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

[supposebly]

I don't like drinking milk by itself. Only when I can't sleep. I don't know why, but it works.

I normally put it in my coffee or tea. Or in my muesli to soften the oats over night.

I have had a Soda Stream since 2003 because I grew up on carbonated water. So, only when traveling sometimes, I buy bottled water. 

[Anela]

3 hours ago, supposebly said:

I don't like drinking milk by itself. Only when I can't sleep. I don't know why, but it works.

I normally put it in my coffee or tea. Or in my muesli to soften the oats over night.

I have had a Soda Stream since 2003 because I grew up on carbonated water. So, only when traveling sometimes, I buy bottled water. 

I only drink hot milk, for the same reason (or I used to, thanks to mum and grandma). I drink a bit of cold milk, if something spicy won’t quit, after I’ve eaten it.  

Edited July 13, 2021 by Anela

[ratgirlagogo]

6 hours ago, Browncoat said:

I do know people who drink bottled water at home, but the tap water in their part of the US tastes funny.  It's fine for cooking and washing, but it's really not drinkable.  

Some of my North Dakota relatives who are farming on land divided up from the original family farm get their water from the original family well.  I can tell you that this well water is incredibly minerally(mineralish? whatever), in fact tastes strongly of salt and sulfur.  And they all say that normal water tastes funny - that it just doesn't have any "kick" to it.  Go figure.

Edited July 13, 2021 by ratgirlagogo

[JustHereForFood]

9 hours ago, Zella said:

I will reuse the bottles, so I often bring what looks like bottled water but is actually bottled tap water to work. 

This is me as well, I almost always have a bottle with me when I go out, but I refill it with tap water until something happens to the bottle.

But unlike the rest here, I actually find the tap water too cold when it's not summer, so I heat it a bit in the kettle (hides). 

[Bort]

I only buy bottled water to have for emergencies. (I live in a hurricane prone area.) Visitors to my house sure love to attempt to drink it but I’m always having to hand them a cup and tell them to use the tap (it’s filtered) because yes, there are people who only drink bottled water these days. I see it in the grocery store, when I see people buying two cases of bottled water. I never need to buy that much on a regular basis. But ew, I don’t reuse those water bottles. They’re too hard to clean out after using and are riddled with bacteria if you don’t. It’s actually a good science experiment for kids: how much bacteria is in a bottled water bottle, reused over a period of time?

[MaryMitch]

I'd say the reason people on TV drink bottled water is that the time required to pull out a glass and fill it takes time; filling glass from a tap makes sound, so it would limit the dialog while the glass fills. Plus, on a stage or set the taps aren't normally attached to "real" water lines so no one wants to drink that water.

[WinnieWinkle]

13 minutes ago, MaryMitch said:

I'd say the reason people on TV drink bottled water is that the time required to pull out a glass and fill it takes time;

Yep, same reason most people seem to take their coffee black.  The extra time of getting out milk and sugar and adding it is just wasted time usually and they don't want to bother showing that.

[BlackberryJam]

16 hours ago, Zella said:

My inner germophobe is gagging. I also didn't know Dave. I'd literally just met him, and he pulled that. 

Eating or drinking after someone else doesn't bother me. I'm also fine with spoon licking if I'm at the home of someone I know, but not at a restaurant. Performing oral sex, on the other hand, makes every part of me gag. 

I know this was mentioned in another thread, but people who are assholes or say they don't have time when being interviewed by the police. Call it small town midwest values or whatever, but if the police want to speak with me, I am polite, respectful, make time and try to be helpful. I was a witness to a few car accidents, an assault and an incident of inappropriate policing. 

Edited July 13, 2021 by BlackberryJam

[Ohiopirate02]

35 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

I know this was mentioned in another thread, but people who are assholes or say they don't have time when being interviewed by the police. Call it small town midwest values or whatever, but if the police want to speak with me, I am polite, respectful, make time and try to be helpful. I was a witness to a few car accidents, an assault and an incident of inappropriate policing. 

Yes, the Law and Order action interview.  I believe John Mulaney has a bit on this.  The few times I have had to talk to law enforcement, I took the time to stop what I was doing and spoke to them.  It's not that difficult, just doesn't look good on camera.  

[Quof]

Andrew Rannells, on being interviewed by police

[WinnieWinkle]

Only on TV have I ever seen people assume someone is single because they don't have a wedding ring on.  Not everyone even has a wedding ring in the first place and there are lots of reasons why someone who does have one chooses not to wear it (age does no one any favours - including the size of one's fingers for instance!).  Anyway only on TV is it a truth universally acknowledged that if one is married one wears a ring.

