What was your biggest "aaaahhh that's how
that works" moment?
I bought a car and was worried for months
that my oil level never lowered, after 6 months
I called my friend who sold me the car to
ask about this, he explained that's that how
it supposed to work, then when I realized
every single car I owned and my dad owned
my whole life leaked oil.
I have an air fryer.
It's a pretty handy kitchen tool.
The food goes in a basket which is attached
to what's basically a metal bowl.
So the grease and crumbs and whatever fall
out of the basket and into the bowl.
My only real complaint was it was hard to
get the food out without a mess.
You try and dump the basket onto a plate and
the oil in the bowl still kind of runs out
in a puddle.
You can keep it away from the food if you're
paying attention and like wipe it up but it's
an annoyance.
Then one day I mentioned it to my wife while
making some fries.
She just looked at me and said "Why don't
you take them apart?" and took the handle
and pressed the button to seperate the basket
and bowl, dumped the fries out mess free,
and reconnects it back to the bowl.
Now you might be thinking I'm an idiot for
not knowing about that button.
It's actually WORSE.
I knew that button was there, I just used
it to seperate the pieces for cleaning and
it somehow never occured to me to take them
apart during use despite the fact it's just
one simple button that can be used with one
hand.
For a while, my christmas lights would randomly
turn off.
I couldn't figure out what it was.
Was it the wireless switch?
Was it some fault in the electricity?
It would seemingly be random, and I couldn't
figure out what it was.
Then one day I was coming home from work and
my neighbours got home at the same time.
As they were locking their car doors, my lights
turned off.
I realized, "Ah, that's how that works."
Edit: it turns out that my car keys also turn
off my Christmas lights when I hit the lock
button.
So maybe it was me all along!
Their key fob must be on the same frequency
as my wireles switch, and locking the car
turned off my lights
Got a laptop for a job managing a cafe.
Worked fine but it was inconvenient to use
behind the counter and in the kitchen.
After watching me struggle to use it standing
up, the owner took it from me, rotated the
screen and flipped it closed.
It was a combo laptop/tablet and I had no
idea.
"How long have you had this thing?"
Two months.
Credit to my husband for showing me that you
have to stretch Saran Wrap to get it to cling.
Game changer.
Never knew why some yellow lights seemed to
change so fast and others felt like they took
forever.
I thought it was just a flat amount of time
for everywhere.
Then Reddit told me that yellow lights stayed
yellow for the speed limit divided by ten,
in seconds.
So 25 mph speed limit means the light will
stay yellow for 2.5 seconds, and 45 mph means
it will stay yellow for 4.5 seconds.
It all makes sense now.
I discovered, by accident, that when I push
the car door "unlock" button 3 times, it makes
all the windows go down.
It's a very handy feature in warm weather.
Just 2 days ago, I learned that the wax in
candles is used as a fuel and not as a melting
thing to slow down the burning of the wick.
Should I mention that I have a chemistry degree...
I just realized, this past spring at a party,
that I've been using corkscrews on wine bottles
all wrong.
Turns out it is NOT correct form to screw
it in by turning the bottle, then depressing
the handles.
I was publicly mocked.
I deserved it.
(I'm 29.)
My (now wife, then girlfriend) sometimes gets
into a really foul mood, and i always thought
i was doing something to piss her off.
One day, her uncle was visiting when she got
like this.
He calmly told her to go get a snack.
Turns out my wife gets really hangry, and
has done so ever since she was a little girl.
Everything suddenly made sense!
I grew up in a time and place without any
real sex education.
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I thought
it was a myth that women had multiple holes
to pee with and have sex with.
First time I had a tampon in while peeing,
I thought exact the phrase in this question.
Turn signals.
I couldn't understand how the car seemed to
know where my dad was going to be turning
so I started to watch closely when we were
getting in the car to see when he told the
car where we were going so the car would know
what turns to signal.
I was fricking amazed that it was this tiny
little gesture he was making before every
turn!
When I realized the switch thing on the bottom
of the rear view mirror switches it to a darkened
reflection.
When my brother and I were really little we
had an old family friend who would pick us
up “by the ears.”
He would grab each ear but then would also
have us grab onto his forearms.
It took me until I was much older to realize
that he wasn’t actually picking us up by
our ears, but instead used his forearms to
lift us up.
Still a great trick to use with little kids!
How differential steering works via watching
a video from the 1930s on youtube.
Almost all of the IKEA products.
Wasn’t me but me and my friend drove by
a target and he said “ooohhhhh I get it,
the target logo is a target!”
When I first moved into this condo, there
was a microwave above the oven.
For a long time, I couldn't figure out why
the hell I couldn't turn on the light bulb
above the stove.
It was probably a good six weeks before I
looked a the microwave and saw the light bulb
button and pressed it.
The irony in this comment is real.
It was a real light bulb moment.
I bought some of those expensive windshield
wipers that repel water and I they sucked.
It would smear the rain and the dang blade
kept sliding off.
I'd have to get off to fix put it back on.
