Oh, no! It's the return of the dreaded Ever Wonder/Pointless Ponderings forwards!
They've been zipping around the internet for more than a decade, some versions including or excluding any number of these totally deep ponderous questions of the universe. (Sarcasm up full volume.)
They show up in email, on social networks and blogs, and even on Yahoo Answers of all places!
More instances of this internet blight:
--
Okay, somebody needs to pulverize this pile of swill.
🙃Meme: Subject: Fwd: Points to Ponder
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Here we go…
🙃Meme: Only in America .do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'm no authority on the history of drugstore design but so what? The sick got there, what does it matter if it's a few more feet back and out of the way of the rest of what goes on in a drugstore? They do sell other stuff as well.
🙃Meme: Only in America :: -can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah right, not at all true from where I stand, this is just another cliche whine about the slow emergency response thing. Sure, there are sometimes holdups and mixups, but generally EMS gets to your place faster than pizza.
🙃Meme: Only in America .do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Whatever, who the heck cares? Let them order what they want. Anyway, maybe they don't sell that stuff in other countries outside of North america, I wouldn't know for sure. Whatevs... Sheesh, you sure obsess over what Americans eat. Get a hobby or something.
🙃Meme: Only in America......are there handicap parking places in front of a skating rink.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: ARGh! And just who says so-called "handicapped" people can't skate? There's nothing wrong with pushing somebody around in a wheelchair on a rink, you know! And who's to say there isn't "handicapped parking" in other areas of the world? I'm sure there is.
🙃Meme: Only in America......do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want to talk to in the first place.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Clue - they do have call-waiting and answering machines and all of that wonderful amazing phone technology in Canada, the UK, Australia, NZ etc. too. Sheesh, whoever came up with this pile of whinge sure wasn't thinking.
🙃Meme: Only in America......can a homeless combat veteran live in a cardboard box and a draft dodger live in the White House.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, right, absolutely must get that "Waaaah, they're not treating the veterans right and a coward is in the whitehouse!" whine in there. Please, give it up. Not all veterans live in boxes, you know...
🙃Chain: (This was popular when Clinton was in office)
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Naturally… So, just another piece of evidence to show how addicted to chain letters so many conservatives are… ARGH! And since it's been floating around that long, it needs to die.
🙃Meme: Only in America .do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So, would you rather they kept the doors locked so the people couldn't get in at all?
🙃Meme: Only in America .do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Speak for yourself, this doesn't apply to the whole collective "we" Some of us do park our cars in the garage and keep our junk elsewhere. Some people leave everything outside, cars, junk, everything.
🙃Meme: Only in America .do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh really? I thought it was a dozen of each. Or maybe it is eight hotdogs. Oh well, whatevs. I usually like more meat and less bun anyway, and I do buy bags of eight buns each, yes, there is such thing, you just have to know what you're looking for.
🙃Meme: Only in America .do we use the word 'politics' to describe the process so well: 'Poli' in Latin meaning 'many' and 'tics' meaning 'bloodsucking creatures'.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If you were trying to be cute, you failed. 'tick' and 'tic' which is a suffix, and you didn't even handle that right. The suffix is 'ic' not 'tic' and it applies to all kinds of words with 'ic' on the end. "politics" "electronics" etc. The 'tic/ic and the word "tick" are two completely different words. With your rule, do you care to explain "genetics" "semantics" "statistics" "idiotics" *GONG!*
🙃Meme: Only in America .do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Sometimes it happens. Oh well. It's only as illogical as your politics thing.
🙃Meme: EVER WONDER ....
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Agh…I wonder about things, but not the sort of stuff found in these dreck memes.
🙃Meme: Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin ?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, because I'm smart enough to realize that hair and skin are two different things with different properties so they react differently to sun exposure.
🙃Meme: Why women can't put on mascara with their mouth closed?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, I don't use mascara and if I did I would likely have my mouth closed unless I'm talking to someone.
