Sometimes I take my cache of knowledge for granted
Several years ago I made a post ruminating about the store of rather esoteric knowledge I have stuffed in my brain. It got to the point where people refused to play Trivial Pursuit with me and I can pretty much hold my own at Jeopardy, too.
I'm not saying I'm smarter than other people, because the accumulation of facts can have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but I do realize that I'm more well read than quite a few of the people I interact with on a daily basis.
Yesterday some people were talking in the break-room. Some of them own property that's semi-country and have large gardens or small farm animals. The subject somehow came around to chickens and another lady said she found out that it's legal to own chickens in the city. I already knew that. Probably 30 years ago I looked into the possibility when I lived in suburban Kansas City. You can (or you could then) own a certain number of chickens in the city proper as long as their permanent dwelling was a minimum of 50 feet from a human dwelling. Very feasible in a regular size lot in my neighborhood. (Not enough room for goats, though. They require 100 ft ; ) Anyway, the same woman said that even though you could own chickens, you couldn't own a rooster. "What," she asked, "can you do with chickens but no rooster?" So I told her...have eggs. "How can you have eggs without a rooster?" Any hen can lay eggs, they're just infertile and can't turn into chicks without a rooster to fertilize them. This seem to be news to probably 95% of the people present.
OK, this is still pretty much on the esoteric side, because unless you've specifically looked into it, it's not something you're likely to just run across.
But I seem to have become the destination for people wanting unusual questions answered. I think it began with the woman who called to me across the break room about a year ago. I heard her tell the others "Dawn'll know." How she came to that conclusion I don't know since we'd never really talked that much. Probably because I'm always reading - slashy fanfic - but she doesn't know that. She asked if Laos was a city in Vietnam. o.O I thought she was joking for a moment but I realized she wasn't. OK, not so esoteric. "No, it's a country in Southeast Asia that borders Vietnam."
*
"Dawn, which is bigger, a brown bear or a grizzly bear?"
"A grizzly bear is a brown bear. It's just a subspecies. A Kodiak is also a brown bear but they live near coast with plentiful salmon and generally get about twice as big as a grizzly."
"Then what's this?" (shows me a picture on her iPhone)
"That's a black bear."
"But it's brown."
"Black bears can be black, brown, cinnamon, cream or white. You can usually tell a grizzly from a big, brown black bear because of the big hump on their shoulder-blades."
*
"Dawn, what's an octogenarian?"
"That's a person in their eighties."
"Then what's geriatric?"
"That's just generally pertains an older person regardless of age."
*
"Dawn, what's that dog that they use to hunt lions?"
"A Rhodesian Ridgeback?"
"That's it!"
*
Last week during the morning meeting the store manager even asked people in general, "Hey, the country that used to be Burma, that's called Mumbai now, right?" Several people pulled out their smart phones but someone said, "Ask Dawn." Everyone looked at me and I said, "Noooo. Close but Mumbai is a city in India that used to be called Bombay. The country that used to be Burma is now Myanmar."
OK, so tell me truthfully, did anyone know all of this stuff? Part of it? Do I just work with a group of spectacularly uninformed people? Or am I kind of freakish? Not that I mind being freakish you understand, I'd just like to know. O.O
I'm not saying I'm smarter than other people, because the accumulation of facts can have absolutely nothing to do with intelligence, but I do realize that I'm more well read than quite a few of the people I interact with on a daily basis.
Yesterday some people were talking in the break-room. Some of them own property that's semi-country and have large gardens or small farm animals. The subject somehow came around to chickens and another lady said she found out that it's legal to own chickens in the city. I already knew that. Probably 30 years ago I looked into the possibility when I lived in suburban Kansas City. You can (or you could then) own a certain number of chickens in the city proper as long as their permanent dwelling was a minimum of 50 feet from a human dwelling. Very feasible in a regular size lot in my neighborhood. (Not enough room for goats, though. They require 100 ft ; ) Anyway, the same woman said that even though you could own chickens, you couldn't own a rooster. "What," she asked, "can you do with chickens but no rooster?" So I told her...have eggs. "How can you have eggs without a rooster?" Any hen can lay eggs, they're just infertile and can't turn into chicks without a rooster to fertilize them. This seem to be news to probably 95% of the people present.
OK, this is still pretty much on the esoteric side, because unless you've specifically looked into it, it's not something you're likely to just run across.
But I seem to have become the destination for people wanting unusual questions answered. I think it began with the woman who called to me across the break room about a year ago. I heard her tell the others "Dawn'll know." How she came to that conclusion I don't know since we'd never really talked that much. Probably because I'm always reading - slashy fanfic - but she doesn't know that. She asked if Laos was a city in Vietnam. o.O I thought she was joking for a moment but I realized she wasn't. OK, not so esoteric. "No, it's a country in Southeast Asia that borders Vietnam."
*
"Dawn, which is bigger, a brown bear or a grizzly bear?"
"A grizzly bear is a brown bear. It's just a subspecies. A Kodiak is also a brown bear but they live near coast with plentiful salmon and generally get about twice as big as a grizzly."
"Then what's this?" (shows me a picture on her iPhone)
"That's a black bear."
"But it's brown."
"Black bears can be black, brown, cinnamon, cream or white. You can usually tell a grizzly from a big, brown black bear because of the big hump on their shoulder-blades."
*
"Dawn, what's an octogenarian?"
"That's a person in their eighties."
"Then what's geriatric?"
"That's just generally pertains an older person regardless of age."
*
"Dawn, what's that dog that they use to hunt lions?"
"A Rhodesian Ridgeback?"
"That's it!"
*
Last week during the morning meeting the store manager even asked people in general, "Hey, the country that used to be Burma, that's called Mumbai now, right?" Several people pulled out their smart phones but someone said, "Ask Dawn." Everyone looked at me and I said, "Noooo. Close but Mumbai is a city in India that used to be called Bombay. The country that used to be Burma is now Myanmar."
OK, so tell me truthfully, did anyone know all of this stuff? Part of it? Do I just work with a group of spectacularly uninformed people? Or am I kind of freakish? Not that I mind being freakish you understand, I'd just like to know. O.O