This went on for a 4-5 months.
One day I went to slide the blade back on
that I realized it wasn't the blade, but the
blade cover that I kept putting back.
I was recently schooled that went I turn the
burners down to 3 on my stove, it doesn't
reduce the power to .3 of the total power,
but rather cycles through full power, but
just 30% of the time.
My drunk mind was blown.
When I learned the snap sound from snapping
your finger comes from the finger hitting
your palm fast, not from the finger snapping
from your thumb.
This also helps tremendously for when you
teach people how to snap.
My "aha" moment was learning why the little
metal bits on the end of tape measures are
always loose and jiggly.
It's so that it can slide to compensate for
the thickness of the metal stop depending
which side of the edge you measure on.
Genius bit of engineering that most people
don't even realize is helping them out all
the time.
Open road tolling happens because a car breaks
a magnetic field and at that very time a camera
takes a picture.
I have met the guy knighted for making this
happen at highway speeds.
My boyfriend just learned garbage disposals
have a reset button after spending the better
part of the evening dismantling our kitchen
plumbing.
I just assumed when he said it was broken
that he already knew that since he's pretty
handy.
I laughed a lot.
When I found out that the little gas pump
on the dash tells me which side the gas flap
is on.
Pretty late to this thread but I have a good
one.
I'm almost 2 decades old now and just now
figured out you pull blinds strings to one
side to raise them and to the other side to
lower them.
I'd been fumbling around with them pulling
randomly and touching them as infrequently
as possible like a bafoon for TOO LONG.
In the song “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”,
mommy isn’t kissing a stranger dressed as
Santa.
It’s the dad.
I was putting the lights on the tree this
year with my wife and son when it hit me.
I paused, reflected, and then kept stringing
the lights like I’d known this fact my whole
life.
For the longest time, I thought that when
people talked about sticking their heads in
the oven to kill themselves, that they just
set it to broil and persevered through the
pain.
I only had electric ovens growing up!
When I found out the truth I had a good laugh
at myself.
When I had sex for the 2nd time
My wife bought a used saturn.
It wasnt the econobox model, but I dont remember
the name.
Anyway, it was the highest trim level.
She had a bunch of electrical problems to
selling dealer took care of, but a year later,
after Saturn was killed off, she needed recall
work done.
She went to drop off the car and forgot some
paperwork in the car so went out to get it.
It was running.
She had the keys in her hand and there were
no keys in the ignition.
Turns out she had remote start on it and didnt
know it.
The dealer sold her the correct remote and
another set of keys.
They programmed the remote but not the new
keys.
Told her to read the owners manual to program
them so she didnt get charged.
That car had all kinds of high end tech stuff
you didnt see outside of luxury vehicles of
the time, like 2 remotes for garage door openers
built into the dome light area.
We constantly found new things that were way
ahead of their time on that car, but her favorite
had to be the surprise remote start.
That fractions are just division.
I always struggled with fractions as a kid
because the teachers would always give these
extremely overcomplicated explanations of
how they worked, then one day I was trying
to write one quarter when I was programming
and realized that 1 divided by 4 = 1/4.
I was working as a programmer by this time.
i first got a mcflurry and i tried to drink
through the spoon. and then it hit me.
i had to take it out and scoop with the spoon
Long division when I was a kid.
I struggled so hard to get it.
After months one day it just clicked.
Been a long dividing fool since then.
Algebra, now that’s a different story.
I'd say it was when I discovered how actually
sex/reproduction worked.
When I was around 9 I think I knew more or
less that genitals where involved but I always
read about the process in vague terms like
"when the sperm reaches the egg..." but I
still hadn't fully grasped how the sperm got
to meet the egg.
One day I was reading another book and I finally
read that "the penis is inserted in the vagina"
and that was a lightbulb moment for me when
everything became clear.
When I found out you can shrink comments on
Reddit to make them not visible
There are tabs on the sides of rolls of aluminum
foil & plastic wrap.
If you push the two tabs in, this will stop
the roll from popping out of the packaging
when you pull on it.
Genius!
I got an allen key with a piece of furniture,
to help put it together.
I had never seen one before.
I put the long end in the screw and was twisting
the hell out of the short end; I figured it
was like a screwdriver and you would make
tiny twists.
I was 3/4’s done and my fingers were dead
when I asked myself “Would it be easier
to twist the long end?”.
Spoiler: it is way easier to use the long
end.
I didn't understand how air conditioners and
refrigerators worked until I worked for Lennox
and had to learn the differences between air
conditioners and heat pumps.
It's such an elegant way of moving heat energy
around.
pulled the towel off my sisters head and she
screamed and pain because her hair was in
the towel.
always thought they kinda just wore it over
their head
I used to struggle to get the little cap off
a new stick of deodorant.
My wife walked into the bathroom as I was
using my teeth to get it off one day.
She took it from me and just spun the thing
to raise the deodorant which also pushed the
cap off.
She then turned around and walked out without
saying a word and that’s how I know she
loves me.
But I kill spiders so we’re even.
