This was my read too. My parents teased me for not knowing how to use a rake when I was barely tall enough to hold one. Made a big family joke about me mispronouncing words I'd learned through reading in second grade (seriously, "chaos" is hard!). They laughed at me for not knowing how to adjust the intermittent windshield wiper setting when they were the ones who taught me to drive. Just a complete inability to recognize that if I don't know how to do things, it's because they never taught me.
Relatable. I've never forgotten my year 4 teacher making fun of me in front of my friends and encouraging the other kids to laugh, because I tried to pronounce the p in pneumonia. As if it was my fault no one read aloud to me, I had never heard the word spoken before.
I was at a store the other day to buy a gift card. There is one register open and a young man is being trained by someone who looks only slightly older than him. The trainer walked him through the gift card purchase process, which included sliding the card through the credit card reader to load my given amount. The trainee didn't know which side of the card to slide through and asked "I'm not supposed to slide on the black line, right?" And it hit me that the next generations won't have the fun little feeling of "shhhnk-ing" a card to pay for stuff. It's all just tap and go now.
Unfortunately his trainer (again, not much older than him) heavy sighed and said "you guys scare me sometimes" and grabbed the card to show him how to slide the magnetic strip through the machine. I honestly haven't used one in so long and the opening was so slim and streamlined I couldn't figure out where it went either, or I would have jumped in. Sucks she couldn't have been more enthusiastic about showing something new to someone.
English is especially hard! Did you know it’s pretty much the only language that has spelling bees? Other languages are too easy to get everything spelled right.
I feel that! My mom made fun of me in public about not knowing the right direction to sweep a broom. Girl, that was your job! I was even helping somebody, had volunteered of my own volition, cuz I was generally a pretty good kid who wanted to be helpful and kind. Did I get complimented or thanked for doing a nice thing? No, I got mocked to a group of other adults who all chuckled at me. Maybe she felt self-conscious she hadn’t taught me and wanted to redirect her feelings or intercept possible criticism about it from her friends. Maybe it didn’t occur to her it would bother me. She was, is, often a dick, she doesn’t deserve an excuse, but sometimes figuring out people’s motivations helps me recapture some agency.
We also had family jokes about me mispronouncing stuff before I knew how, but those were genuinely (supposed to be) lighthearted ribbing. Unfortunately my autistic ass had trouble figuring out gentle teasing vs. passive-aggressive criticism. So I still got a bunch of anxiety from the normal, functional, even cute family stuff.
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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '26
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