62. Makes You Wonder What Else They Get Wrong

I was a combat medic in the army and then bodyguard/medic and I'm now working corporate security. One of our requirements is to be first aid certified. So I had a do a shortish course to be certified. My boss knew I knew far more than required but rules are rules so he told me just go and get it over with.

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61. Shredded The Guitar, Shredded The Salesman

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60. "I Didn't Mean To Intimidate You"

The time when a data analyst explained to me, the main engineer on the project, that I wasn't qualified to comment on anything in the meeting because I was new and didn't know anything. His boss (who later became one of my good buddies) was STUNNED.

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59. MY Great Idea

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58. Shoot The Moon

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57. They Love When I Ogle Them

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56. Under The Bridge

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55. You Don't Even Know What India Is

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54. Thanks For That Insight, Dummy

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53. Poor Chemistry

I have a degree in biochemistry and I invented/published a new method for measuring lifespan in these cells I work with. While setting up to run a tutorial session on how to do it, one of the snarkier students started to "correct me" and explain how to use the method.

Which I invented.

And was literally there to teach him.

52. Uncivil War

Had a friend of a friend explain the causes and effects of the American Civil War to me at a backyard party. I kept trying to take part in the conversation and he kept interrupting me.

Finally our mutual friend, overhearing our conversation / this guy's lecture, leans in and says, "You know she got her grad degree in this, right?"

I'd love to say that learning about my credentials, so to speak, changed the tone or course of our conversation, but it didn't. Somehow it intensified his need to explain very basic things I could literally teach a class on to me. Classic.

51. I'm Not The Tea Lady

50. A Walk On The Wild Side

I am a wildlife rehabilitator but it doesn't stop men from explaining things to me like "ACTUALLY, it's 'O' possum, not possum."

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49. Do You Even Lift, Bro?

I was in session as a personal trainer working with a woman who was training to compete in high-level weightlifting competitions. A guy walks over to us, smiling a vulpine grin.

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48. Mansplaining Auto Repair

I was taking my car in to get the winter tires off. I was between services (and couldn't be bothered to do it myself) so I was getting it done at one of those drive-thru places it might have been a Jiffy Lube.

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47. You're The Real Star

I have a shirt with the constellations on it. It's not an accurate sky map by any means, but I like it. I wore it to the store one day and a man behind me started telling me that the stars were inaccurate and did not form a map of the sky. I turned back to him and explained that the front of the shirt was summer stars and the back of the shirt was winter stars so no, they do not form a continuous map. He stopped talking after that.

46. Oh, You Didn't Know I Worked Here?

This guy I knew from high school thought I was hitting on him in front of my work. I wasn't dressed for work and the doors weren't open yet as the general manager wasn't there.

I was making conversation and asking him if he'd ever been here before. "Ugh, advice for you. Lose some weight, learn how to dress, and have a bank account that would make me strip in front of my own grandmother on command, and maybe then I would consider."

I said excuse me and he only replied by saying, "you heard me," and turned his nose up at me.

The manager was on the phone when he opened the doors and I beelined to the bathroom to change. I stepped out, greeted my crew, and sat down across from the kid to interview him.

It went as poorly as you'd expect. He thought it was a joke and that I was bad at rejection. My manager joined me and asked if we were ready to get this show started. I told him that we were actually done here and that we'd contact him if we were interested. I pulled my manager aside and told him about both exchanges and he said that he didn't want anyone like that working for him.

45. Rock Star

I was working with a scaffold company right after I finished my degree while looking for a job in mining engineering.

We came across some pyrite and one of the guys thought it was gold. I basically explained it’s not because it’s hard, to which he replied, “What are you, some kind of rock specialist?”

My answer was a polite but firm, “Yes.”

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44. Who Wrote This?

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43. Your Goose Is Cooked

I’ve been working in kitchens for over 20 years. Had an owner recently take one look at me, and since I had a lot of tattoos and had a beard at the time, decided because of my looks that I obviously know nothing about cooking and whatnot. It made work a nightmare for me.