Edited July 13, 2021 by WinnieWinkle

[DrSpaceman73]

1 hour ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

Yes, the Law and Order action interview.  I believe John Mulaney has a bit on this.  The few times I have had to talk to law enforcement, I took the time to stop what I was doing and spoke to them.  It's not that difficult, just doesn't look good on camera.  

John Mulaneys law and order bit.   Hilarious

https://youtu.be/LT5AlzCma7A

[Zella]

One of the things I really enjoyed about Justified was how weirdly civil and cordial the police interviews were on the surface level, especially when the people in question absolutely loathed each other. It's probably one of the best examples of the weird dynamics of small-town life I've ever seen on the screen. There's a great scene in season 2 in which Raylan is talking to a family that his own family has feuded with for generations, and things get pretty tense, but he still sincerely gets offered a plate of food before he goes. He also shows up with a dessert for them as a peace offering. 😂

Edited July 13, 2021 by Zella

[Bort]

46 minutes ago, WinnieWinkle said:

Only on TV have I ever seen people assume someone is single because they don't have a wedding ring on.  Not everyone even has a wedding ring in the first place and there are lots of reasons why someone who does have one chooses not to wear it (age does no one any favours - including the size of one's fingers for instance!).  Anyway only on TV is it a truth universally acknowledged that if one is married one wears a ring.

Yeah, I was a mechanic and almost no one wore wedding rings because of the safety hazard they posed.

[BlackberryJam]

21 minutes ago, kariyaki said:

Yeah, I was a mechanic and almost no one wore wedding rings because of the safety hazard they posed.

Setting matters when it comes to wearing a ring. If a guy in a bar offers to buy me a drink and he's not wearing a ring, I should be able to assume he's not married. But let's be real, he's probably married and still hitting on me. Ew. 

There are many professional reasons for women not to wear their rings, like "my personal life isn't your business" being one. All the therapists I know don't wear rings because they don't want their patients trying to find out their information. 

[Moose135]

2 hours ago, Quof said:

Andrew Rannells, on being interviewed by police

I remember seeing that when it aired and thought it was really on point.

[GaT]

2 hours ago, WinnieWinkle said:

Only on TV have I ever seen people assume someone is single because they don't have a wedding ring on.  Not everyone even has a wedding ring in the first place and there are lots of reasons why someone who does have one chooses not to wear it (age does no one any favours - including the size of one's fingers for instance!).  Anyway only on TV is it a truth universally acknowledged that if one is married one wears a ring.

 

1 hour ago, kariyaki said:

Yeah, I was a mechanic and almost no one wore wedding rings because of the safety hazard they posed.

 

56 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

Setting matters when it comes to wearing a ring. If a guy in a bar offers to buy me a drink and he's not wearing a ring, I should be able to assume he's not married. But let's be real, he's probably married and still hitting on me. Ew. 

There are many professional reasons for women not to wear their rings, like "my personal life isn't your business" being one. All the therapists I know don't wear rings because they don't want their patients trying to find out their information. 

I've been married a very long time & I don't wear a wedding ring. My hands are very dry & I use a lot of hand lotion. At some point I just got tired of taking off my ring every time I put lotion on my hands & stopped wearing it.

[janie jones]

On 7/12/2021 at 7:08 AM, WinnieWinkle said:

Noticed this again on a show last night - people taking milk or orange juice out of a fridge and drinking directly from the container and then putting it back in the fridge.  I concede there are thoughtless people in real life who would do this but surely not as many as TV would have us believe?  I mean it's pretty disgusting.  Even pre-Covid would people - full grown adult people - actually do this with beverages meant to be shared by the family?

When it's just me, or just me and my husband, using it, I'll drink directly from the container, if I just want a sip. I was keeping a jug of milk in the fridge at work (with my name on it!) and I noticed it was depleting faster than it should. I walked around and showed the jug to everyone and said, "I just want you to know I drink directly from this." People stopped using so much of my milk after that.

On 7/12/2021 at 5:18 PM, Browncoat said:

I do know people who drink bottled water at home, but the tap water in their part of the US tastes funny.  It's fine for cooking and washing, but it's really not drinkable.  

I still wouldn't drink bottled water. I lived in an area with water like this for a while, and I just filled up my Nalgene bottle every day before leaving work, and that would be my water for the rest of the day. My husband doesn't like the water where we currently live, and he buys it by the jug (which he drinks directly from). Although someone above made a good point about plumbing on a set, if they are worried about the time it takes to fill a glass of water on camera, they could do it while talking, and it would both be realistic and also no different from someone filling salt shakers while talking to Benson and Stabler.

