Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic Only in America/Ever Wonder?

Only in America ......do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in America ......do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Only in America .....do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in America .....do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Only in America ......do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.

Only in America ......do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

EVER WONDER ..

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?

Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are almost dead?

Why do banks charge a fee on 'insufficient funds' when they already know there is not enough money?

Why does someone Believe you when you say there are four billion stars; but have to check when you say the paint is still wet?

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard?

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him?

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets?

Whose idea was it to put an 'S' in the word 'lisp'?

If people evolved from apes, why are there still
apes?

Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white?

Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale?

Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator with hopes that something new to eat will have materialized?

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance?

Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try?

How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures?

When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, 'It's all right?' Well, it isn't all right, so why don't we say, 'That really hurt, why don't you watch where you're going?'

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?

In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?

How come you never hear father-in-law jokes?

And my FAVORITE......

The statistics on sanity is that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -
if they're okay, then it's you.

Nice list.

I actually have answers for a couple of these.

I read somewhere that ATMs are all made standard (with braille). There's no way of knowing when it's manufactured if it's going to be put in a drive through, in the bank, or on a street somewhere. So they're all made the same.

Needles for lethal injections are sterilized because it's part of procedure, like any other shot. The person being executed is still a human being, and the law says they have the right to be treated as such.

Now, see there's a logical reason for that! At least, there is for me.

There's a scene in an SG1 episode where the team order a huge meal and then Sam Carter tacks a diet coke to the end of it. The two guys give her a look and she shrugs and says, "I like the taste better."

And I'm leaping up and down on the sofa yelling, "Yes! Yes! Exactly! Finally, someone gets it!"



I hate the taste of regular Coke/Pepsi etc. It's always tasted far too sickly sweet to me. Diet Coke/Pepsi etc is just perfect, however, so I'll always order it - no matter what I'm having to eat.

So.... :p to those comics who don't get that.

LabRat

Personally, I can't stand the taste of artificial sweeteners, including Splenda. Blech! Is it an acquired taste?

Tara

It's definitely an acquired taste, at least for me. At one point, I tried to cut out sodas to avoid the sugar but couldn't so I tried to switch from regular to diet.

The first one I tried was a Diet Pepsi as I heard it was easier to get accustomed to that than Diet Coke when going from the sugary stuff. It was awful and I could barely get down half a can.

It took a while but I finally got used to it. The one drawback, though, is that once you switch, there's no going back. After you get accustomed to diet soda, the real stuff, as Labby says, is way too sickly sweet. So now I can only drink the diet stuff, which is too bad since my previous favorite was Mountain Dew. I can't drink it anymore, sadly, and the diet version isn't very good. Oh well.

I got ruined on milk that way too. At one point, my sister switched to skim milk from whole when we were kids and drinking that stuff was like drinking water, only without the taste.

Once I started drinking skim, I couldn't drink any other kind (1%, 2%, whole). Today, I only have milk with cereal and can't drink it by itself because it tastes eh.

I technically had gestational diabetes with DS [yeah, it was pretty much a bum rap - I had a bad day or something because even when I went carb crazy I never had any problems].

I tried mixing half and half b/c there was no way the diet thing was happening and I could manage to swallow that but barely. I ended up cutting back rather than switching.

As for milk... We do 1% for everyone but babies. I still *prefer* 2% and it's like getting a treat. Skim - can't do it.

Carol

It probably is an acquired taste. I think I took to it so easily because I never really drank original Coke/Pepsi to start with. I may have had the odd one or two, but, being Scottish, the soft drink I had a fondness for, growing up, was always Irn Bru.

So I probably went straight on to drinking the diet versions of Coke/Pepsi when they came out without ever having first build up a taste for the originals. Guess that helped.

Although, OTOH, these days I also drink the diet version of Irn Bru and the original is too sweet for me, so the theory kind of falls apart there because I don't recall having much of a taste transition from the sweet original to the diet version.

Talking of awful tastes though - I'm old enough to have been around when there were no diet versions and I do recall one of the first diet Coke's to come out was something called Tab. Now, that was positively foul. As I recall, it didn't last long and then shortly thereafter they invented new sweeteners which were a lot more pleasant.


LabRat

Does anyone else notice coke tastes different in different countries too?

I like Australian Diet Coke .. but then I had to, like Carol, I had gestational diabetes with my son and was restricted in my options on everything.

However American coke and diet coke is foul. I have no idea what the difference in ingredients is... but blech!

That's true. I heard from friends that Coke we have in Peru tastes different than the Coke from USA. And I've noticed the different tastes between Fanta I've drunk in Peru and the one I drink now (Spain). I like first one better


That's also sooo true. I swtiched into skim milk and light butter (don't know how to call it - this butter is supposed to have less amount of calories). And later when I tried to drink again the whole milk it tasted more thick, the normal butter felt as if I was eating oil (you know, the one you use to fry bistecks), so now I can't eat either in it's normal form not because of the amount of calories but because I don't like them.

