font, letter for letter).
¹ https://hanzismatter.blogspot.com/2006/08/gibberish-asian-font-mystery-solved.html
- 山尺工卞工几呂　勹丹尸丹几ヨ己ヨ　工己　ヨ丹己と!
  I saw a brand a while back, can't remember exactly what, something like coffee or chocolate, and they were using this fake Japanese for all their product names and merchandise labels.
  It was certainly the most surefire way to instantly demonstrate to me they have no actual understanding of, or connection with, Japan or Japanese culture at all.
  
  Literal cultural appropriation.

"Tax the rich" does not mean anybody wants to tax you for owning your home. Unless it's a fucking palace.

My mom was proud that the neighborhood worked together to block an "ugly new cell tower" from being constructed in the area. Then she was upset that her cell service was spotty, in literally the same fucking breath.

I was eating at a BBQ joint with my ~30 year old friend, when I had to break the news that the pigs don’t survive if you “only take their spare ribs.”
- This is definitely something he was told by his jokester dad or uncle when he was 8 and then never had the idea challenged since then.
  
  That’s entirely possible. He didn’t know where the thought originated, just that he “always thought that’s how it worked.” He saw the flaw when I asked him about piggy surgeries. His face was priceless.
  
  That's still a shocking amount of willful ignorance.
- What 😅
  
  Dude legitimately thought it was more ethical. At one point in the conversation, he compared it to eating eggs. It’s a real challenge wiping tears away when your hands are all sauced up.
- I think we have a winner.

The back of a hammer is used for pulling out nails.
- Unless it's a ball-peen hammer.

About 30 years ago I had to explain to my boyfriend's mom that LGBTQI+ people do not just choose to be LGBTQI+.
I didn't know at the time whether I got through to her, but years later she told me she understood why that was true.
- I remember I had to come out of the closet to my adoptive mom as asexual like four times. She (unlike me) is Indian/Andamanian and asexuality comes off in her lifestyle like you're being rebellious. It was only after a few times when she was like "oh she's serious".

I worked in a retail pharmacy so here is a list:
Women do not have prostates
During Fukishima nuclear incident, there would be no physical issues for people >5,000 miles away
Antibiotics don't work on viruses
Vaccines
"Natural" medicines can significantly interact with other medicines
What jock itch is and the astounding amount of men who thought it was normal
Don't recklessly shove things into your eye, ear, nose, butt, penis/vagina (exceptions apply)
- wait what the fuck is jock itch?
  
  A fungal infection most common amongst teenagers forced to wear sweaty unwashed clothes over and over again for gym and sports because the school system is somehow set up too stupidly to effectively deal with mildewy clothing in 2025
  It can happen to anyone. It's just super common amongst teens because enforcing and facilitating hygiene for young men is the lowest priority in our society for some reason
- Do I want to know what the exception is where shoving things into places "recklessly" is okay?
  
  Maybe recklessly isn't the right word, but there are emergency medications that are administered rectally or nasally where it's better to be quick than gentle. Rectally administered diazepam for seizures is a good example.
- Women do not have prostates
  That's a good one
  
  Most don't, some do, in context presumably it was relatively clear

Something explained to me...
I was 41 when I realised that people actually see things in their minds eye. It is not just a metaphor.
Blew my mind, like it is some kind of superpower, you can just imagine stuff, and you see an image of it....
My partner is such a good cook, partly because she can combine flavours in her mind, to check if they will taste good together, that is just fucken cheating.
When people "get a song stuck in their head" they can literally hear it.... How the fuck do you get anything done, you crazy bastards.
- I've encountered this the other way. I would design something for a customer, and I'd leave it Fusion360's default grey texture. Let's say I'm making a table. The following conversation would take place:
  "Why is it grey?"
  "That's just the software, I'm gonna make it out of wood."
  "I don't want it to be grey, I want it to be wooden."
  "I know, I'm going to make it out of wood. What do you think of the shape?"
  "I can't see it if it's not wooden."
  I honestly don't know you function like that.
  
  i can't see things in my mind's eye but like, i can fucking comprehend the concept of representative models, that has no relation to the aphantasia lmao
  i think they were just a bit dumdum
  