🙃Meme: Why don't you ever see the headline "Psychic Wins Lottery"?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because whoever wins, wins, or maybe there really isn't a winner? Who cares? Cuteness attempt fails again.
🙃Meme: Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Yawn* Here it goes again - because it is. Who cares?
🙃Meme: Why is it that doctors call what they do "practice"?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Clue, a word can have more than one meaning Practice/practice - mean/mean. Are you getting it?
🙃Meme: Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Who says? The "real lemons" thing is a sales pitch. And there is such thing as flavor-enhancing, shelf-life, maybe all that other stuff is added to lemon juice to keep it fresher longer, ya think? You could figure it out if you used your head a little.
🙃Meme: Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Look it up!
🙃Meme: Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Can't you figure anything out for yourself? Everybody wants to get home from work!
🙃Meme: Why isn't there mouse-flavored cat food?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because they don't put mice in catfood. Duh! Why? The idea would repulse pet owners too much! Yes, I've heard a maker of petfood give that exact reason. Please, think!
🙃Meme: Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because God didn't tell him to kill anything, genius! Mosquitoes are a nuisance to us but they are a food source for larger insects and spiders. But you didn't think of that either, did you? Another failed attempt at being witty. *GONG!*
🙃Meme: Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections ?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Why not? What does it matter? Maybe it's got something to do with if things go wrong, how should I know?
🙃Meme: You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh, maybe because they can't - maybe it wouldn't be so indestructible in such a large quantity, maybe there isn't enough of it to make into whole planes, maybe it's too heavy and the plane wouldn't be able to fly, whatever.
🙃Meme: Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: For the same reason other animals don't. No, fur going flat doesn't equal actual shrinkage in case you haven't managed to sort that out yet. Wool acts differently because it's wool and it has lanolin in it, uh, that's a kind of oil, need I explain this any further?
🙃Meme: Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because they're not houses. In Britain they're called flats. What does it matter? The distinction is they're different from separate houses which are not part of a complex. Understand?
🙃Meme: If con is the opposite of pro, is Congress the opposite of progress?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Cute attempt failed miserably! *GONG!* Again, different prefixes, different suffixes, different meanings in different contexts, it's how language rolls, are you getting it yet?
🙃Meme: If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Why do they call a part of a computer a terminal? Why do they call the part that shows you stuff the monitor? It's language. Get used to it. Another attempt at wit failed.
🙃Meme: If swimming is a good exercise to stay fit, Why are whales fat?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Um okay, you are seriously in need of something resembling a reality check.
1. Whales aren't overweight and they don't swim to get fit. They swim because they have to. In case you didn't realize it, the sea is salt water and you can't exactly walk and run in that stuff.
2. On whales and seals, it's not 'fat' it's 'blubber' and whales NEED it to help them keep warm in a cold environment, and buoyant enough to get up to the surface to breathe, because unlike fish, whales are mammals that breathe air and need to get to the surface to do that and so blubber gives them enough ability to get to the surface since I don't think they possess swim bladders which are what fish use instead.
So no, whales aren't 'fat' they're made that way for a specific purpose. Get it?
🙃Meme: Why is the place in a stadium where people sit, called a STAND?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because that's how the English language works. It might be called something else in another language...
🙃Meme: Why is it that everyone wants to go to heaven? But nobody wants to die?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Um you're mixed up again.
There are people who do want to die and some do manage to kill themselves.
For another thing, your phrasing is wrong. It should be understood that you can't do one without the other, so naturally if one is eventually going to die, they're going to want to go to Heaven unless they don't believe there is such a place - yes, there are people who don't believe there is such thing as Heaven. For those of us who do believe, it's more like we haven't been there yet and however nice Heaven is, it's hard to imagine and it's not like you can get there by any other means than dying, going to Heaven is not like taking a world tour. You go there, you don't come back here again because you've died. There's this whole new fear the unknown and the permanent separation of the dead and the living still on earth who can't see their loved ones again until they also go to Heaven by dying, you are getting this, right?