Carolyn

Thank you, Labby, for the defense of the Diet Coke drinkers! You're exactly right.

And I'll agree with Roger, once you switch, you're switched. About 10 years ago, we decided to go diet in order to avoid the unreal amount of sugar that's in regular coke. Upon advice from a friend, we quit cold turkey and just started with the diet stuff. Tasted awful at first, but you do get used to it, and regular coke is now ick.

And I've got it even worse -- I'll drink Diet Coke and only Diet Coke. Diet Pepsi just isn't the same thing. If a restaurant only offers Pepsi products, I'll usually go with Sierra Mist. This makes me sad, sometimes, 'cause growing up I only drank Pepsi <g>

Same thing on the milk. We gradually moved down from 2% to 1% to 1/2%, and then gritted our teeth and switched to skim. Now anything else tastes weird (we have the kids on 2%), and I wouldn't even want to *try* drinking whole milk anymore. The colder the better, for me.

So, see there? I'm avoiding tons of sugar and fat a week, just by those changes I got used to years ago. No cost anymore, constant benefit... I'm a lot healthier than I thought I was!

PJ
who never acquired a taste for coffee and now has a DC in the mornings, instead.

I''m another one who prefers the taste of diet drinks. I remember that when I visited the USA the diet coke tasted a bit odd, but not horribly so, compared to what I'm used to. I think that there are different levels of the sweeteners in different countries; excess saccharin in particular can taste awful if you aren't used to it.

Like Pam, I also prefer Diet Coke over Diet Pepsi. Diet Pepsi tastes a little "off" for some reason. I can still drink Diet Pepsi, but it can't be from a can. For some reason Diet Pepsi in a can tastes very different from Diet Pepsi from a different container.

I can't drink most diet drinks, but I've always been a pure-form drinker. No diet for me! I drank diet coke for a month during a Friends bottle cap contest. I quit well before the contest was over because I could NOT drink it anymore. Blech! The only two diet drinks I've been able to handle are diet Dr Pepper and Mt Dew. Those don't taste too far off the original versions.

Because fathers-in-law are usually the ones with the guns.

I thought that was just me! I prefer Pepsi to Coke and we usually get pallets of Pepsi from Costco in bulk. Cans for Stuart and bottles for me and I've always sworn that it tastes different depending on which you drink it from.

BTW, I've always wondered...what does Mountain Dew taste of, exactly?

LabRat

Yes there is a difference between cans/bottles/2L. When Crystal Pepsi came out [um, ew!], I had a friend who could drink it from a 2L but not a smaller bottle or a can.

Carol

I agree in the bottles/cans. I actually like Dr Pepper from the can better than the bottle. It adds a bit of a metallic tang/taste that works well with the soda.

I visited the Coke museum in Las Vegas near the MGM Grand Hotel a few years back. They showed all the different kinds of drinks they had plus all the different flavors of "Coke" in various parts of the world, many of which I'd never heard of (the Coke products, that is), so they do have different formulas for different locales.

They'd have these little fountains with cups you can drink samples, so I got to taste a bunch of various Coke products around the world. I think the museum was gone the last time I was in Vegas. Too bad.

The name changes too in various parts of the world. For instance in Sweden, it's Coke Light. I guess "diet" may have different or negative connotations in the world.

I think they have a similar one in Atlanta. I haven't been there but I've been to Atlanta a few times and I remember hearing about it.

I think DP has one in Texas...

Carol

I know that Mountain Dew (the real stuff, not the unleaded kind) tastes different in the can than it does in the plastic bottles. And it's been too long since I had one in a glass bottle, but I seem to remember that it tasted better than the stuff from the plastic bottle. I guess those aluminum coatings do dissolve in carbonated water and sugar.

Hey, does anyone else remember the old Mountain Dew bottles with the cartoon hillbillies on the side? The old jingle used to go something like "Yahoo, Mountain Dew! (bullet ricochet sound) It'll tickle yore innards!"

Wait a minute, did I just reveal my terminal uncoolness?

I always thought this was funny. It makes me shake my head.


Who ever in the world created that stuff anyway? The Egyptians, maybe? It’s surely not good for our eyes.


My cats would not eat it. They insist on regular Purina dry cat food.


Roaches?


Oh, my gosh, James, that’s hilarious.


One wonders....


Edgar Rice Burroughs must have been a 'gentleman'. He is one of my favorite authors. I also like the John Carter of Mars series.


I love that, James.