  Horrifying.
  What makes it even more horrifying is that they might vote.
- My partner is such a good cook, partly because she can combine flavours in her mind, to check if they will taste good together, that is just fucken cheating.
  Okay I can do the other stuff (as can most people; you probably have aphantasia) but this? This either is fucking cheating or I have atonguasia
  
  I may be biased since I'm also able to do this (and have gotten pretty good), but I'm reasonably sure it's a skill you can learn. Just take two things, make a prediction how they'd taste together, then try it and see how correct you were. If you keep doing this, you'll eventually be pretty good at predicting new things.
  I've done this since I was a child (because it was always interesting to me), so it might take some time, but humans are very good at learning such patterns!
  If you want something to start with, take a slice of banana and add mustard. It doesn't taste great (also not terrible), and the flavors mostly stay separate, but they combine a bit in an interesting way.
  
  I have multi-sensory aphantasia.
  
  I cannot combine two flavors I've never tasted together in my mind, but I can recall what I did taste before and make an educated guess as to how to reproduce it based on how the individual parts taste. Apart from that it's trial and error - I'd say 65% of the time it works, 25% of the time the result is forgettable, and 1/10 times it's a "what was I thinking??" situation.
  
  I don't think I could even do my job without this. I mean, I know not everyone can do it as well as Zi can, but I guess I never thought that there are people that can't do it at all.
- That’s how I compose music. My brain plays it to me before I can try and put it on paper. Also when I sing I can hear the instrumental on my brain without actually playing it.
  
  Related to this, I'm a fairly decent dancer....but only if there is music playing. I cannot dance at all with no music, it is just impossible for me to look at all coordinated. I have no music or beat in my head to follow, it is a little crazy to think that the "normal" case is that people hear music in their heads.
  
  Same. I can't see anything in my mind's eye but it's loud as hell up there.
- I'm on the other side of your discovery. When my kids were young and in karate, I couldn't understand why they were having so much trouble acting out techniques in the air. In my mind, I could see where the imaginary opponent was and how they would move, but most of the kids had a lot of trouble with that.
  While talking to my wife, I found out that not everyone can envision people and things in 3D.
  I was also the parent who made the kids' Halloween costumes. My sewing technique is pretty terrible, but I can see how the costume should look, and I can take it apart in my head and see what shape the pieces should be.
  
  I am very confused now. Isn't that just imagination? I know some people are not good at envisioning things but never heard about people not being able to do it. Ig TIL.
- I think more what I’ve had to explain is the opposite. Aphantasia exists, so there are people out there (like me and assumingly you) who CANNOT picture stuff in their head.
  But yeah I also had to learn people could actually do this as an adult. Boy did that make me not caring to read books make way more sense.
  
  I think that liking/not liking books doesn't have a lot to do with aphantasia. I love books and reading, but some authors are just terrible because they put too much visualization porn between interesting story elements (looking at you Tolkien).
  For me to like a book, the story has to flow; Terry Pratchett is my favorite author, his stories flow in a really nice way and he tackles a lot of social issues in a great way.
  
  I don't know, I'm pretty sure I've got aphantasia, but I love reading. I just tend to skip over character descriptions and have no clue what any of them are supposed to look like. On the plus side, I'm pretty much never disappointed with casting of an adaptation meaning the characters don't look as I'd imagined them, since it's just not something I do.
  
  What's funny for me is I definitely think I've got a bit of aphantasia, I can somewhat see images but it's low detail, details are wrong, have a horrible memory for faces, etc.
  However I loved reading, I did usually tend to skip over descriptions of scenes that might go on too long because I get the gist and everything else just doesn't get added in lmao.
  Doing LSD and other hallucinagines (misspelled?) was extremely interesting due to the effect on aphantasia, it absolutely allowed me to "see" in that way as I never had before, I am not sure how much it actually "stuck with me" or not though if you get my meaning.
- I was maybe an early teen when I learned that. Might explain my decreased skillset.