🙃Meme: Shall I say that there is racial discrimination even In chess as the white piece is moved first?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Gah! Hel-lo!? STUPID! Chess is A GAME! If you're going to get this idiotic, maybe you should ask the pool people why only the white ball gets to smack all the others. Or at least, that's how I understand it. Anyway, racism doesn't come into play with either of these games, and here's another thing you need to know. There are plenty of racists who are NOT white! You don't have to be white and/or move a white piece on a chess board to be a freaking racist! Idiot!
🙃Meme: In our country, we have freedom of speech, Then why do we have telephone bills?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Are you really this dense? It's not the talk you pay for, it's the time spent on phone usage for long-distance and cost of whatever it takes to run the phone system! - face it, long-distance communication, costs…whether it's postage, telegram, internet (sip charges) phone etc. Otherwise, they'd be billing you in number of words instead of minutes! DUH!
🙃Meme: If money does not grow on trees then Why do banks have branches?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Gah! Ever heard of a word having two completely different meanings? It happens, A LOT! to use another example, the word 'set' could mean being ready for something. It can also mean a collection of things, like a set of dishes. It can also mean to put a broken bone into place so it heals right. There are lots and lots of words in the English language that work like 'branch' and 'set' and have two or more meanings. This is very likely to hold true in other languages, though not with the same words and concepts as ours. I'm sure there isn't a word for 'branch in a non-English language that means both a bank outlet and a tree limb in that other language.
🙃Meme: Why doesn't glue stick to its bottle?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Huh? Of course it sticks to the bottle! Otherwise there wouldn't be so much as a drop on the inside when the bottle empties! Put some glue on the outside of the bottle and see what happens. You know what?It'd stick! DUH!
🙃Meme: Why do you still call it building when it’s already built?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So what would you rather call it? A 'built'? Like it or not, the word 'building' is another of those English words with two meanings, only one's a verb, the other a noun that describes itself. Deal with it!
🙃Meme: If you are not supposed to drink and Drive why do bars have parking lots?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Um okay, if a bar is not in walking distance and you want to go there, what else are you supposed to do, take the bus? Take a cab? Every public place has a parking lot, and this caution against drinking and driving doesn't only apply to people in bars. Deal with it! Bars are disreputable places anyway. They're not there for people who care about drinking and driving, just drinking.
🙃Meme: Ponderisms
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I believe the proper term for these is moronisms.
🙃Meme: I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Then you're stupid. There are all sorts of different contexts in which the word 'natural' is used, so don't sweat it.
🙃Meme: There are two kinds of pedestrians: the quick and the dead.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Seen any dead people cross the street lately?
🙃Meme: Life is sexually transmitted.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wrong, not 'transmitted' the word is 'conceived.' You fail again at trying to be witty.
🙃Meme: Healthy is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Not necessarily. You can be perfectly healthy, and very young, and topple off a bridge or get hit by a car and die.
🙃Meme: The differences between a rut and a grave is the length and depth.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wrong. Ruts don't normally contain dead bodies…
🙃Meme: Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You obviously haven't met enough of these people. They can be so obsessed with themselves that they don't even care how stupid they look to other people, just as long as they can prattle on and on. One person in particular comes to mind who actually claimed she could smell carbon monoxide, and she was always jawing on about how special she was because of her latest fad allergies and dietary requirements, and her oh so rare illnesses. She plays all of that up big time in order to get everybody waiting on her hand and foot. No kidding, she's that bad!
🙃Meme: Have you noticed since everyone has a camcorder these days no one talks about seeing UFOs like they used to?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You're kidding me, right? No one I ever knew personally ever talked like that, and TV shows are getting more and more into this UFO thing.
🙃Meme: Whenever I feel blue, I start breathing again.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Are you telling me you don't even know enough to breathe on your own? No, you didn't crack me so much as a grin. Halfwit.