And did you know that most people working in mental health have ‘issues’ of their own and that’s why they are drawn to the field? ...Ooops. I gave it away. Your mental health care-givers are crazy. (I hope everyone realizes I'm joking. I wouldn't want anyone to take offense, but when you work in the mental health care field, you have to have a sense of humor - and usually an odd one.)


Darn it, all, then, why is when you go to a different drive-through that the on-screen instructions are often different?


I liked the taste better when the diet drinks were made with saccharin. Now that they have aspartame, I can’t drink them because I get a migraine.


I remember Tab, too. I didn’t like it, but when it went off the market, I knew people that went to great lengths to get it before it ‘ran out’. I had one teacher in school that brought it with her to school long after it was no longer made. I also remember when diet Fresca came out which I think was around the same time. It wasn’t bad. Do you remember cyclomates? I think the drinks with that in it came around before Tab. As I remember, they were pretty good, but then cyclomate got pulled off the market.


Not only different countries, but also with different bottlers. The Coke I get in Kentucky isn’t the same as what I got when I lived in Columbus, Ohio. And has anyone noticed that fountain Coke is usually kind of yucky? I think it tastes like nutmeg.


Does anyone remember ‘New Coke’? Yuck. Coca-Cola quit making ‘The Real Thing’ - that was one of the biggest business faux pas ever.


Do they still use saccharin in Great Britain? Do you need crazy psych nurses there?


A sort-of sweet orangey-lemon flavor with a snappier carbonization.


Bottles are better. Glass bottles were the best. Those miniature glass bottles are just not the same.


Was that Mountain Dew? Or Yahoo? (I can still go to the store and find Yahoo, but I never thought much of it.)


And thanks for the thread, Mr. D8A. I had a good laugh. Hmm... NaNoWriMo???

There's not that much I like to drink. How about a smoothie? Eh, I prefer to eat my bananas rather than drink them. A milkshake, then? Uh, could I have some regular ice cream and eat it with a spoon? What about a carbonated drink? Coke? Diet Coke? Pepsi? Ummmm, could I have some tap water?

Ann

This is so funny and some of them in the case of the first, sad, James. I enjoyed reading this list.

As for the great soda debate, lol, I should say I no longer drink soda period. I only drink a ton of water and it has to be either Sparkletts or Aquafina, so I am picky that way, juice, CHOCOLATE milk, white milk= :p ,hot cocoa, and of course, milkshakes. Oh lol, are Frosty's a drink?

Back to the question at hand, way back when I was younger and especially in high school, I may have been addicted to Pepsi I drank so much of the stuff. No Coke for me, Pepsi all the way as it was sweeter and just tasted better. Can or Bottle? I generally got the cans and have no clue as to whether I prefered it in a bottle. I can say that when I drank Canada Dry Ginger Ale, it had to be in the bottle, the can just was not very appealing to me.

That's that,
Mona

You can't drink the tap water here in Hong Kong despite what people might say unless you want some rust or other nasties with it. We have to buy bottled water (with quality assurance checks). You realise how blessed you are to live in a city where you can just walk to your tap for water when you are forced to learn to live without that luxury. My home in New Zealand, the tap water was sourced from a local spring... nicer than anything you could buy! Oh for those good old days.

Mountain Dew is like a sweeter version of Lift/Mellow Yellow. I actually prefer it to Lift.

Here in Hong Kong they have coke light, diet coke, coke zero, plus 3 or 4 coke 'flavours' on top of the 'regular' variety (which depending on the supermarket you can pick up Hong Kong made, Australian Made, British Made, or US made)... and some things I am not brave enough to try called pineapple fanta and passionfruit fanta.
I'm not a huge fizzy drinker... but I would speculate that the general population here are given the variety (and number of 7-11 stores on almost every corner).

It probably has something to do with how they're programmed, and not much to do with the hardware itself.

I spent fifteen years living in San Diego. Ugh, talk about horrid tap water. It's fine to drink, health-wise, but it tastes awful. So does the water in Los Angeles. Practically everybody has a filter installed on their water system or buys a lot of bottled water. In San Diego, I could do as you say, walk to my tap for water, but I'd rather not.

Fortunately I moved to the great Northwest where the water is actually quite good-tasting. It's actually water, not the sludge that passes for water in southern California!

Have you tried Fiji? It's absolutely wonderful.


I guess that wasn't one of my better attempts at humor, huh?


For the short time I lived in Phoenix, AZ, it seemed that we couldn't drink the tap water there either. Of course, I have no idea if that's still true.

And I probably shouldn't be drinking tap water where I am since there are chemical plants nearby - we have warning sirens for dangerous leaks, have been evacuated (and the 115 pound dog went, too, and he wasn't used to being in a car...), have had to shelter in place, and one day, it took me twice as long to get to work because of a leak that caused nearly all the roads to close. (Oooh... maybe that's too scary to write down - then I have to think about it.)

