Skyy Vodka had some bottles in little sweaters for Christmas one year. A lady was buying one among other items and wondered aloud in her best Kardashian affectation:

Lady: “Why is there a sweater? Who wants warm vodka? That’s so stupid!” 

Me: “I think that’s so once you take it out of the freezer, the sweater keeps it cold.”

She stared at me for a second or two, mouth open, squinting.

Lady: “Sweaters keep things warm!” 

Not wishing to teach her all about thermodynamics, I said:

Me: “Oh, okay, have a good night!”

Related:
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 17
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 16
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 15
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 14
Thermodynamics, You Take It From Here, Part 13

Manager: “It finally happened! I got one!”

Me: “Got a what?”

Manager: “A flat earther! I thought they were just made up, but my customer was an honest-to-God flat earther!”

Me: “What happened?”

Manager: “They complained about the globes we had on display in the ‘back to school’ section. They said that the globe is a theory and not science so we shouldn’t have it with the educational stuff.”

Me: “Oh, boy. I never understood what a flat earther is supposed to see on a clear day. Shouldn’t they, like, see the Eiffel Tower from here or something?”

Manager: “Flat earthers don’t like having clear days. It’s a sign that their pharmaceuticals are wearing off.”

Related:
They Walk Among Us… And Worse, They Probably Vote 

I’m volunteering as a referee for First Lego League, a competition for mostly middle-school-aged kids building Lego robots to complete various challenges on a table for points.

I try to make things fun for the kids as much as possible; I want the whole experience to be positive enough for the kids to come back next year even if they don’t have a perfect robot after all. We have to wait for all tables to set up before a match can begin, which gives me some time to talk with the kids.

Me: “I have a very important task for you all. They’re going to announce every team’s name before the match. When they say yours, I want you all to cheer louder than any of the other teams. Can you do that?”

Boy: “Yeah!”

The entire team is clearly the loudest and most energetic when their team name is called, with the first boy I talked to being the most energetic of his team.

Me: “You were definitely the loudest. Just for that, I’ll double your starting points.”

Boy: “Really?! He’s going to double it!”

Me: “Do you know what your starting points are?”

Boy: “No, but it’s double!”

Me: “You start with a zero…”

The boy doesn’t seem to hear me. He instead goes to try to tell one of the adults waiting back a little further back where we make coaches and parents wait that we are doubling their score.

Teammate: “I don’t think he’s listening anymore. At least he’s happy.”

We had to start the match about then, so I never did get to clarify things to the first kid. Hopefully, he wasn’t too disappointed when someone finally let him in on the joke.

Related:
Please, Parents, Resist The Urge To Over-Help!
Faith In The Future Of Humanity: Restored!

My wife and I were attending an aquatic theme park with another couple. We were in the aquarium watching the dolphins swim. A boy of about five or six asked his mother a question.

Boy: “How do they hold their breath for so long?”

Mother: “They don’t. They’re fish. They breathe water, just like we do.”

We all looked at each other. Do we say something? Should we comment on how dolphins are mammals that have evolved the ability to hold their breath for long periods? Do we even address the idea that those people breathe water?

We took too long to decide, and they left. I felt bad. That kid is going to have serious problems when confronted with the actualities of life.

I just finished making a set of posters to be printed out as flyers and printed large scale to go onto bulletin boards.

Client: “The posters look great. Can I get you to print out fifty flyers of each and then print out each poster at forty inches by forty inches for the bulletin boards?”

Me: “I can print the flyers right now, but I’ll need some time to recreate the posters to print them forty by forty.”

Client: “Why? Just print them out as is.”

Me: “Well, you asked me to make the posters proportional to an eight-and-a-half-by-eleven sheet of paper so that we could print them off easily as flyers. I just need to adjust the posters so that I can print them out forty by forty.”

Client: “Right, but I like the layout you have now. I would prefer if you just printed them out like this… but forty by forty.”

Me: “Okay. Are you asking me to center this poster and extend the background in order to square the poster?”

Client: “No, I like the poster the way you have it now. I just want you to print it out forty by forty. Like, when you go to print, type forty inches in for the height and forty inches for the width… I can show you if you want.”

Me: “I appreciate that, but that actually isn’t the problem. When I go to print this poster, I can either set the height or width at forty inches but not both.”

Client: “Why not?”

Me: “I made the poster proportional to a sheet of paper.”

Client: “Right.”

Me: “The poster is rectangular…”

Client: “Right, but I need it printed out as a square.”

Me: “Exactly, so all I have to do is recreate the posters to make them square.”

Client: “But I like them like this. I would rather you just print these posters at forty by forty.”

Me: “If I do that, the poster will be distorted.”

Client: “I think it’ll be fine.”

I print out the poster, distorted, at forty inches by forty inches.

Client: “This looks horrible! It’s so stretched that I can’t even read it. I need you to redo this poster.”