I think it was last year that I had to break it to my mother that pickles are not, in fact, a naturally occurring relative of cucumbers, but rather the result of placing cucumbers in some sort of brine. She's almost 70, and apparently believed there were pickle plants out there that you could just walk up to and grab a gherkin, or something.
- I had a friend who recently started growing things I his garden. The cucumbers out grew everything. When I went to his house there was cucumbers everywhere. In jugs of water in the fridge, everywhere.
  I said why don't you make gherkins? He replied with "dude I've got too many bloody cucumber why would I start growing gherkins.". I had a good laugh.
  
  Wtf fuck is a gherkin? You mean pickle?
- I'm confused. Gherkins are just small cucumbers, right? Typically used for pickling, yes, but still just small cucumbers.
  From the Dutch "augurk" (which is a (small) pickled cucumber)
  
  It's pretty commonly used to refer to pickled gherkins here, I can't remember the last time I saw them just sold as cucumbers.

My wife had to explain to me that pickles were pickled cucumbers and there wasn’t a pickle tree.
I was 30 something years old.
- Me too, but I was in my 40's and found out at a bierfest.
  
  Makes me wonder, can you pickle zucchinis?
- I mean if it helps you they are made from a special pickle sized breed of cucumber.
  
  Some kinds like gherkins are smaller than the cucumbers that show up in the store, but people pickle the large cukes as well (more common as the dill or sour varieties). Also in other countries it's common to pickle all kinds of vegetables and even some fruit
- That sounds like a real pickle you went through.
- If it helps there is a variant called "Parisian Pickling"
- I was much younger when I figured it out, but my mom also did a lot of gardening and canning when I was younger, so we had all kinds of pickled vegetables on the shelves.
  There was still an aha moment when I realized that pickles were just pickled cucumbers, just like the pickled greenbeans, and pickled beets, etc.
  I guess cucumbers were first on the scene and got to use the shortened name ;-)

I had to walk a classmate through how to install a program in Windows. You know, go to the website, hit download, wait for it to finish, next next next, etc. We're two weeks away from getting our diplomas. In IT.
- If you know how to build a computer, you're already ahead of 50% of people going into entry level IT support.
  I've had enterprise grade desktop servers with fans plugged into the wrong fan header (pump vs case fan, the pump header runs at 100% and its noisy AF), same problem for multiple of the same model. $3000+ computers and the people making them cant RTFM (they included the manual)
  
  I was 'two weeks ago'-years-old when I realized that maybe setting my AIO pump to 100% instead of letting it be throttled up and down like a CPU fan might be a good idea. (I was installing it on a motherboard too old to have a "pump header;" it only understands CPU_FAN and SYS_FAN.)
  Considering that my previous AIO worked just fine for seven years being treated like a fan -- and in fact would still be in use if not for it failing to fit in my new SFF case -- I'm still not actually sure the difference matters.
- Me, still in university, trying to tell 3 graduates (all computer science grads) what a "data exception error" in COBOL was.
- Is this actually how it still works on windows? Like it has not evolved since the 90s?
  
  Look, they're too busy changing the UI completely every two years to change things like functionality.
  
  package managers technically exist, including Microsoft's own winget, and if you're on windows they're a decent choice, though they do come with a multitude of issues
  there's even a decent ish package manager GUI called unigetui
  
  how would it change, netbooting still requires significant infrastructure that only nerds and business have and almost no phones have support for USB mass storage device emulation (technically not emulation) so it still needs a USB drive or DVD.
  edit: misread the previous comment, didn't see program
- You mean you don't just type in the name of the program in an app store like Synaptic or f-droid?

I had to explain to an adult woman that prunes are to plums as raisins are to grapes.
- Then why aren't they called plaisins. Craisins are.

How fractions work to a 30 year old woman.
I literally had to draw a circle, and use the pie analogy from grade school.
- But 1/4 is larger than 1/3, because 4 is bigger than 3!
  https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/06/17/third-pound-burger-fractions/
  
  Eggzackly!

That you CANNOT gain more weight from a sugared drink than it actually weighs.
- That sounds like an interesting conversation. A 32oz drink weighs just over 2 pounds. You’d need deficit of 7,000 calories to lose that much weight, lol.
- there are caveats to this one, but yes
  
  Let's hear them then, Mr. Smart guy.