13 hours ago, BlackberryJam said:

I know this was mentioned in another thread, but people who are assholes or say they don't have time when being interviewed by the police. Call it small town midwest values or whatever, but if the police want to speak with me, I am polite, respectful, make time and try to be helpful. I was a witness to a few car accidents, an assault and an incident of inappropriate policing. 

Maybe I'm lucky that I never had a boss that was an utter asshole, but I've never worked somewhere where I wouldn't have been given time to talk to a cop. They might be irritated that something didn't get finished on time, but they wouldn't blame me personally. It's silly on TV when they won't stop working.

[andromeda331]

On 7/13/2021 at 12:15 PM, kariyaki said:

Yeah, I was a mechanic and almost no one wore wedding rings because of the safety hazard they posed.

Yeah, my dad was a mechanic and never wore his wedding ring. When I was working in a warehouse jewelry wasn't allowed because it could easily snap off or end up in a box and mailed out to a  very surprised customer. 

[GaT]

Why does every pregnant woman on TV have some kind of emergency before giving birth? Obviously, that does happen IRL sometimes, but pregnant women on TV never seem to have the normal type of contractions have started, you get in the car & go to the hospital, check in, & deliver a healthy baby. There's always got to be some reason they can't get to the hospital & the pool boy has to deliver the baby, or the mother's blood pressure drops seriously low out of nowhere, or aliens land just as the baby is crowning.

[Katy M]

On 7/17/2021 at 7:19 PM, GaT said:

Why does every pregnant woman on TV have some kind of emergency before giving birth? Obviously, that does happen IRL sometimes, but pregnant women on TV never seem to have the normal type of contractions have started, you get in the car & go to the hospital, check in, & deliver a healthy baby. There's always got to be some reason they can't get to the hospital & the pool boy has to deliver the baby, or the mother's blood pressure drops seriously low out of nowhere, or aliens land just as the baby is crowning.

Don't forget the seriously high percentage of elevator or taxi births. Which might be a good thing because TV (I hope) also has a higher percentage of babies being switched at the hospital.

But I think there are a fair amount of pretty normal births on TV also.  

[Hiyo]

And then the mother dies.

Or the baby is fine for like 3 seconds and then something is wrong...

[Moose135]

8 hours ago, Katy M said:

Don't forget the seriously high percentage of elevator or taxi births.

I won't get in an elevator with a pregnant woman.

[JustHereForFood]

And there is always a pregnant woman in a hostage situation. If not, then a diabetic who doesn't have either their insulin or something with sugar with them.

[Katy M]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

And there is always a pregnant woman in a hostage situation. If not, then a diabetic who doesn't have either their insulin or something with sugar with them.

Or a person with a heart condition who chooses that day to have a heart attack.  But maybe that's because hostage takes always insist on feeding their hostages pizza instead of salad.

[DoctorAtomic]

The best hostage scene ever was in Die Hard where Holly asked to used the bathroom and everyone else said they needed to go too. Gruber's reaction shot is priceless. 

[Cloud9Shopper]

I’m almost done rewatching ER, and although it’s one of my all-time favorite shows, there is no way I’d ever go to County General if it were a real hospital unless it was the last place on Earth and I was going to die in five minutes and needed my life saved now. It was generally fine in the first six seasons but after that the disasters got bigger. Still! You had doctors getting stabbed to death, exploding helicopters and ambulances, doctors getting held hostage at gunpoint in the hospital, doctors showing up to work drunk, shootouts. And not to mention female doctors wearing open-toed shoes, hair down and in their face (there’s also an intern in the last season whose hair half the time looks like she just climbed out of bed), or wearing three-inch heels. Maybe it’s just me, but all the female doctors and the female PA I’ve seen IRL wear flats (closed-toed) to work and dress business casual but polished, and their hair isn’t hanging in their face or mine.

But granted, most TV workplaces are unprofessional anyway. So yeah. And the pregnancy disaster thing that @GaT mentioned above also happened consistently on that show, with lots of women never even going up to OB to deliver or have their emergency dealt with. 

[ratgirlagogo]

6 hours ago, Cloud9Shopper said:

exploding helicopters

You had at least one sentient helicopter that would take off a doctor's arm, and then return for its Final Vengeance to kill him.

[paulvdb]

Something I hope doesn't happen as often in real life: someone finds a pregnancy test in the trash and jumps to conclusions about which person in the household is pregnant. Or telling other people about the pregnancy when the pregnant woman hasn't even told her husband or boyfriend yet.

