Faux Life: Things That Happen On TV But Not In Reality

[Rose Quartz]

3 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Here is a weird one, people holding a newspaper over their head when it's raining, which typically results in the person still getting drenched. Has anyone ever actually seen someone do that?

No, but I’ve used a reusable grocery bag when dashing into the store and that works reasonably well.

[andromeda331]

13 hours ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I used to be a pharmacy technician and can attest to the truth about doctor's handwriting.  That is/was not a joke created out of thin air, but based on real life.  I remember one of the pharmacy trade magazines having a recurring feature of "can you read this prescription."  I also remember one time having to call the doctor's office for clarification because we could not read it.  The doctor had already left for the day and the nurse was unable to decipher the patient's chart to help.  Part of being a pharmacist is learning how to read bad handwriting.  It helps when the doctor is local and sees a lot of patients.  You have the ability to compare.  

Same here. Between my prescriptions and a job I had that part of it was dealing with doctors office faxing medical information. I have no idea how anyone was ever able to understand what was written. Most of them looked like doodles that a toddler would do..

[Anduin]

1 hour ago, andromeda331 said:

Same here. Between my prescriptions and a job I had that part of it was dealing with doctors office faxing medical information. I have no idea how anyone was ever able to understand what was written. Most of them looked like doodles that a toddler would do..

I can't give a citation, but I remember hearing that the writing is deliberate, so people would have a hard time forging it.

[andromeda331]

12 minutes ago, Anduin said:

I can't give a citation, but I remember hearing that the writing is deliberate, so people would have a hard time forging it.

Really?  

[Anduin]

28 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

Really?  

I don't know for sure. Grain of salt. But that's what I heard somewhere.

[DrSpaceman73]

9 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Here is a weird one, people holding a newspaper over their head when it's raining, which typically results in the person still getting drenched. Has anyone ever actually seen someone do that?

Plus who reads or has newspapers anymore?  

[Hiyo]

People who don't have umbrellas, obviously.

[Haleth]

9 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

Here is a weird one, people holding a newspaper over their head when it's raining, which typically results in the person still getting drenched. Has anyone ever actually seen someone do that?

There's some pharma commercial where a woman holds a large leather bag over her head to go running to the car in the rain.  Shoot, I'd be protecting the leather bag and let my hair get drenched!

[Ohiopirate02]

4 hours ago, Anduin said:

I can't give a citation, but I remember hearing that the writing is deliberate, so people would have a hard time forging it.

They really only do that with their signature.  Illegible handwriting plus life-or-death implications is not a good mix.  Not to mention, pharmacists having to call for clarification on every script written is terribly inefficient.  There were also many doctors who knew their handwriting was shit and had their nurses write out the prescriptions and would just sign.  

[Anduin]

5 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

They really only do that with their signature.  Illegible handwriting plus life-or-death implications is not a good mix.  Not to mention, pharmacists having to call for clarification on every script written is terribly inefficient.  There were also many doctors who knew their handwriting was shit and had their nurses write out the prescriptions and would just sign.  

Aha! Yes, that makes sense. Thanks.

[Mabinogia]

9 hours ago, Haleth said:

There's some pharma commercial where a woman holds a large leather bag over her head to go running to the car in the rain.  Shoot, I'd be protecting the leather bag and let my hair get drenched!

I once had my commuter bag get drenched so badly that all the paper inside it was pulp, my ipod, my mobile, my lunch all got wet. I would much rather have just had wet hair so from that day on I use my umbrella more to shield my bag from the rain than myself. I have long, straight hair so it is far better to just throw that up in a wet bun than to ring out my sandwich and try to read notes that are now dripping down the page. 

[RealHousewife]

People usually fall in love rather quickly. 

Poor people often still manage to look like a million bucks. They often have nice living arrangements and money for most things too. Even as a child, I wondered how Kelly Kapowski was poor and one of several kids, but she had a huge bedroom all to herself and the money to do everything from cheerleading to volleyball. 

[DrSpaceman73]

4 hours ago, RealHousewife said:

People usually fall in love rather quickly. 

Poor people often still manage to look like a million bucks. They often have nice living arrangements and money for most things too. Even as a child, I wondered how Kelly Kapowski was poor and one of several kids, but she had a huge bedroom all to herself and the money to do everything from cheerleading to volleyball. 

Roseanne and The Middle are two of the best shows at actually depicting being not poor but at least lower middle class. 

Way too often, whether the family is poor or otherwise, money comes last in the decision making process for families.  ANd often goes unexplained, just a line like "We'll figure it out!  We always do!". 

Oh well then that means everything will be fine! 

[GHScorpiosRule]

21 minutes ago, DrSpaceman73 said:

Roseanne and The Middle are two of the best shows at actually depicting being not poor but at least lower middle class. 

