A Pot of Tea - and a Stamp!

K80_Black · 10 July 2018 at 10:57AM

My little sister managed to get to University (a good one too!) before knowing what a tin opener was and how to use one. She bought some beans and then had to email asking 'erm... it doesn't have a ring pull, how do you open them?!', since we'd always had the ring-pull kind at home.

LameWolf · 10 July 2018 at 11:30AM

maman wrote: »

I'm guessing that most people use post codes to put into sat nav although you'd need more specific information to find an exact address. There are websites too where you can put in postcodes to plan journeys.

Ah yes, of course.... thank you.
I've never used a SatNav; I have used G00gle Maps on the pc (I don't have a smartphone), but I always input the first bit of the address to find the route.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

But reading a map - and trusting somebody to read a map for you - that's rarer now, as so many have been convinced that only Sat Nav can do it properly. Yeah, OK. Except for when you know it's near to milking time, that the stable marked a quarter of a mile down is probably taking kids out because it's half past 9 on a Saturday morning, that the street full of pubs on the day of an England match probably isn't a good idea to drive down - or when the mobile signal dies...

*Raises hand* We still use paper maps to find our way. Currently, the usual thing is for Mr LW to drive, and I sit with a printout of the route we've actually planned (see my comment above, replying to maman) and the trusty map book so that if we have to/choose to divert, I can get us back on track quickly.

ETA: We also still have Micros0ft's Autoroute 2005 software.

Hopeless_Case · 10 July 2018 at 11:58AM

SatNav is a bugbear of my OH, although he uses it himself, but it's when people totally rely on it and don't have any sort of mental map of where they are going, which I guess he got in 20 years of travelling the country using maps! I suppose he feels you should still look at the route on a map, albeit google maps, and get an understanding of where you're going, rather than just 'take the third exit at the roundabout' and end up in a field :rotfl:

The funniest one we had was when we drove in France but didn't have the European maps on the SatNav - we did have a paper map, but the SatNav kept piping up with helpful advice like 'In 25 miles keep left' :rotfl:

My mum always made rice pudding from scratch but we never had semolina, and my OH introduced me to tinned semolina, and then at some point many years later, I had a light bulb moment and realised that it must be possible to make that too :rotfl:

Savvy_Sue · 10 July 2018 at 1:37PM

pollypenny wrote: »

What the heck is a 'duke box'?

Juke box? I'm guessing ...

littlegreenparrot · 10 July 2018 at 3:31PM

I remember having a moment of clarity in my late teens when I realised people could make pastry from scratch.
It had genuinely never occurred to me that it didn't just come out of the freezer!

purpleivy · 10 July 2018 at 3:54PM

vulpix wrote: »

Agree to all the above.Would like to add washing up instead of a dish washer,cooking in general,and mopping a floor with mop and bucket.Witnessed my 16 year old mopping the floor the other day!She just randomly jabbed the floor with a sopping mop,and she mops the floor at work in a cafe!

My daughter is a Guide Leader. Sometime ago she heard the girls clearing up in the kitchen, discussing how they had learned to wash up at Brownies! They didn't know the right cloth to use for which job or how to use a peeler.

Mind you, she got very frustrated to find her friend using a teatowel to mop up beer!

Callie22 · 10 July 2018 at 6:27PM

K80_Black wrote: »

My little sister managed to get to University (a good one too!) before knowing what a tin opener was and how to use one. She bought some beans and then had to email asking 'erm... it doesn't have a ring pull, how do you open them?!', since we'd always had the ring-pull kind at home.

My brother once asked me 'how do you know when toast is done?'

I have to admit I was a bit stumped at that one as it just is!

Slinky · 10 July 2018 at 7:17PM

I'm always astonished when I read about people not able to use a washing machine. Most of them seem to have come from homes where 'somebody' did the washing, but they've never paid any attention to it. I grew up in a house without a machine and everything was washed by hand. When I finally got my hands on my own machine, it wasn't rocket science working out how they work!

GreyQueen · 10 July 2018 at 8:27PM

It's their future housemates/ partners I feel sorry for. Even in the 1980s when I was in flatshares, there were some folk who'd had Mummy (or Mummy and the daily help) do everything for them and they were beyond clueless and flipping annoying to share living quarters with.

Parents, don't condemn your offspring to unpopularity, housetrain them before they reach puberty, the world will thank you for it!

monnagran · 10 July 2018 at 10:14PM

When I went to Teacher Training College in the mid 50s we had a lot of girls who had come from the top public schools. Obviously they came from very wealthy families and had absolutely nothing to do with life below stairs. To say they didn't know how to boil an egg was putting it mildly. I swear some of them had never picked up a saucepan in anger.

We lower orders coming from home and grammar schools spent a lot of time teaching them a few domestic skills.
They were fascinated by our economies. One girl actually asked how much grant we got. When we told her she was horrified and said that she spent more than that on perfume and how did we make it last a week. When we told her it had to last a whole term she almost passed out.

We returned to our demonstration of how to scramble an egg. I often wondered how she managed on a teacher's salary. £29 a month when we first qualified, typists earned more.

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A Pot of Tea - and a Stamp!

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