The dumbest family in America

[samhexum]

I was watching family feud while waiting for a dental cleaning today. They got up to the final round and the first woman came out and with her five answers she got a total of 30 points, partly because when she was asked name a country known for its beautiful scenery, she replied Paris. Then the next person came out, who I think may have been her mother, and for the same question, she answered London.

[maninsoma]

I try to cut people on game shows some slack because they are usually playing a game under time pressure and they aren't used to being on TV, but it is amazing sometimes how stupid people's answers can be.  Perhaps the most embarrassing one I saw was the second person not being able to come up with good answers for any of the questions, losing the family the money, when the first person's answers had earned them over 180 points.  Surely that family assumed they were going to win the money with so few points left to earn, so I can only imagine the disappointment they felt by the second person failing to come up with one decent answer.

Edited Thursday at 01:08 PM by maninsoma

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

9 hours ago, samhexum said:

I was watching family feud while waiting for a dental cleaning today. They got up to the final round and the first woman came out and with her five answers she got a total of 30 points, partly because when she was asked name a country known for its beautiful scenery, she replied Paris. Then the next person came out, who I think may have been her mother, and for the same question, she answered London.

This is why it's useless to give women drivers a map.

[+ José Soplanucas]

21 minutes ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

This is why it's useless to give women drivers a map.

It is useless to give ME a map. Up to the universalization of smart phones and GPS, I would get lost in the DMV continuously. I would stop, park somewhere, and deploy several maps to try to find my way. The old tough times.

When I sold my car last July, I found out those maps were still there, growing mold in a trunk corner.

[+ sync]

5 minutes ago, José Soplanucas said:

It is useless to give ME a map. Up to the universalization of smart phones and GPS, I would get lost in the DMV continuously. I would stop, park somewhere, and deploy several maps to try to find my way. The old tough times.

When I sold my car last July, I found out those maps were still there, growing mold in a trunk corner.

I can relate.  The first time I drove into DC everything was fine until I tried to leave.  I drove endlessly and repeatedly returned to the same location from which I began.  I thought I was in the Twilight Zone.  After asking several random pedestrians I was able to find my way to the Baltimore tunnel and vowing to never again drive into DC.

[mike carey]

24 minutes ago, sync said:

I can relate.  The first time I drove into DC everything was fine until I tried to leave.  I drove endlessly and repeatedly returned to the same location from which I began.  I thought I was in the Twilight Zone.  After asking several random pedestrians I was able to find my way to the Baltimore tunnel and vowing to never again drive into DC.

Interesting, I've driven around the periphery, Annapolis to Dulles. From National and Arlington to points south, Alexandria, across the river on the beltway, and back up to the former Bolling AFB and back to Crystal City, but I don't remember driving through the city itself. Parts I went weren't too difficult, but none of that recent. Maybe there was drama but the recollections of have faded. I wonder whether I should hesitate to try driving there again!

[wsc]

10 minutes ago, sync said:

I can relate.  The first time I drove into DC everything was fine until I tried to leave.  I drove endlessly and repeatedly returned to the same location from which I began.  I thought I was in the Twilight Zone.  After asking several random pedestrians I was able to find my way to the Baltimore tunnel and vowing to never again drive into DC.

The first time I drove to DC I stayed at the Sheraton Carlton (now the St. Regis) at 16th and K streets. When I checked out and was waiting for my car to be brought from the garage, I asked the doorman for directions to get to I-95 South and back to Virginia. I didn't understand his directions very well as he was making reference to street names and places I wasn't then familiar with. Too embarrassed, perhaps, I didn't ask for clarification. The result was: I circled the White House three times, each time from a different direction. I went the wrong way for block on a street I couldn't find again with a compass and a boy scout. I managed to cross the Anacostia river into SE DC and received very odd looks from the native inhabitants ("What does that Cracker think he's doing?"). While there, I passed a police station with a parking lot holding at least 30 marked police cars and surrounded by a 10-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire. I thought that either this was only half of their allotment and the rest were out patrolling, or this was their complete allotment and they didn't bother to patrol because it was too dangerous. Either way, I took no comfort from what I'd seen. And I was at 1/8 of a tank of gas. I retain only dim and indecipherable impressions of how I got home but still remember the feeling of trauma I experienced.