If you're ever pregnant you should probably just throw the test in your neighbor's trash. Although I suppose that would also lead to someone finding it and assuming your neighbor is pregnant. So maybe just throw it in the trash in a public place where the person who finds it would have no idea who could be pregnant.

[Cloud9Shopper]

2 hours ago, ratgirlagogo said:

You had at least one sentient helicopter that would take off a doctor's arm, and then return for its Final Vengeance to kill him.

That was seriously my jump the shark moment of the show. (A character’s bipolar drunk brother falling into someone’s grave at a funeral is a close second, though.) After that, there were good episodes but it was hard to take the show as seriously as I once would have. 

[JustHereForFood]

2 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Something I hope doesn't happen as often in real life: someone finds a pregnancy test in the trash and jumps to conclusions about which person in the household is pregnant. Or telling other people about the pregnancy when the pregnant woman hasn't even told her husband or boyfriend yet.

If you're ever pregnant you should probably just throw the test in your neighbor's trash. Although I suppose that would also lead to someone finding it and assuming your neighbor is pregnant. So maybe just throw it in the trash in a public place where the person who finds it would have no idea who could be pregnant.

I would like to think that people don't randomly rummage through trash, but that might be just wishful thinking on my part. Anyway, you are probably better off hiding the test in some napkins when you throw it out.

[Hiyo]

No need to rummage, a used pregnancy test is to a trash can like a french baguette is to a brown paper shopping bag.

[Bort]

3 hours ago, paulvdb said:

Something I hope doesn't happen as often in real life: someone finds a pregnancy test in the trash and jumps to conclusions about which person in the household is pregnant. Or telling other people about the pregnancy when the pregnant woman hasn't even told her husband or boyfriend yet.

If you're ever pregnant you should probably just throw the test in your neighbor's trash. Although I suppose that would also lead to someone finding it and assuming your neighbor is pregnant. So maybe just throw it in the trash in a public place where the person who finds it would have no idea who could be pregnant.

 

57 minutes ago, JustHereForFood said:

I would like to think that people don't randomly rummage through trash, but that might be just wishful thinking on my part. Anyway, you are probably better off hiding the test in some napkins when you throw it out.

Both these things were done on Friends. Rachel put her test under a bunch of tissues in Monica’s trash but a rummaging Phoebe found it anyway — and assumed it was Monica.

[BlackberryJam]

2 hours ago, Hiyo said:

No need to rummage, a used pregnancy test is to a trash can like a french baguette is to a brown paper shopping bag.

That test is covered urine. Someone else's urine. The number of people who touch used pregnancy tests in TV shows just disgusts me. 

And yeah, I'm the poster who says I don't care if friends/family test food with a spoon and stick the spoon back in the pot. That's fine.

But urine covered plastic? NO. 

[Katy M]

2 hours ago, kariyaki said:

Both these things were done on Friends. Rachel put her test under a bunch of tissues in Monica’s trash but a rummaging Phoebe found it anyway — and assumed it was Monica.

To be fair (on the assuming part, not on the disgusting rummaging part), Monica is the only woman who lived in that apartment. Why would Rachel take a pregnancy test in someone else's apartment? I know that Rachel and Chandler switched rooms the night before so that Chandler wouldn't see Monica before the wedding, but that just seems like a really weird time/place to do a pregnancy test. They all stayed at the hotel the following night.  Maybe that would have been a good place to do it.

Actually it would have been funny if she'd done the test at her and Joey's place, Joey found it and assumed that he got one of his one night stands pregnant because he's an idiot.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Katy M

[DoctorAtomic]

3 hours ago, Hiyo said:

No need to rummage, a used pregnancy test is to a trash can like a french baguette is to a brown paper shopping bag.

This is peak television. 

They did this on the Psych movie, when Shawn was legitimately looking for something they left in Jules' car and found the test *on the floor of the car.* Obvs, it wasn't hers. 

They played it off type though in that he ended up being relieved and she was like, 'yeah no way kids' and they fist bumped. 

[Smoothcoat]

On 7/13/2021 at 1:32 PM, DrSpaceman73 said:

John Mulaneys law and order bit.   Hilarious

https://youtu.be/LT5AlzCma7A

That was great! And so spot on! In addition to the guy who keeps loading boxes while being questioned by the police is the college kid who won’t stop walking while they are being questioned because they always “have to get to class”! Or the student athlete who has to “get back to practice “. 

[merylinkid]

that was perfect.