I've had to explain tariffs a lot lately...
- I work for a wine importer. I literally have to sign legal documents attesting to the payment of tariffs before containers are taken off of ships. The amount of times this week I have had to explain that I do understand how tariffs work is too many.
  
  I used to work for an import/export middleman company a decade ago, data analytics, db management, executive report production, etc.
  I feel your pain.
  I've spent a decade now explaining basic economics to idiots, and my conclusion is America is doomed.
  Does it matter that I have degrees in Econ and Poli Sci? Years of experience with all kinds of data analytics work?
  Nope. Some idiot used car salesman has a gut feeling, some HVAC maintenance guy can't grasp algebra.
  Therefore I am wrong.
  ... and now we reap what we have sewn.
  
  Ooh actually could you type out that explanation cuz having a like, concrete “here’s a persons job who deals with this” way to explain it may be handy. (But also you don’t gotta if you’re super tired of it.)
- Haha I had to ask about them in ELI5
- Can you explain them to me? I'm starting to have my doubts.

I work at a ski mountain, it was spring and the snow was melting. Had to explain that it needs to be below freezing out for the mountain to make more snow. "Fake" snow is still frozen water.

Evolution and other basic, elementary-level science to those who insist on the existence of some Skyman.
- Science does not contradict the existence of a higher power. The latter is simply a matter of believe, and we should be tolerant of that. It is unbelievable that adults are so extremely intolerant.
  
  Maybe believers should be more tolerant of the unbelievers, instead of claiming they'll be tortured for eternity and such.
  
  It is unbelievable that adults are so extremely intolerant.
  Tell that to the believers are pushing their religious rules onto non-believers.

I got a job building touch screen information kiosks for a fundraising thing a university was doing for one of its STEM programs. I had my hands full building this thing, so they got one of the students at the college who "does video" to put the content together. I got one chance to talk to this girl, I start in "So the monitors I'm using are standard 1920x1080, so aim for that resolution" and she stopped me to ask what that meant. So I'm now convinced she wasn't a member of the AV club or in some video production major...she was someone's niece who's on Tiktok.
I eventually get an email with the files she was supposed to send to me. Each kiosk was going to be programmed differently to display information about the thing it was standing next to. I get a bunch of video files in no folder structure with names that don't mean anything. "charlton.mp4" "untitled.mp4." "melissa.mp4"
I replied with an email asking "How am I supposed to know which of these videos goes with which kiosk?" How do you end up with most of a bachelor's degree like this?
- Only using "smart" devices for all your life leads to not knowing shit about file names and folder structures. Who would have thought ...
- Nepotism.

That narwhals are real. Partner thought they were mythological like unicorns.
Honestly, it was funny but somewhat understandable.
- I didn't know jackalopes were fake until I was 30
- mythological like unicorns
  That's silly. Everyone knows they are unicorns, driven into the sea by the Red Bull
  
  driven into the sea by the Red Bull
  There were some unicorns that joined forces with the Red Bull. This union is what created the alicorns.
  
  I thought they were rescued by Amalthea-- but maybe some of them liked living in the ocean by that point and hung back
- Nobody say it. You're better than that.
- Someone had to explain to me relatively recently that buffaloes don't have wings. And by the same best friend of mine who thought chocolate milk comes from chocolate cows.
- Unicorns are also real.

Women have three holes down there, not two. To be fair to him, the only women in his life he lived with for any length of time was his mother who was extremely private about all bathroom stuff and hid all her monthly items.
- Lol, it took me until I was 12 to figure that one out. I always thought women had cloacas, like birds. Turns out that a curious kid with an aging encyclopedia and parents that absolutely did not want to talk about biology are a bad combination.
- I had the same experience once, but I was explaining it to a woman. I'm a guy.
- tbf one doesn't really tend to think of urethras as a hole, like i don't consider penis-wielders to have 2 holes down there, that just feels wrong.
  also fun fact: dicks can have 2 holes, i think the second one is usually more of a deep indentation though, not functional.