This owner had never once worked a day in a restaurant or kitchen and thought he knew everything because he watched the Food Network. His restaurant lost over a million dollars because of his idiot mismanagement. All of us in the kitchen had more years of accumulated experience than he had been alive, yet he didn’t want anything to do with any of our suggestions.

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42. Pour It Directly Into Your Brain

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41. Monster Mash

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40. We're #1 In Internet

My little brother's friend, who has worked in marketing for 6 months, tried to explain how he "cracked" Google's SEO algorithm and could get anything to the front page of Google in a week. I've worked knee-deep in SEO for almost a decade and I still have little to no idea what drives the algorithm other than speculation and trial and error. I just smiled and nodded while he told me image file names play a huge role in page ranking.

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39. F5, FU

Had a cashier get snotty with me when I told him he needed to hit F5 to get back from the credit card screen. He went into a several minute tirade about how he had been using the software for years and that's not how it worked. Then he mumbled something about computers and launched into a tangent about how they log his key presses blah blah blah the servers upstairs blah blah blah connected to the cloud.

I finally had to interrupt him with, "Dude: I helped write this software. Nothing you said it's right." He then stormed off from the register and I just stood there awkwardly until a manager showed up, and pressed F5.

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38. Yeah, But I Googled It!

People "explain" medical things to me on a fairly regular basis. Unless they're being a total jerk, I kind of gently let them know I'm a doctor and re-explain what they said back to them in the right way.

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37. Good Luck With That

As a doctor, the truly bizarre one is when patients try to explain medicine to you... while you're treating them. I was literally responding to a code for a patient who was explaining to me that the key to not getting cancer was her list of natural herbs and remedies. She was in the hospital for cancer.

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36. Failure To Launce

I was getting a drink at an airport bar next to some guys talking about the recent strikes in Syria. The guy said they launched Tomahawks off the aircraft carrier. I spoke up kind of friendly that it was from a carrier strike group not the carrier itself. He said no they launch Tomahawks from the aircraft carrier. I said no they launch tomcats the aircraft off carriers but Tomahawk missiles only launch from destroyers cruisers and subs.

Cue about 5 minutes of him explaining how he knew a guy who was in the Navy and he was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about. Mind you this was a friendly conversation so I got to smile and drop the bomb on him in an all around good way. I was a Tomahawk Fire Controlman in the Navy and helped Launch Area coordinate in the Red Sea during the gas attack crisis.

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35. Skater Hater

I was picked up by an old taxi driver on my way to a skatepark with my skateboard. He rudely demanded to know where I had been skateboarding (nowhere yet, I was on my way to the park). He informed me that if I collided with someone his age on the sidewalk they had an 80% chance of dying from a brain haemorrhage.

I politely informed him that this was unlikely and that I hadn’t been skating on the sidewalk. He then told me to ‘ask anyone in the medical profession’ and they will confirm it.

I then politely informed him that I’m an ER doctor and he changed his manner with me completely and became very respectful and interested once he realized I wasn’t ‘just’ some skater punk.

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34. Thank God You're Here!

We had a few lectures at university given by the head of cardiology at the adjacent hospital. He told us about a time he was waiting to cross the road when a man next to him collapsed. As he knelt down to attend to him, a large lady strode over, physically lifted him (he wasn't a large man) out of her way and said in a loud voice: "I'll take charge, I have a first aid certificate!"

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33. Been There, Done That

"You need to research what aircraft carriers are like before you attempt to write a book about one." - A member of my writer's workshop after reading a scene in which I described an aircraft carrier as "creaking."

I have sailed on the USS Eisenhower.

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32. Everyone Online Is An Expert

A couple days ago, someone online told me how insurance companies work and accused me of spreading "fake news" about my profession. I was sitting at mid-west HQ of one of the largest insurance companies in the USA meeting with their underwriters two hours prior.