As someone who lives in SoCal, I agree completely. I can't drink the nasty tasting stuff that comes out of our taps. The taste is the main reason I never drink enough water.

Tara

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
(No, I know the answer. Sun and water combined produce a small amount of peroxide which bleaches hair. The skin produces melanin when it gets too much sun - thus the darkening.)

Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed? (Hey, I can. Never occurred to me to open my mouth while doing so.)

Why don't you ever see the headline 'Psychic Wins Lottery'? (They don't wanna share? They don't participate in lotteries out of ethical reasons? )

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word? (Because it's derived from a Latin word that already has two components and got another one in English?)

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'? (You don't ant to know...)

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons? (Because there is a reason you shouldn't drink too much real lemon juice... to sour.)

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker? (Because, after he got all your money invested, you're likely to be broke?)

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour? (Because everybody *tries* to rush home but it takes an hour longer than it should?)

Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food? (Because no human has ever tasted a mouse, so how could humans produce mouse-flavored cat food? Maybe *you* want to volunteer?)

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes? (Maybe he took the eggs?)

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections? (Out of (medical) habit?)

You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?! (Too expensive?)

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains? (Why don't you? Besides, wool doesn't shrink when it rains, either.)

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together? (Because the walls keep several apartments apart?)

If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress? (You got it! Ah, no, not really. It's contra, not con.)

If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal? (Uh...)

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are almost dead? (Why do we speak louder to someone who doesn't understand our language all that well? Duh!)

Why do banks charge a fee on 'insufficient funds' when they already know there is not enough money? (LOL!)

Why does someone Believe you when you say there are four billion stars; but have to check when you say the paint is still wet? (Checking the paint is easier than counting four billion stars.)

Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? (Maybe he's Asian?)

Why does Superman stop bullets with his chest, but ducks when you throw a revolver at him? (The revolver could discharge at impact?)

Why do Kamikaze pilots wear helmets? (Because they didn't intend to end up as kamikaze?)

If people evolved from apes, why are there still
apes? (Because only one branch of the apes evolved into humans.)

Why is it that no matter what color bubble bath you use the bubbles are always white? (Because there's hardly any liquid in bubbles - and air usually doesn't have a color.)

Is there ever a day that mattresses are not on sale? (Not likely in the near future.)

Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give the vacuum one more chance? (Duh! Because it just got stuck before? Because the vacuum cleaner is nearer than the next bin?)

Why is it that no plastic bag will open from the end on your first try? (Because you don't know how to do it right. You have to blow on the edge. Hard. Then, suddenly, you can open the bag quite easily.)

How do those dead bugs get into those enclosed light fixtures? (The light fixtures are not completely enclosed, there are a few small entrances. The bug gets in, gets fried, end of story.)

When we are in the supermarket and someone rams our ankle with a shopping cart then apologizes for doing so, why do we say, 'It's all right?' Well, it isn't all right, so why don't we say, 'That really hurt, why don't you watch where you're going?' (Because it sounds impolite - and remember what your mother tried to teach you abot politeness.)

Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over? (I don't. Actually, I'm quite good at catching things I sent falling off the table... What can I say? Practice makes perfect.)

In winter why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat? (I don't. Our place is rather cool in summer.)

And my FAVORITE......

The statistics on sanity is that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -
if they're okay, then it's you. (/me mutters about statistics... Only believe in statistics you manipulated yourself.)

Hey, after I read this, I tried putting on mascara without opening my mouth - I succeeded quite nicely. I guess that’s pretty good since historically I’ve been one of the mouth open mascara appliers.


Nope. He’s English and royalty at that. His name is John Clayton, and his title is Lord Greystoke. Edgar Rice Burroughs also called him a Viscount and non-canonical sources called him an Earl. Uhh... More than you wanted to know, right?


Oh, Lara Joelle, your answers were nearly as funny as what James wrote.

Ive wondered about this one for years

Diet Coke and diet Pepsi also taste different in different regions of the USA depending on the water source. Even the diet coke in LA tastes off. Anyone ever try diet Hansons? It's awesome. I love Pomegranate. Which is a clear liquid as they all are no matter the flavor.
This I know the answer to:
It would be too heavy and the plane couldn't fly.
See "tanks" as a reference. But you see, carbon fibers give you the strength without the weight, which is why they are starting to build planes out of it.

Artemis

On the progress/Congress one, does that make a professional the opposite of a confessional, or a profession the opposite of a confession? Maybe a protractor is the opposite of a contractor?

I think you have bananas, Woody.

Protractor vs. contractor: priceless.

Or how about proscribe vs. conscribe?
Or proscript vs. conscript?
And finally, what do you do with a pro con man?
Or is a priest a professional confessional man?