I'd add Good Times, All in The Family, What's Happening! to that list.

[ratgirlagogo]

On 1/19/2021 at 11:34 AM, paulvdb said:

I just started watching the Nickelodeon series The Astronauts. It reminded me of something I originally learned from Space Camp: apparently it's very easy for a group of kids to sneak into a spacecraft and accidentally get themselves launched into space.

I always figured that if it could happen to Abbott and Costello AND the Three Stooges, it might well happen to anyone.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045468/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_14

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056580/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_17

[ShortyMac]

If a teen gets a piercing, they get caught because it inevitably gets infected.

[kiddo82]

10 hours ago, ShortyMac said:

If a teen gets a piercing, they get caught because it inevitably gets infected.

Hah!  That literally just happened on Bless the Harts.

[Blergh]

10 hours ago, ShortyMac said:

If a teen gets a piercing, they get caught because it inevitably gets infected.

Quite the opposite happened on Daria in which the protagonist didn't get caught having had a belly piercing because she took it out overnight and it totally healed! LOL

[Shannon L.]

No matter what city an FBI team is in, they know how to get everywhere without needing directions.  If they're driving around and a team member calls saying "You need to go [insert a not popular place], I'm sending it to you now", they check their phone and immediately take a turn/u-turn and go. 

[Raja]

Because I just saw it again as a big part of the hero's plan. People who unknowingly continue to fire blanks through automatic weapons without the adaptor that allows the weapon to work without the resistance of the bullet being pushed out of the gun's barrel.

[CoderLady]

I don't know if this happens in real life, but on TV when bad guys/iffy business people realize the law is closing in on them they frantically try to cover their tracks as they flee and one of the things they do is start stuffing all their paper documents through a shredder. This is futile because there's always a team of puzzle-crazed geeks who sift through the mountains of shreds to completely reconstruct exactly the one smoking gun document that brings down the villain's empire.

I'm not a bad guy in a hurry so when I shred documents I do a batch, toss the pieces like a salad to get them thoroughly mixed, then stuff handfuls into various wastebaskets around the house. Since some don't get emptied into the recycling bin for weeks, it reduces the odds of a room full of caffeinated techs being able to piece together anything incriminating personal should the occasion arise.

ETA: Remembered a brilliant workaround for when the good guys didn't have access to the shreds and had to work fast: on Person of Interest they managed to install a document scanner onto the bad guy's shredder, so that every page still got trashed but a copy was sent to the good guys as it happened.

Edited April 1, 2021 by CoderLady

[Mabinogia]

3 hours ago, CoderLady said:

I'm not a bad guy in a hurry so when I shred documents I do a batch, toss the pieces like a salad to get them thoroughly mixed, then stuff handfuls into various wastebaskets around the house. Since some don't get emptied into the recycling bin for weeks, it reduces the odds of a room full of caffeinated techs being able to piece together anything incriminating personal should the occasion arise.

You, my friend, are a criminal mastermind! I usually toss my shredding into my kitchen trash. If someone wants to go through my half eaten dinners to find out my account balance might buy them a supersize McMeal, they can have at it. 

[BlackberryJam]

3 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

You, my friend, are a criminal mastermind! I usually toss my shredding into my kitchen trash. If someone wants to go through my half eaten dinners to find out my account balance might buy them a supersize McMeal, they can have at it. 

Just erm, as a bit of random information I might have, but the most efficient way to go through someone's garbage is to take it off the street when they put it out, put it into the SUV you've rented and lined with a shower curtain liner, take it to a storage unit rental, again line the floor with shower curtain liners, which you tape down into quadrants, and then put the garbage into one quadrant, shifting out the stuff that you don't want into a second quadrant. Wear gloves and a plastic apron. Also, clothes you are comfortable trashing after.

I mean...you know...

[DoctorAtomic]

Yeah I shred it into a bin then it goes in the garbage. I don't get bills anymore so it's all junk mail. 

[WinnieWinkle]

Anyone stealing my garbage is in for a sorry surprise - not unlike anyone who might break into my house expecting to steal something of value. As Mr T would say "I pity the fool".

Edited April 1, 2021 by WinnieWinkle

[Shannon L.]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on tv break into someone else's house and snoop around. 

Speaking of breaking into houses, apparently most cops/FBI agents don't need search warrants to break into someone's house. Either that, or we don't see the number of judges who'll sign off on it with only the weakest of evidence.

[merylinkid]

Getting a search warrant in real life is ridicously easy.   I can't go into it here because of site rules, but a quick google search will show you how easy it.

But on tv they don't even bother despite that.   They always come up with something like "Do you hear someone screaming inside, I hear someone screaming" as an excuse to bust in and look around.   