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31. fLaT eArTh

A flat earther tried to pull the, "So you think it was easier to get to the moon than fake the footage?"

As a professional VFX artist that knows very much about visual manipulation technology of the past and present, all I could say was: "In my professional opinion, YES!"

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30. Mister Speaker

My friend's brother wanted to install new speakers in his car. The amplifier is rated for 4 Ohms, so "there was no possible way to use these two 8 Ohm speakers because it would blow up the amplifier!"

His dad joined in and argued with me too. Neither would listen to a word I said until I mentioned that I'm 5 years into an electrical engineering degree, have designed and built a handful of amplifiers, and designed and built a dozen guitar speaker cabinets. Their tone totally changed after that.

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29. Boba Fett Over Here

I worked as a private investigators for bail bonds companies for nearly a decade in Texas.

Anybody that's ever been arrested apparently knows more about bail or criminal justice than me, but one of my favorites was when some dumb guy at a bar proceeded to tell me he was a bounty hunter who had caught "hundreds" of criminals.

Here's the rub: bounty hunting is 100% illegal in Texas. Fighting and detaining wanted people is kidnapping. And incredibly stupid.

So I asked him if he knew Jimmy from A1 Bonds in Abilene.

"Oh yeah! Jimmy's good people."

"Jimmy isn't real dude, neither is A1. I just made it up."

He pulls out his phone to try to prove me wrong, scrolls through some Google searches, mutters something about "that's some BS, man," and leaves.

Oh so satisfying.

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28. Let Me Tell You About You

Every once in a while, tech support will pass on an issue to me, and I'll have to listen to a customer try to explain to me how my own program works.

I don't care how many times you tell me that "It won't sync to the cloud" --  an application that doesn't even connect to the internet has never and will never do that.

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27. The Dungeonmaster

I'm a young woman who has been playing Dungeons and Dragons (and similar roleplaying games) since I was a child. Almost two decades now. I've played almost every week in some way or another for the last 10 years. I actually have a side job writing system agnostic content for tabletop role-playing games.

Almost every time I encounter a new group or talk about my interest in a public setting (say a party or something), some dude has to come out of the woodwork and try to explain to me how the game works. I've become very good at casually mentioning how long I've been playing. Usually that gets the hint across but some still keep right on going.

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26. Professor Plumb

When the rotted P-trap under my sink broke, my boyfriend said, "Remind me to take a look at that." I asked, "Why?" He said, "So I can tell you what parts to buy."

I thanked him and reminded him that I'd installed all the plumbing at my mother's house. He knew that, but I guess he'd forgotten.

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25. "He Thinks He's Special Or Something"

One day after work, I was walking through the mall around Christmas, getting some last minute shopping done.

I came across a man who had fallen and was having a seizure. He was bleeding from the back of his head. Another man had grabbed him and was trying to jam a pen into his mouth, ostensibly because of the old wives' tale that you need to keep seizing people from biting their tongues off.​

I jumped in and pulled pen guy's hand away, then cleared and opened the seizing man's airway, being careful not to get my fingers near his mouth.

Pen guy shouted, "Who do you think you are?! My cousin had seizures and this is what we always did!"

I told him, "I know what I'm doing, sir. Please step back." The guy was obviously angry, and started muttering to himself.

​Fortunately, the guy having the seizure was breathing now.

Eventually cop arrived with two medics. Pen guy jumps in front of the cop to complain about me and my " behavior",  but the cop was pretty much ignoring him.

We moved the injured man to the Stretcher and put some gauze pads on his head wound. He was going to be okay but needed to go to the ER where to be evaluated.

Pen guy, finding no purchase with the cop started in on one of the medics. " I tried to get something in his mouth but this guy wouldn't let me! He thinks he is special or something!"

To which the medic calmly replies, "Well he should. He is my supervisor."