🙃Meme: All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: *Sigh* That's because weather is not sentient, doofus! So it can't pay attention to anything!
🙃Meme: In the 60's, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So they used drugs then and they use drugs now. So your point is, nothing, as usual.
🙃Meme: How is it one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Fire's unpredictable. Conditions have to be right. Please don't ask me to dumb that explanation down any further.
🙃Meme: Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, 'I think I'll squeeze these dangly things
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nobody, I'm sure. Anyone who knows what a cow is, and why mammals are mammals, and knows that a cow is a mammal, would've figured out that milk comes from teets and if it feeds a baby animal just as human milk feeds an infant, then it's logic that cow's milk is also going to be nutritious. are you getting this yet?
🙃Meme: Ever wonder about those people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backwards: ----- NAœVE!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, actually, Evian water is named after the town of Evian-Les-Bains where the water comes from. It's the Cachat Spring near Lake Geneva. So it isn't even North American to begin with.
Also rest assured there is no cow blood in Evian water.
🙃Meme: Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Isn't using the internet to send chain letters just like peeing in the pool?
🙃Meme: OK...so if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the "Jags" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the "Bucs," what does that make the Tennessee Titans?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: The tites, moron! Yes, it has to rhyme...
🙃Meme: If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea...does that mean that one enjoys it?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Actually, given the number of people spreading memes I think the stat for "enjoyment" of it is much higher than one out of five.
🙃Meme: There are three religious truths: a. Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah. b. Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith. c. Baptists do not recognize each other in the liquor store or at Hooters.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I hadn't heard this one before, Funny the first time, but send me this joke in a fwd again and I won't be amused. And there are many more than three religious truths. Then when you factor in that truth itself tends to be relative and one person's idea of truth is another's idea of nonsense, well...
🙃Meme: If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Uh, because it doesn't rhyme! For that, it would have to be "Holeland" Whatever, get over it.
🙃Meme: Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Have you never seen a baby squealing with laughter? Please, this one wasn't all that witty to begin with.
🙃Meme: If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Man, that's stale. It's been going around in chain letter fwds of this kind for years! Answer: no, it would be mute.
🙃Meme: Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nope, they're toasted! What's stale is this question!
🙃Meme: Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a racecar is not called a racist?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Hello!? If you haven't figured that out by now,, you're sad.
🙃Chain: Why isn't the number 11 pronounced onety-one?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Because that would sound dumb...Next thing you'll want to know is why we don't call 22 twody-two and 33 threety-three etc. etc. Please...I've heard such silly questions coming from people at an average age of four or five. What in the world compells grown people to forward this stuff?
🙃Chain: Will googling Google really break the Internet?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Wha!? Lol - don't think so, dude! I mean - no matter what you search for in any search engine, you'll still get only a set amount of results per page, and that includes Googling Google! No search is going to break the internet, moron!
🙃Chain: Can you swim in lava with a fireproof suit?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Duh, no! The heat would still kill you!
🙃Chain: Can vegetarians eat animal crackers?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Gah! This again!
First off, they probably *can* as in, it isn't physically impossible for them to stick it in their mouth, chew it up and swallow it unless they are genuinely grossed out to the point of gagging.
The real question then, is if they may, would, have, or will eat animal crackers, and it's still pretty pointless since the whole idea of this chain forward is trying too hard to be cute and failing.
Answer: Yes - if the crackers are made with flax seed, soy milk and anything that isn't an animal product. No if the crackers were made from normal ingredients like milk, egg, butter, you're getting this, right? It probably doesn't bother a vegan if a cracker is simply cookie-cut into the shape of some animal.
Hard to believe, but people actually submitted these questions to answers.com! I get their newsletter.
🙃Meme: If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Nope. Not witty, not even cute. Seen this one in countless memes before.
whole different meanings.
Delight is happiness and has nothing to do with the lights going out, on an electrician's career or anything else.