I didn't have to explain it, but I found myself in a situation where I was informing a grown woman that fish are indeed animals.
- Oh, that reminds me of when I had to explain to my mother that my then girlfriend was vegetarian and that, no, chicken do count as meat.
  
  That sounds like a vestige from the Catholic habit of not eating meat at times, so the definition of "what's meat" got really specific and excluded things like fish and chicken.
- Did she respond saying your explanation sounded fishy?

Just before the US election, I had to explain to a coworker that JD Vance was not going to be Kamala Harris’ VP and vice versa. I knew this person for 9 years, never thought they were a genius or anything but damn, I was dumbfounded when she asked if I could believe it, I think she has always thought whichever side wins has to take the other sides VP. I immediately lost a lot of hope for us that day.
- That is almost how it used to work. For several decades in the US the winner of the general election became the president, and the loser became the VP. The theory was that would cause the parties to work together. I don't remember why or when we changed that.
  
  I think it was "runner up became VP." Because there were supposed to be multiple candidates, not just two and only two parties.
  Might have worked with a ranked choice system.
  
  I don't remember why or when we changed that.
  When: almost immediately (there were basically only two elections that worked that way, in 1796 and 1800).
  Why: because political parties became a thing.
  It's too bad, IMO. They should've outlawed political parties instead.
  
  the loser became the VP
  I bet when the one party became the Sith they needed to change the rule. We remember Mr Trump (allegedly) telling people to murder his own VP on January 6, and that kind of backstabbery doesn't work well with regular governments.
  
  it does make assassinations more likely

I was in my late twenties when I learned that the numbers on a toaster are simply time and not degrees of toastiness.
- They are toastiness if your toaster is automatic beyond belief
  
  What a find! Will watch that properly later.
- Which is why if the toaster is already hot when you put in a fresh slice of bread, that time will give you extra toastiness vs the same time starting with a cold toaster.
  
  Some smarter toasters apparently have compensation for this.
- Time yes, but not minutes.
  https://youtu.be/gN_PK5pXmIY
- I was precisely today years old.
  
  How does one become 2025-04-09 years old? What does that feel like?
- https://youtu.be/gN_PK5pXmIY
- That isn't always true! Some toasters have sensors to detect how dark the bread is.
  ... but most just use timers :(
  
  ICE are using the same tech
- They're both.

That South Africa is a country. And Northern Ireland is not. To be fair, she was always up front about her knowledge of geography being abysmal.
- Also to be fair... Southern Africa is a thing and not a country.
- ...I thought Northern Ireland was a country.
  
  Well, it's a country in the same way Scotland isn't. I think it'd be better referred to as Ulster so as not to confuse it with the Nation of Ireland or the island named Ireland.
  On that note:
  Fuck the (modern day) IRA. They're terrorists, stop pretending they're freedom fighters. Even though I've met a couple of former IRA members, who were nice people, I do not condone intentionally hurting civilians. Mountbatten, on the other hand, can get fucked with an explosive chainsaw... and he did.
  Ulster belongs to Ireland (the nation)
  I have no skin in the game as I am not Irish. I'll defer to actual Irish people whether this is the "correct" stance to take.
- I think countries are going to be a matter of pride and interpretation. There are a number of territories I'd defend their assertion of that they're their own countries.
  Long live Pitcairn!

I once had to explain the concept of having multiple Internet browser tabs to an elderly woman. She was certain nobody else could ever manage accessing a webpage AND their email at the same time, and was angry at our 2fa system for requiring that.
Another time I had to explain to my romantic partner at the time that winter actually lasts from the 21st of December through the 20th of March. He was convinced that winter coincided with the Christmas season, and that spring started on January 1st.
- that's why i consider our calendar to just objectively be bad, why would the year start randomly slightly halfway through the winter? surely the obvious choice is either having new year's on the winter solstice so the year starts when things get brighter, or having new year's roughly when winter tends to end?
  
  I've always felt that one of the solstices being the start of the year was the obvious answer, I always went for summer just because that feels like the better time to throw a party outdoors for it.
- I fix my grandmother's printer connection ever few weeks and she thinks I should work for geek squad because I'm some kinda tech genius. No grandma, thanks but no thanks. She prints out pages that she saves so she can look at them any time. She also only has a laptop...