The cop was hiding his laughter well. Pen guy just stormed off, and I got to go scrub blood off my hands. It was a very satisfying wash however.

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24. Goodbyeeeeee Nurse

Was being discharged from a week long hospital stay, and even though I was ready to go home, I was still having some bouts of nausea. I had been getting Zofran as an inpatient, and asked the nurse if the discharging doctor could send in a script for a few doses.

In a sweet, sickly voice, she said, "Oh honey, Zofran only comes in IV form."

I replied with, "Oh honey, I'm a pharmacist, and can assure you it also comes in tablets, liquid, and oral-disentegrating tabs."

She fumbled a bit, then mumbled something about checking with the doctor and quickly exited the room. I may not have perfectly mimicked her condescending tone, but I sure tried.

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23. Why Can't People Admit They Don't Know Something?

I was working as a lifeguard one day when I saw an old lady dropping a gopher tortoise in the water. I fished it out and yelled at her for dropping it in the water. This conversation actually ensued:

“This is not a sea turtle!" I said. "These guys do not belong in the ocean!”

“Yes they do! They’re turtles and they live near water. That’s not a tortoise, that’s a sea turtle!”

“You see his back feet? See how they’re stumpy and not fins? See how this guy has a small horn right here and a dome shell? Sea turtles have flat shells and flippers that don’t have claws. This guy obviously has claws. I’ve raised these kinds of tortoises for over 18 years and I can tell you that this is a gopher tortoise, which is a protected species here.”

“No! That’s a turtle!”

“Wrong. A turtle would have swam off and I wouldn’t have him in my hands. What you did to this tortoise constitutes multiples felonies. Drop another tortoise in the water and I’ll make sure you get arrested.”

Her jaw dropped as I walked away furiously with the poor tortoise in my hand.

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22. I Know Money Things

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21. Bird Brain

Long ago, I worked as the cheese guy at Whole Foods, where we were trained that NO MATTER WHAT the customer is always right.

A lady came up to me, critical that I didn’t have the ostrich cheese prominently displayed.

Ostriches are birds. Cheese comes from milk... milk comes from... Whew. There's nothing like getting called an "idiot" and "the scum of the earth" who "probably can’t read" by a woman who thinks ostrich cheese exists.

I had just graduated from a top university and was working at Whole Foods briefly after some crazy stuff went down in Hurricane Katrina. What a wild ride.

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20. Acrimonious Acronyms

I work in digital marketing with a focus on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Been doing it for about 17-18 years now.

Both are initialisms so you pronounce each letter as in ESS-EE-EM and ESS-EE-OH just like the CIA isn’t pronounced “Kia” but SEE-EYE-AY.

Had a guy ask me if I’d heard of SEE-OH. That’s how he pronounced SEO. I was perplexed; since he was in IT, I though maybe it was something I was not familiar with, like if someone asked if I knew what REST or agile or SQL referred to. I said as much and he laughed. “I thought someone in marketing would have heard of Search Engine Optimization, lullllz.”

He was a jerk about it so I was more than happy to correct and embarrass him in front of his peers.

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19. Just Numbers, Man

I have a masters in biostatistics and I did my research in survey methodology for a national health survey.

Had someone try to explain to me that all surveys are nonsense, basically, and that they shouldn't be used in scientific research. It boiled down to him not understanding what representative samples are and also thinking that most people who take surveys just lie for no reason and can't possibly be telling the truth.

I pretty much just let him go on being wrong after a couple comments back and forth because I got bored with arguing. He couldn't come up with a better alternative though, so I like to think I won.

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18. Wrong Twice

I overheard my Italian-American coworker telling another coworker that Tiramisu is Japanese. His explanation was pretty in-depth. According to him the Japanese invented it, which is why it has the phonetic structure that it does (he even pronounced it with a Japanese accent Ti-Ra-Mi-Su), but that the French had perfected it, creating the modern version most people are familiar with.