The word 'denote' has nothing to do with music and is applicable to anything. The fact that "Meme:" and "Ocean Elf:" are put before phrases in a meme-mangle for example, DENOTES who is saying what.
There probably are/were some deranged cowboys but deranged is not being tossed off a ranch. It is another word for twisted, evil, sick…
A model could be deposed if she was a ruler of a country. 'deposed' means being overthrown, ousted and has nothing to do with posing for a magazine…
There are no tree surgeons. Surgery is performed on people and animals, not plants. Surgeons are all people, not dogs, so no matter what their occupation, even if they lose their voices, people are never debarked.
Dry cleaners, and anyone from any occupation can be depressed. Depressed is an emotional state and has nothing to do with the sort of pressing you see at a dry cleaner's… That's how the english language rolls, people.
if you haven't accepted some of the English language peculiarities yet, that's your problem and I can't help you.
🙃Meme: If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'm quite "fed up" with this old-hat sad attempt at wit/cuteness too.
🙃Meme: Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Don't bother me with this stupid question, go and ask the people who make the tea.
🙃Meme: What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Shave your head and renew your driver's license to find out.
🙃Meme: I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me...they're cramming for their final exam.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: What final exam? First I've heard of it, the Bible says nothing about a final exam, anyway, some people just like to read...
🙃Meme: I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks, so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Oh, brother, could this get any more moronic? Racist rot. Give me a break! That's as bad and offensive as the one that asks about spinning an "Oriental" person around makes him "disoriented" Not funny, not witty, not cute, and definitely not intelligent. I have no idea what baby-feeding customs there are in foreign countries but honestly, you're just being stupid.
🙃Meme: Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?
Guess what? Watching comic moments on TV is funny. Seeing attempts at requoting and maybe changing it just a little in chain mail fwds is not funny or cute.
🙃Meme: If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Have you never been one of the helped "others" before? Try figuring this one out for yourself.
🙃Meme: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Or until you get stupid forwards in your inbox!
🙃Meme: Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No...
🙃Meme: If a cow laughed, would milk come out of her nose?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No, stupid!
🙃Meme: Whatever happened to Preparations A through G?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: There's no such thing as aemorrhoids, bemorrhoids, cemorrhoids, you get the idea!
🙃Meme: As income tax time approaches, did you ever notice: When you put the two words "The" and "IRS" together it spells "THEIRS"?
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: So? I suppose you also figured out the hidden meaning of "therapist" as well? And I think the therapist one was featured in a Three's Company episode.
No wonder forwards cause massive brain cell death and are such a terrible addiction for those who just have to pass it all along!
🙃Meme: We all r Living in a seriously funny world.... So just enjoy the fun
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: If this is your idea of seriously funny, I suggest you get some sort of life experience, then maybe you'll eventually get some real wit and stop pondering pointlessly.
You might even learn something about what real fun is, and believe me, that wouldn't be getting this fwd.
🙃Meme: Now that you've smiled at least once,
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: WRONG! I haven't. Don't presume everybody's going to smile at this stale junk which has been going around the net for years.
🙃Meme: it's your turn to spread the stupidity
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Well, you are right about spreading this chain letter meaning spreading the stupidity, so I'll be smart and just not. It's mangled instead.
🙃Meme: and send this to someone you want to bring a smile to (maybe even a chuckle)...
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Yeah, no. It doesn't even get a tiny smile from me, so forget it. If I want to make my friends smile and chuckle, I'll come up with something original on my own and not risk annoying them with this old-hat chain.
🙃Meme: in other words, send it to everyone.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Like I said - NO!
🙃Meme: We all need to smile every once in a while.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Duh, Einstein! But this chain is just as likely to not bring smiles and chuckles. Sadly, some people are still sucked in by this junk, but that's because they haven't seen it over and over, or probably don't care about getting the same stupidity more than a few times.
I've had it.
Over and out!
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