Don’t be like Chatty Cathy

By Heather Billings | January 17, 2008

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Why do women insist on talking to each other across bathroom stalls? It’s rude, and people tend to bare their stupidity for the whole commode to hear.

The other day I was in a powder room on campus when a pair of chatty ladies entered and one occupied the stall on either side of mine.

“Hey,” said Chatty Cathy to her friend, “what’s ‘purseels’?” The last word was said uncertainly.

“P-purcels?” asked Talking Tina. “What?”

“This shelf says, ‘For your purse and pur-par-parcels.’ What’s ‘parcels’?” In some of the older ladies’ rooms on campus, there are fold-down shelves marked this way.

“Parcels?” said Tina. “I … I dunno.”

It’s certainly not the first time I’ve encountered a stunning lack of knowledge. Not too long ago, I confided in a friend about my nervousness about riding in a national horse show. It was in Ohio that year.

“Isn’t Ohio, like, near Massachusetts?”

Right.

It’s not just students, either. A friend of mine told me about her English professor’s demand that students bring flash drives to class to save work on. Not thumb drives, the prof said, not travel drives — flash drives.

Apparently, there’s a difference.

Tina and Cathy, if you’re out there reading, a “parcel” is a package or bag or other miscellaneous bulky item, sometimes large, sometimes small. In it might be a flash drive — the same thing as a travel drive or a thumb drive — and it might be from Ohio, a state not very close at all to Massachusetts.

The point is almost moot, though. Those shelves never hold parcels very well at all.

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Comments

15 Responses to “Don’t be like Chatty Cathy”

    Whatever:
    January 17th, 2008 1:32 pm

    In response to your first line, I have another question:

    Why do amateur newspaper columnists feel the need to proclaim how incredibly intelligent and worldly they are?

    If you’re so damn smart, you should revel in it quietly and feel bad for the less enlightened. Instead, you repeatedly write pseudo-stories proclaiming how great you are.

    Even if you are intelligent, you seem to be severely lacking tact.

    Not everyone arrives at such profound intelligence.

    Heather Billings
    Heather Billings:
    January 17th, 2008 2:41 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment

    “Feel bad for the less enlightened”? It’s not my fault they slept through school. I don’t claim to be Einstein, but I am at least as smart as a fifth-grader.

    Whatever:
    January 17th, 2008 2:53 pm

    But what is the point of proclaiming this on a public Web site?

    Your blogs seem to serve no purpose other than stroking your ego.

    Heather Billings
    Heather Billings:
    January 17th, 2008 6:39 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment

    As I said in my previous comment, I’m not trying to make myself look better than others. I’m saying it’s ridiculous that this level of ignorance in colleges is tolerated. If you disagree, that’s not my problem.

    In my last blog, I talked about my absent-mindedness. Hardly stroking my ego.

    Whatever:
    January 17th, 2008 8:35 pm

    Whatever. I’d get bored if you stopped replying.

    Assuming that anyone would want to read about your absent-mindedness suggests an ego problem if you ask me, though.

    Heather Billings
    Heather Billings:
    January 17th, 2008 9:10 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment

    And I’d get bored with no one to banter with.

    So any time someone uses a personal example to make a point, that’s a sign of a big ego? To use an example we’re all painfully familiar with, professors who tell colorful stories of their pasts are often much more interesting than those who are all theory and textbooks.

    Whatever:
    January 17th, 2008 10:49 pm

    And what is this point you speak of?

    Benjamin Baxter:
    January 18th, 2008 9:29 am

    The Collegian Staff Comment
    Future Squirrel Stuffer

    Fight! Fight! Fight!

    Heather Billings
    Heather Billings:
    January 18th, 2008 3:05 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment

    Whatever: Nice way to dodge my question; however, my point is that people should think before they speak.

    Ben: Your money had better be on me.

    Whatever:
    January 18th, 2008 5:13 pm

    You dodged my question! Of course it’s fine to use examples to make a point. However, I don’t think your “example” made a point. It’s just some lame anecdote.

    I might as well start posting stories in the comments section about taking a dump this morning and seeing remnants of raisins and carrots. That’s actually more interesting, I think.

    Whatever:
    January 18th, 2008 5:27 pm

    Those girls thought long and hard before speaking, they just didn’t know the answer.

    Anyone can look up what a word means or where a state is located.

    While embarrassingly lacking knowledge in these cases, they could have been rare instances and don’t necessarily equate to someone being an idiot. And I’d say Ohio is actually sort of near Massachusetts on a map.

    But Almighty Billings has spoken! Don’t admit to not knowing something around her or it’s going in the school newspaper!

    Think before speaking. What would have been a better answer? “Hold on, let me look that up.”

    Benjamin Baxter:
    January 18th, 2008 5:59 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment
    Future Squirrel Stuffer

    I brought popcorn. That’s all I’ll say on the matter.

    Heather Billings
    Heather Billings:
    January 18th, 2008 5:59 pm

    The Collegian Staff Comment

    Actually, I directly answered your question. You just seem to be as fond of my answer as I am of public idiocy. There really is no excuse for being that uneducated, even in the California public school system.

    Whatever:
    January 19th, 2008 12:34 am

    Then my initial response was correct. You have an ego issue and enjoy putting others down for being seemingly less intelligent than yourself.

    What you gain from writing a column like this? Well I guess I just explained it.

    Charles W. Frank:
    February 20th, 2008 11:26 pm

    KUDOS!!!

    It is not lacking tact, but the power of accurate observation which some simply have not got.

    If you got it, flaunt it, and if not … hide from those of us who appreciate perspective on what the world is coming to.

    Take note, for instance, Ben Baxter’s notes on the meaning of higher education in context of life at large (last semester, Fall 2007). I’m sure every naysayer here would have objection to his observations (there were a few, but not as many as here; or at least it shows that people react to direct criticism better than they do to shrouded hints at what is and is not contextually right and proper for a “college education” – which those of lesser intelligence would not get in the first place, but take as hollow, shallow advise rather than criticism).

    Key here: Look at it all (criticism) as constructive rather than taking personal offense and being destructive (self and towards others’ perspective).

    I’m sure the author did not mean to be condescending … well … actually, yes … and I share the author’s opinions on things such as this.

    As I like to say, and yes, you can call me egotistical or an elitist …

    “Not too bright …”
    “About as smart as a brick …”
    “Not the brightest star in the sky, eh?”

    Oh, and my favorite …
    Grow a brain stem!

    I find the whole trend behind lowering standards from 90% to 85% for an “A” disturbing at best. It allows people with lacking and less than < intelligence to skirt through and create job competition in a job market that is already tough enough having to compete with employers who appreciate easily controlled people via ignorance, incompetence, or outright idiocy. (Reference, read such books as “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, and follow-up on industrial revolutionary history into today’s present standards of expendable employment versus employees as assets for long-term growth and development versus short-term gains and profits – we are degrading everything our parents and their parents generation worked so hard to bring to our now fruitless tables.)

    KUDOS to Ben for inciting a fight.
    KUDOS to Heather for holding true.

    Boo Hoo to “Whatever” for not publicly sharing his/her name.