I'm also Italian-American. Tiramisu is Italian for "pick me up". I didn't have the heart to destroy him in front of our other coworker, but I laugh quietly to myself now whenever someone mentions Tiramisu.

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17. Jimmy Neuron

"What's that on your necklace?"

"It's a neuron."

"That's not what a neuron looks like."

"Yes it is."

"No it's not."

"I am a neurobiology major."

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16. You're The Target Now

When I was working part-time at target I had a customer cuss me out, saying how I was ignorant trash and would never amount to anything. I just looked at her and said, “I graduate with my Masters in Aerospace Engineering next month.” She left real quick after that.

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15. Careful Who You Lie To

I've come across this at least a few times -- regarding things like engines, cars, airplanes and about flying in general.  I was an Aircraft Mechanic ,USAF, and a student pilot at one time. Usually I just laugh it off. But one time I couldn't help but respond.

I was looking at cars in a showroom, just there to look, at a Jaguar dealer. The salesman starts talking to me and my friend about the V12 in the 70's jaguar XL12. He's going on about the engine and why it's so fast. Finally he says: "It's got the same fuel injection system as an F4 fighter jet."

So I say ,"Really?! The same fuel injection as a General Electric J79 turbojet. Funny, since that burns JP4 which is basically a gasoline and kerosene mix. How does that work?"

He just stopped mid-sentence and walked out of the showroom. Didn't see him again as long as we were there looking around.

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14. Black Belt, Red Face

I've been in martial arts (Tae Kwon Do, specifically) for 14 years, and I'm a 4th degree black belt. I don't claim to know everything, not even close, but I do know what I'm talking about.

At my University, I decided to try out the tae kwon do club on campus. It was the first day I was trying it, and I didn't know if we were supposed to wear uniforms or not, so I went in with workout clothes but brought my full gear just in case.

Before the class started, one of the leaders (who was wearing a 2nd degree black belt, nothing to sniff at, but still a difference of 5 years of training) came up to me and started explaining the general protocol of class and offered to stand next to me during the class to show me how to do the different steps. Throughout all of this, he seemed annoyed that he was having to explain everything, and generally like he didn't want new, inexperienced students.

I politely agreed, and asked if we should wear our uniforms for the class. He explained that if we had them we should, but it wasn't a problem if I didn't have one. I explained that I did have one, and said I'd be right back, then proceeded to go change into my uniform.

His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw me walk out with my instructor's uniform and 4th degree belt.

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13. Piano Man

I was invited to dinner at someone’s home and there was a grand piano there. Guests were trying to play (badly) to the point the host closed the piano and said, “If you can play Chopin’s Military March, then you’re allowed to play.” I’m a piano teacher and this song is not difficult. I sat at the bench and this lady stopped me before I lifted the lid.

I looked at her and said, “Chopin’s Military March, opus 40, number 1, in A major, right?!” She gave me a “humph!” and said let’s see you play it. I played the whole piece... WITH all the repeats. Didn’t miss a note.

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12. Doctor, Go Call A Doctor!

I am a doctor. I went for my compulsory basic training day to learn how to ride a motorbike with a group of 6 others. It was a very hot day and none of us were used to being in full leathers. One of the group overheated and felt faint, so he took some time out and went to sit down.

I went to get him some water and to see if he was okay, but the instructor freaked out and told me to stay away. Instructor wanted to call for help, but the guy was alert; he just needed to cool off. I again tried to go over and see if the overheated guy was okay, but the instructor kept yelling at me to keep back. He was completely panicking and yelling at someone to call 911 as the guy was quite sweaty and faint.

After multiple attempts at telling the instructor that I’m a doctor, he eventually listened. After 10 minutes of cooling down and some water, the guy was fine. We carried on with our training, but not before the instructor asked me how long I’d been a nurse and why I went into nursing.

I’m a female doctor and this happens a lot.