And the bartender with total recall.     But the opposite is the restaurant where they can't remember anyone so the detectives have to pray they paid with a credit card.

The judge who allows everything.   And the judge who always sides with the Defense.   Because apparently the cops despite being HOMICIDE DETECTIVES have flunked Search 101.  

 

[Zella]

7 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

And the bartender with total recall.   

Those always get me. I work in a public library, and someone will come in and ask if so-and-so was in. I live in a small town and chances are someone knows who you are talking about. And I always just politely bow out of the conversation, but in my internal monologue, I'm just like, what the fuck do you think I see and register every person who comes in here? Unless I know the person or they do something really memorable--usually in a bad way LOL--or it's an exceptionally slow day, I am not going to remember them an hour later, let alone a few days later.  

Did you see a tall guy in a hat? *shrug*

Did you see the guy who got hit by a crowbar in a fight? Yes. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Zella

[DearEvette]

1 hour ago, Smoothcoat said:

That was great! And so spot on! In addition to the guy who keeps loading boxes while being questioned by the police is the college kid who won’t stop walking while they are being questioned because they always “have to get to class”! Or the student athlete who has to “get back to practice “. 

These always make me laugh.  These bits on L&O are practically self parody at this point.  Andrew Rannells also does a bit with this in an interview onthe tonight show.  He was talking how he auditioned to be on L&O:SVU and during his audition he was supposed to be the GAP employee who just wouldn't stop folding sweaters while answering  police questions.

[DoctorAtomic]

17 minutes ago, Zella said:

Did you see the guy who got hit by a crowbar in a fight? Yes. 

What's going on at this library?!

 

[Zella]

4 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

What's going on at this library?!

 

I'm not sure. This was a couple of months ago. It started outside and worked its way in. The guy who got hit was actually hit with his own crowbar and then he responded by biting his attacker. It was some weird shit, and neither would talk to the police, so it's still unclear what went down. 

I think people tend to underestimate how very strange even a "normal" day at the public library can be. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Zella

[DoctorAtomic]

I had no idea you were actually serious. 

 

[Zella]

3 minutes ago, DoctorAtomic said:

I had no idea you were actually serious. 

 

LOL that's fair enough. 

I left the library for a couple of years before going back and during that interim, my work stories were so boring compared to my library stories. My family and friends actually complained about it. Office drama has nothing on patron antics at public libraries. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Zella

[Moose135]

39 minutes ago, merylinkid said:

Because apparently the cops despite being HOMICIDE DETECTIVES have flunked Search 101.  

It's not that they flunked Search 101, it's that they are trying to find a way around what they learned in Search 101.

The other day, I was looking at someone's profile online, and saw they attended Hudson High School, in upstate NY. I thought "How did they ever survive that???"

[DearEvette]

I always laugh at how people always remember what they were doing on a certain date, though.

"Where were you on September 13th?"

"I was at my brother's house, we were grouting his tile, then we went out for beers."

Meanwhile I can barely remember what I was doing last Tuesday.

[Annber03]

38 minutes ago, DearEvette said:

I always laugh at how people always remember what they were doing on a certain date, though.

"Where were you on September 13th?"

"I was at my brother's house, we were grouting his tile, then we went out for beers."

Meanwhile I can barely remember what I was doing last Tuesday.

It's especially amusing when a criminal gets super specific about where they were and what they were doing when a crime was committed. They think that all that detail will help make them look more innocent, when really, all it does is make them look more guilty, because, as you note, most people's memories are not THAT good. 

(And that's truth in television there, because there's plenty of real life cases of criminals trying to pull that stunt, too.)

[DoctorAtomic]

1 hour ago, DearEvette said:

I always laugh at how people always remember what they were doing on a certain date, though.

To be fair, and I'm surprised they don't do this on tv because it wouldn't take too much time, 'oh let me look up my calendar real quick. Oh, we had a lunch meeting then. Looks like it was at Outback.'

Now I want to know when Netflix is going to commission "Public Library - Life On The Edge". 

 

[Zella]

I've long believed that there's untapped potential in a library sitcom. It's basically like Barney Miller there, without the cell to lock someone in. 

Edited July 22, 2021 by Zella

[Hiyo]

Quote

I'm not sure. This was a couple of months ago. It started outside and worked its way in. The guy who got hit was actually hit with his own crowbar and then he responded by biting his attacker. It was some weird shit, and neither would talk to the police, so it's still unclear what went down. 

I think people tend to underestimate how very strange even a "normal" day at the public library can be. 

Sounds like your quirky library in a small town is a TV show waiting to happen.