Volume High, Intelligence Low

I live in a flat near a woman who disturbs the whole block of flats with her very loud music. When we can’t stand it any longer, a group of us go to ask her to turn it down a bit. Because the music is so loud, it takes a lot of banging on her front door to get her attention. When she finally answers, we can’t talk to her because the music is still far too loud.

I push past her, go into her flat, and turn the volume down so we can talk to her. She looks very surprised.

Woman: “How did you do that?”

I’m a bit slow on the uptake here.

Me: “What?”

Woman: *Very puzzled* “How did you make it go quieter? I have been annoyed by it being too loud since I got it.”

I’m very perplexed, as we all are.

Me: “You just turn the volume control knob and it goes lower.”

Woman: *Even more puzzled* “What’s a volume control knob?”

After a demonstration, she finally came to understand that she could use the volume control to turn the loudness up or down. It appears that no one had ever told her that there was such a thing as a control to change the volume. She thought it was set at one loudness and she had to make do with it.

She still sometimes has her music a bit loud, but it’s nothing like it used to be, and now she can turn it down when we ask her to.