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11. But I Have A PhD From Facebook

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10. Mic Drop

I was in a computer store getting a cable or something for a PC build. The customer next to me flagged down the sales guy and asked to buy a sound card for their laptop.

The sales guy looked at the lady like she was an idiot, then went on for a minute or so about how they don't even make such a product. I got a PCMCIA sound card off the shelf behind the sales guy and handed it the customer. Then walked away.

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9. Bit Of A Tangent

So I'm working on a PhD in math. Every Friday, some friends from my department and I go to happy hour at this pretty chill bar downtown to play pool. One Friday, we were playing particularly poorly but weren't exactly trying our hardest.

We've probably been trying to sink the last three balls for about four rounds at this point, when this guy at the table next to ours saunters over. In his infinite wisdom, he proceeds to tell four math grad students that pool is as "easy as identifying tangent lines. It's all about the tangent lines."

It took about 2 minutes of this guy trying to explain this to us before my friend chimes in with, "Yeah, we're all working on PhD's in math--we know plenty about tangent lines. Let me give you a counterexample to explain why you're wrong." The guy's eyes got so wide. He didn't say much to us after that.

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8. Happy Dumb Birthday

So I was at a bar with a friend of mine and we got to talking with this girl who was there on her twenty-first birthday. We congratulate her and buy her a round.

Shortly thereafter we get into a conversation about the original settlement of South America, thousands of years ago. She then, incredibly arrogantly, explains that there were people there and that I'm white-washing history. I explain, again, that I'm not, and that there were no human beings there until they migrated there at a time we're still trying to figure out.

No, she insists, these invaders wiped out the indigenous populations.

No, I say, that happened thousands of years later.

She accuses me of mansplaining. I'm at a loss, and am like, "Okay well I'm sorry." She yells at my friend (female): "How are you friends with him? God what does he even do, like, sell stocks?"

I'm a geographer.

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7. You Say You Want Evolution

I am almost finished with my evolution/ecology degree and have done four internships in the field.

My friend (English education major) tried explaining to me why evolutionary theory was flawed and he did it in a totally moronic way -- very condescending and interrupted me often. My boyfriend was in the room and I texted him about the situation, talking about how stupid my English major friend sounded. Except I accidentally sent it to the English major friend. His name and my boyfriend's name are very similar.

The English major friend read it and left the room angrily. But he never tried to correct me about my own degree again.

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6. Mansplaining?

Just the other day, my boss yelled at me for using the table saw since he didn't think I'd been trained on it. I reminded him that I used to run a carpentry shop, taught high schoolers how not to lose fingers, and I have one in my garage right now. I want to believe that it's because I am a painter and not because I'm a woman that he said that but...

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5. Not How That Works

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4. Battle Of The Bands

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3. Mansplaining Lady Bits

I think just about every woman has a story like this. Some dude tried to explain to me how the female reproductive organs work and accused us women of being lazy and "not holding our blood." I just can't. I just can't, y'all.

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2. Got Served

I've been playing tennis for over twenty years and I took it very seriously for about seven or eight. Simply put, if I really wanted to I could embarrass an amateur on the court. But I don't, because I'm not that kind of person.

I was having lunch with a guy who I considered to be "potential boyfriend material". I considered him that for maybe a split second, but I quickly came to my senses and just saw him as an acquaintance. At some point in our conversation the subject of tennis came up, and I didn't go into too many details but said that I'd been playing for a long time, played varsity in high school, etc.

He must not have been listening when I mentioned my background, because he proceeded to explain a few simple concepts as if I was brand new to the game. After that, I suggested that we play a few rounds at a local court sometime and he agreed.

The day came and I was a little rusty at first, since I hadn't played in a while. I recall him saying something like, "Don't worry, you'll improve." Long story short, it didn't take long until I was in full form and he realized that he had greatly underestimated my abilities. It was pretty clear that he was angry, but he didn't say anything about it.

I think we only played one more time after that, but with a few more people.

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1. Wait... That's A Job?

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