How to make a call using a land line phone. That made me feel very old.
- Push-button phone or (gasp) rotary?
  
  Just regular push button. He dialed the number and then just stared at the phone waiting for it to do something. Hand set was still in the cradle.
  
  Use either the same way by just using the button/cradle for the handset.
- I've also heard that kids have difficulties with reading analog clocks.
  
  Honestly makes me wonder if kids have trouble reading gauges in their cars
  
  That's an older one tho, most places had already transitioned to mainly digital when I was in school many many moons ago, I can read an analog clock but it takes a minute to think about it, whereas I'd assume being more ingrained you'd be much quicker at telling the time.
- One of my favorite games did an update themed around 1999. The number of times I had to explain the concept of a pager...
  it wasn't even that long ago! I can't be old yet!

I had to explain what "first Tuesday after the first Monday" meant to my cousin's baby daddy. Give you zero hints who he ended up voting for.
- Ok I'll bite. I don't understand.
  
  In murica the presidential election vote is held every four years. Notoriously on the first Tuesday after the first Monday(read the day after people pay attention)

That wood glue used to be made from horse bones and that, yes, the horse dies. Another I had to explain the correlation between 1 cube meter, 1000 liters and 1 ton.
- And one calorie is the energy needed to raise one gram of water by one degree Celsius. God I hate the Imperial system.
  
  And that the calories listed on food are actually kilocalories.
- The gelatin in Jello used to be made from horse hooves. It may still be.
- How different could bones between animals be that you can't make wood glue from other animals' bones?
  
  You can. It's made from bones and connecting tissue if animals.
  There's also non-animal based proteins that can be gels and glues, for vegans.

Convincing my doctor that I had an inguinal hernia and not varicoceles when I had a half-apple sized lump in my left groin. I'm with a new doctor now.
- What do you call a person who graduates last in their class for a medical degree? "Doctor."
  
  Obligatory (at the right time code!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=notKtAgfwDA&t=63s
- The state-sponsored medical professionals where I used to live were so inexperienced it was scary. I had a group appointment once, and we described basic symptoms of the condition known as EHS or Exploding Head Syndrome, which are fairly common in certain forms, and I swear the person there looked like she was going to come out of her skin because she didn't know what EHS was and so it came off to her like "casual schizophrenia" (nobody in my family has that issue). It was kind of funny though seeing her reaction.
  With all due respect to them since they aren't technically bad in what they do, if you have a doctor from another part of the world (this one was from Pakistan), do quiz them.

I told me biss that i have agave syrup for margaritas and as a hiney substitute for when i have vegan friends over. He asked why vegans have a problem with hiney since insects aren't animals. I wasn't sure how to respond to that other than saying they absolutely are, so he googled it and had his kind absolutely blown
- hiney
  Since you wrote this twice, I feel it is my duty to mention that hiney is a synonym for buttocks.

I didn't know it at the time but I went to college with a guy who's a flat-Earther. I exchanged a handful of messages with him online about it and gave up trying to convince him. Not sure why I even thought I had a chance. I feel bad for his kids.
- I’ve sincerely always believed that they’re trolling us and don’t actually believe that. I don’t suppose he was being sarcastic?

That clouds don't come from cloud machines and that the earth is round.
- There's a nuclear power plant on the route between our house and our parents' houses. When we were driving by it we told our kids that it was a cloud maker.
  Technically not wrong.
- ~~No, they come from people dreaming.~~

Anytime someone brings up piracy.
- The kind with parrots?
  
  Is there a kind that hasn't had parrots?

the Philippines is not in South America

Not 100% applicable but today I was catching up on Handmaids Tale and googled a bit of plot I couldn't remember and Google's little auto generated Q&A bit had stuff like
"Why did June kill Commander (spoiler)"
And
"Why do women dislike Serene Joy"
The fuck? People don't understand? Or just another reason to fear dumbass AIs?
- I’d rather think these are people who remember there are these figures but not what their intentions were etc.
  Or students who get a chance to look it up while writing a test on it.
  I was supposed to read it.