Remedial
Last night I was having a conversation with Cynthia (or
pinkhairedcyn) and we wound up on the topic of vegetables. I told her that I grew up in a fairly archetypal Irish household, meaning that steak and potatoes were a constant at the dinner table. That lead to me saying that potatoes are most likely my favourite vegetable.
After a second of shock and bemusement, Cyn said "But, Michael, potatoes aren't vegetables. They're a starch."
Most people, it seems, come away from a conversation with me having the impression that I'm a fairly smart guy. I like to think that I'm somewhat well-read, witty (but not to the point of being "smarter than you!"), and able to convincingly argue my opinion on any given subject. Then stuff like that comes along, something that most people learned in the third grade, and I'm left coming off as quite dumb.
I moved around more than a little bit as a child. At last count I've had fifteen different places that I was supposed to call home at one point or another in my life. I lived in ten of those places between the time I was born and when I was 10. That's one new home every year, on average. Considering that I lived in two of those places for more than one year each, that means that there's at least two places that I lived at for less than a year.
It was never a problem for me, the moving. I grew to quite like it. New town, new friends, new start. It always gave me things to discover as a child.
There were certain things that slipped through the cracks, though. My early, formative education was terrible. Skipping from school to school, curriculum to curriculum every six months or so lead to me missing out on a good number of things that you're supposed to learn as a child. Never learned the four food groups, didn't get the fifty capitols until I was in the eighth grade, missed all of those books that you read as a child (Treasure Island, the Red Badge of Courage, Last of the Mohicans, what have you) that informed your current reading choices and habits. Hell, that's why I love comics so much; they were the only thing that I could reliably get my hands on as a child.
I long ago stopped caring if I came off as stupid for lacking knowledge of some of these things. I've become accustomed to people having strange reactions to the skills and bits of information that I do and don't have. I must have had fifty people tell me that they would teach me how to ride a bike.
It's actually become kind of fun to discover these things that I missed out on. It seems to feed into that part of me that tries to hold onto the childhood that I never really remember having. When Cyn told me that potatoes weren't considered vegetables, my first reply was "Really?! Well, does corn count? 'Cause I really like corn."
pinkhairedcyn) and we wound up on the topic of vegetables. I told her that I grew up in a fairly archetypal Irish household, meaning that steak and potatoes were a constant at the dinner table. That lead to me saying that potatoes are most likely my favourite vegetable.
After a second of shock and bemusement, Cyn said "But, Michael, potatoes aren't vegetables. They're a starch."
Most people, it seems, come away from a conversation with me having the impression that I'm a fairly smart guy. I like to think that I'm somewhat well-read, witty (but not to the point of being "smarter than you!"), and able to convincingly argue my opinion on any given subject. Then stuff like that comes along, something that most people learned in the third grade, and I'm left coming off as quite dumb.
I moved around more than a little bit as a child. At last count I've had fifteen different places that I was supposed to call home at one point or another in my life. I lived in ten of those places between the time I was born and when I was 10. That's one new home every year, on average. Considering that I lived in two of those places for more than one year each, that means that there's at least two places that I lived at for less than a year.
It was never a problem for me, the moving. I grew to quite like it. New town, new friends, new start. It always gave me things to discover as a child.
There were certain things that slipped through the cracks, though. My early, formative education was terrible. Skipping from school to school, curriculum to curriculum every six months or so lead to me missing out on a good number of things that you're supposed to learn as a child. Never learned the four food groups, didn't get the fifty capitols until I was in the eighth grade, missed all of those books that you read as a child (Treasure Island, the Red Badge of Courage, Last of the Mohicans, what have you) that informed your current reading choices and habits. Hell, that's why I love comics so much; they were the only thing that I could reliably get my hands on as a child.
I long ago stopped caring if I came off as stupid for lacking knowledge of some of these things. I've become accustomed to people having strange reactions to the skills and bits of information that I do and don't have. I must have had fifty people tell me that they would teach me how to ride a bike.
It's actually become kind of fun to discover these things that I missed out on. It seems to feed into that part of me that tries to hold onto the childhood that I never really remember having. When Cyn told me that potatoes weren't considered vegetables, my first reply was "Really?! Well, does corn count? 'Cause I really like corn."