Of course DAs on tv always make it sound like you need an ironclad beyond a reasonable doubt case to get a search warrant instead of just probable cause.   "Oh he's the ex of the murder victim and was seen hanging around her neighborhood near the time of the murder?   I can't take that to a judge, give me more."    IRL, it would be "Oh he's the ex and wont' talk to you without a lawyer, sounds suspicious to me, hang a minute I'll get the warrant all filled out."

[BlackberryJam]

32 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

Getting a search warrant in real life is ridicously easy.   I can't go into it here because of site rules, but a quick google search will show you how easy it.

But on tv they don't even bother despite that.   They always come up with something like "Do you hear someone screaming inside, I hear someone screaming" as an excuse to bust in and look around.   

Of course DAs on tv always make it sound like you need an ironclad beyond a reasonable doubt case to get a search warrant instead of just probable cause.   "Oh he's the ex of the murder victim and was seen hanging around her neighborhood near the time of the murder?   I can't take that to a judge, give me more."    IRL, it would be "Oh he's the ex and wont' talk to you without a lawyer, sounds suspicious to me, hang a minute I'll get the warrant all filled out."

Oh hell yeah it's easy to get a warrant, so it's ridiculous when TV police don't bother. 

I hate it when the amateur sleuth breaks into someone's home. Or how you can learn to pick all locks after a ten minute lesson with a kind-hearted thief. Oh not to mention how easy it is to get into bank records on TV. Bwhaha.

[Katy M]

27 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

h not to mention how easy it is to get into bank records on TV. Bwhaha.

Maybe we only hope it's not.

[Shelbie]

Anything to do with a bank is ridiculous.
Someone just taps a few keys and information going back years is all available. 

Someone opens a door and mountains of cash is sitting on ordinary shelving.

On an episode of Castle (I think) the branch manager had the bank’s key for safety deposit boxes around his neck.

I worked for 35 years in a bank branch and anytime a bank is shown my husband turns to me and says “I know , I know it’s completely wrong , let’s just go with it “ . 😀

[BlackberryJam]

21 minutes ago, Shelbie said:

Anything to do with a bank is ridiculous.
Someone just taps a few keys and information going back years is all available. 

Someone opens a door and mountains of cash is sitting on ordinary shelving.

On an episode of Castle (I think) the branch manager had the bank’s key for safety deposit boxes around his neck.

I worked for 35 years in a bank branch and anytime a bank is shown my husband turns to me and says “I know , I know it’s completely wrong , let’s just go with it “ . 😀

Oh and when you do get bank records, those things aren't searchable. They arrive in a flash drive which is password locked. You get the password via Hushmail or something two days later. The records are from one bank and each account/credit card is in it's own separate file, sometimes a new file for each year, or fuck me running, each month. So if I request 5 years of bank records and the person has five accounts at the bank (Checking, Money Market, Savings and Two Credit Cards), that's 300 separate files. 

But on TV, it's one mass file for every bank everywhere and easily searchable. Oh and credit card charges aren't just "Paypal" it's "Paypal to shell company with company.

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

Or how you can learn to pick all locks after a ten minute lesson with a kind-hearted thief.

Maybe not ten minutes, but it's really not that hard. My friend has a lockpick set. 

[Shannon L.]

Watching the trial on tv, I'm once again reminded of how boring court cases can actually be in real life and how basic most court rooms really are.  No shouting with judges banging on the gavel insisting on order in the court.  Very few grand courtrooms with beautiful wood work. 

[merylinkid]

Well I did have Zoom court yesterday where the Judge got so frustrated with the Plaintiff's "tech" issues that she kicked him out the hearing.   I represented Defendant and before she did it she asked me what I wanted.   I said he was warned about the "tech" issues the day before so I would treat this as a failure to appear.   So she did.   

 

But yeah Tv courtrooms are HUGE.    I WISH I wasn't sitting practically right next to opposing counsel who could read my notes (you know if I had decent handwriting).   The judges also bang their gavels A LOT on tv.   

[Annber03]

4 hours ago, Shannon L. said:

It never ceases to amaze me how many people on tv break into someone else's house and snoop around. 

I remember seeing a post online somewhere that commented on how amazing it was that people can break in and always find exactly the papers or specific items they're looking for, because the person who owns that stuff is lucky if they can ever find it when they need it :p. 

1 hour ago, Shannon L. said:

Watching the trial on tv, I'm once again reminded of how boring court cases can actually be in real life and how basic most court rooms really are.  No shouting with judges banging on the gavel insisting on order in the court.  Very few grand courtrooms with beautiful wood work. 

I love the shouting moments. And a judge always threatens to hold someone in contempt, and yet, somehow, even with the outbursts, the party the episode wants to win still often wins. 

It's also interesting what the judges will and won't allow when someone shouts, "Objection!", too. 

[Quof]

40 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

The judges also bang their gavels A LOT on tv.   