[+ José Soplanucas]

46 minutes ago, sync said:

I can relate.  The first time I drove into DC everything was fine until I tried to leave.  I drove endlessly and repeatedly returned to the same location from which I began.  I thought I was in the Twilight Zone.  After asking several random pedestrians I was able to find my way to the Baltimore tunnel and vowing to never again drive into DC.

 

5 minutes ago, wsc said:

The first time I drove to DC I stayed at the Sheraton Carlton (now the St. Regis) at 16th and K streets. When I checked out and was waiting for my car to be brought from the garage, I asked the doorman for directions to get to I-95 South and back to Virginia. I didn't understand his directions very well as he was making reference to street names and places I wasn't then familiar with. Too embarrassed, perhaps, I didn't ask for clarification. The result was: I circled the White House three times, each time from a different direction. I went the wrong way for block on a street I couldn't find again with a compass and a boy scout. I managed to cross the Anacostia river into SE DC and received very odd looks from the native inhabitants ("What does that Cracker think he's doing?"). While there, I passed a police station with a parking lot holding at least 30 marked police cars and surrounded by a 10-foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire. I thought that either this was only half of their allotment and the rest were out patrolling, or this was their complete allotment and they didn't bother to patrol because it was too dangerous. Either way, I took no comfort from what I'd seen. And I was at 1/8 of a tank of gas. I retain only dim and indecipherable impressions of how I got home but still remember the feeling of trauma I experienced.

Gracias, amigos. You made me feel better about myself.

To add to my embarrassment, not only would I get lost when driving. Everytime I would take Metro and walk out to the surface, I needed to walk at least up to a corner to get oriented, and most times I would walk towards the wrong corner, walking back once I realized I was heading in the wrong direction. This was so bad that I started to follow a new rule: if my fucked up sense of orientation would tell me to go one way, I would choose instead to go the opposite. It would work most times. 

[56harrisond]

11 hours ago, samhexum said:

I was watching family feud while waiting for a dental cleaning today. They got up to the final round and the first woman came out and with her five answers she got a total of 30 points, partly because when she was asked name a country known for its beautiful scenery, she replied Paris. Then the next person came out, who I think may have been her mother, and for the same question, she answered London.

Based on a lot of people I see in public, those two responses would get points 🙃

[+ azdr0710]

I'm sure this looked pretty on paper in 1800

[MsgFantasy]

The OP must have never worked in customer service in America🤣…

[+ sync]

3 hours ago, mike carey said:

Interesting, I've driven around the periphery, Annapolis to Dulles. From National and Arlington to points south, Alexandria, across the river on the beltway, and back up to the former Bolling AFB and back to Crystal City, but I don't remember driving through the city itself. Parts I went weren't too difficult, but none of that recent. Maybe there was drama but the recollections of have faded. I wonder whether I should hesitate to try driving there again!

You likely have a keen sense of direction for which I envy you.  It is a great asset.

[maninsoma]

4 hours ago, MsgFantasy said:

The OP must have never worked in customer service in America🤣…

Here's one of my favorite customer service stories from over 40 years ago now.  I'll cut out as many extraneous details as possible while still having the story make sense.

I worked in a call center and one of the most frequent problems called in was that a power supply had burned out.  In order to trouble shoot the issue before a service tech was dispatched, we'd ask the customer to feel the power supply to see if it was warm.  A cold supply meant it had burned out, and the customer had the option of driving to the office to exchange it or wait for a service call (which was frequently a few days away).  Well, I set up a service call for one woman but she called me back after about an hour to tell me that her problem might not be her power supply because she had put it in her oven on low for the past hour and even though it warmed up, her cable box still didn't work!

[jeezifonly]

Sometimes dumbth is a singular trait, and sometimes it's congenital. Incurious people attract one another, and often mate and produce children who are then raised without curiosity in the home. Popular culture has found multiple ways to make intelligence and critical thinking uncool traits to develop on one's own. Now that everyone has a shot at appearing on TV or YouTube, willful ignorance is finally getting a more accurate representation of its prevalence in the US. 

Dumbth

Edited Thursday at 11:41 PM by jeezifonly