I CAN quite easily get very confused by things and it can take a long time – if I ever do manage it – to get my head around these confusing things.
Let me explain. Early last year, I bought an apple tree. Looked just like any other apple tree but this one was, I was informed, a ‘self-pollinating’ tree.
“What! Don’t be daft,” I told the shop assistant. “So, how does that work?” Well I must admit that she looked as confused as I did.
I learned about the birds and the bees at school, granted it was even more confusing back then as silly pictures were put on a blackboard.
The lesson lasted about twenty minutes and I did leave wondering just what the hell that was all about.
But I did get the gist of it. So, knowing how it all works I was in serious doubt about the self-pollinating tree.
What will the bees do, I thought? Are we not stealing their jobs?
But lo and behold, I have beautiful apples on the tree – although I’m still not too sure how that happened.
Another thing that, for some reason confuses me, is the business of saving things from a laptop onto a cloud.
I still look up when someone tells me to save it onto a cloud. Which cloud, and how does it get to the cloud?
It really confuses me to death. Why can’t I just save it on my laptop? Why do I need to save it on some random cloud?
By now you’re all probably thinking that I am stupid and I’d really like to prove you wrong – but I don’t think that I can.
The world and the gravity thing. Yes, I understand that it’s gravity that stops everything from flying off into space but – and this did actually take me a flipping long time to get my head around – I used to think that we were sort of glued onto the outside of the world.
Yes, I know... I used to picture a football with houses and trees and people stuck onto the outside of the ball.
But for the life of me I couldn’t get to grips with not flying off.
I know, I’m grown up and I should be able to understand this by now, but some days I truly worry… What if?
Also, probably because I’m a visual person, if someone was to tell me that the distance to a place was, say three kilometres. I would, and still do, have to ask Pete how far that is from our house, so as I can actually picture the distance.
I just need to have the picture in my head. And I won’t even mention the number of times I’ve answered someone thinking that they were talking to me when in fact they had those funny bud things in their ears and were actually having a conversation with someone else.
Probably through a bloody cloud, I’m guessing. Now I know that I have some quirky ideas of things, but at least I know how to put a quilt cover on. Pete, bless him couldn’t for the life of him figure out how to put an inside out quilt cover on.
No, I shouldn’t laugh but it was so funny.
He tried. He pondered. He tried another way. He pondered. He turned the quilt around and pondered some more.
Some 45 minutes later he had it sussed.
I just think that there are some mysteries in this world that I, and obviously Pete, will never be able to get our heads around, although he only has trouble with quilt covers.
I have the safety of the world to worry about...