Have never heard one, in decades of practice. I've never noticed if our judges even have one. 

[BlackberryJam]

5 minutes ago, Quof said:

Have never heard one, in decades of practice. I've never noticed if our judges even have one. 

I was given one once as a novelty item. It sat in the box of plaques and paper weights for almost a decade. 

[DoctorAtomic]

I don't know how much dramatic license there was in the Chicago 7 trial movie, but there were a lot of courtroom shenanigans. 

[juno]

It seems that everyone on TV likes only black coffee. Come on? No cream or sugar? Maybe a bit of cinnamon?

[Annber03]

Just now, juno said:

It seems that everyone on TV likes only black coffee. Come on? No cream or sugar? Maybe a bit of cinnamon?

I remember Red on "Criminal Minds" liked to dump a whole mess of sugar into his coffee. But yeah, it does seem like that sort of thing is a rarity. 

[Moose135]

On 4/2/2021 at 3:12 PM, juno said:

It seems that everyone on TV likes only black coffee. Come on? No cream or sugar? Maybe a bit of cinnamon?

I don't put anything in my coffee. Only way to drink it is black, so I'm good with that.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Moose135

[WinnieWinkle]

On 4/2/2021 at 3:12 PM, juno said:

It seems that everyone on TV likes only black coffee. Come on? No cream or sugar? Maybe a bit of cinnamon?

I notice this all the time.  It's done so they aren't wasting screen time of course (I get that) but it really does stand out as one of those "only on TV" food related things.  Like people leaving full plates at the table when they get up or people in restaurants not paying their bill.  

Edited April 5, 2021 by WinnieWinkle

[Quof]

Or tv chefs not scraping the bowl. Come on, Martha, use that spatula.  You're leaving perfectly good brownie batter behind.  (or maybe she uses her fingers to transfer the last drops to her mouth, after the camera is off). 

[Shannon L.]

Wheels are always up in 30.

[DoctorAtomic]

I used to have a small sugar in my coffee, but I long since cut out added sugars as much as I can because it's in *everything*. At home, I'll add a pinch of nutmeg or bitters. If you're having good coffee, you're kind of missing out on some of the subtleties by adding anything tbh. 

[Lady Whistleup]

Women on tv only wear the nice, see-through pantyhose with garters at the top. No one on tv is ever wearing the thick control-top pantyhose that's about two shades too dark for your actual skin tone with a big run down the thigh because you snagged your hose against a door leaving the house.

[Mabinogia]

4 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

No one on tv is ever wearing the thick control-top pantyhose that's about two shades too dark for your actual skin tone

As a pale woman, I relate to this soooo much. I can never find "nude" pantyhose that actually match my skin tone. 

The one that gets me is when it's a show that takes place in the North East, think New York or New England, and the woman is wearing a skirt with no hose at all. I'm from New England and it gets way too cold here at Christmas time to go around town in a cute light jacket and bare legs. BURRRRRR

[Lady Whistleup]

1 minute ago, Mabinogia said:

As a pale woman, I relate to this soooo much. I can never find "nude" pantyhose that actually match my skin tone. 

The one that gets me is when it's a show that takes place in the North East, think New York or New England, and the woman is wearing a skirt with no hose at all. I'm from New England and it gets way too cold here at Christmas time to go around town in a cute light jacket and bare legs. BURRRRRR

Oh yeah and the girls are always wearing those cute heeled booties. No one's wearing the UGGs or galoshes that women in the NE wear so often because of the constant rain or snow or freezing weather. 

As for hose I'm always in between shades. If I go light it's too light and looks like someone rubbed chalk all over my legs. If I go a darker shade it looks like the figure skating dark tights. I can never find my shade ever. 

[Ohiopirate02]

15 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Women on tv only wear the nice, see-through pantyhose with garters at the top. No one on tv is ever wearing the thick control-top pantyhose that's about two shades too dark for your actual skin tone with a big run down the thigh because you snagged your hose against a door leaving the house.

Unless the woman in question is a Hot Mess.  I believe snagged hose is an indicator for Hot Mess along with smeared makeup and unruly hair.  

[Annber03]

11 minutes ago, Mabinogia said:

The one that gets me is when it's a show that takes place in the North East, think New York or New England, and the woman is wearing a skirt with no hose at all. I'm from New England and it gets way too cold here at Christmas time to go around town in a cute light jacket and bare legs. BURRRRRR

Right? Hell, I wouldn't wear a skirt in the winter even if my legs weren't bare underneath. 

8 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:

Oh yeah and the girls are always wearing those cute heeled booties. No one's wearing the UGGs or galoshes that women in the NE wear so often because of the constant rain or snow or freezing weather. 

My favorite is when women are wearing high heels in the wintertime. 'Cause, y'know, it's not like they'll have to walk across any icy sidewalks or roads or anything at some point.