What is something you grew up doing, only to find out when you're older that most people do it differently?

Oatmeal. Oatmeal is one of the oldest foodstuffs known to man and was first eaten with bare hands. A little known FACT is the spoon was invented just to eat oatmeal in a more civilized manner. ;)

Most people eat fried chicken with their fingers. It’s one of the few “okayed” by etiquette experts (along with ribs).

@Dutchess_III That is strange (to eat chicken with a fork)...and not normal. :)

We grew up buttering our corn on the cob on a block of butter put out exactly for that reason. You just place the corn on the butter and spin. That method is wonderful for evenly coating your corn.

Then I saw most people cut off a small piece of butter and then chased it all over the corn…very ineffective in my book.

Most people eat spaghetti with just a fork, not a spoon as well. (You use it to wind the pasta more tightly around the fork.)

I’m a lefty who uses my right hand to cut things with scissors. Thus, when I use scissors, it is more comfortable for me to use them upside down…as in, my thumb goes in the longer, skinnier hole (that’s what she said) and my fingers go in the thumb hole. I think I was about 15 before I noticed that I had been doing it wrong.

We must traumatize the hell out of our kids. At dinner, “Don’t eat that with your fingers! Use a spoon!! Dumbass!”
Next day, we have fried chicken for dinner…..
I agree about the butter thing @peridot. I cut off the end of a wax-wrapped stick and hold it in my hand slather it around on the corn. I don’t know that I’d want to put the corn on a whole stick that may not get used up for a few days, though…..
Two of my kids write “wrong.” They’re both right handed, but they both write with their wrist cocked around so that the pen is facing them. I think it’s interesting that they BOTH do it. They kind of look like a right-handed Obama. And it pissed me off when a certain teacher tried to stop them from writing that way…..WHO CARES??!!
WAIT! OMG! I just realized…OBAMA is LEFT HANDED!! No wonder he refuses to show us his birth certificate! Left handed people are not legally allowed to be the President of the US.

@Dutchess_III awww, whomp whomp :( you crushed my dreams. PS, I write that way, too! Almost like I’m writing upside down. Us lefties are crazy.

But they aren’t left handed…..

Well, I meant Obama and myself. Your kids aren’t crazy, they’re awesome.

LOL!

I was shocked when I saw a documentary on a mid-western family when I was in college. They took a slab of white bread, buttered it heavily so it was completely covered on one side. Then they took an ear of corn put it on the bread, and wrapped the bread around the ear and slathered the butter on to the ear. Very efficient! When I tried it in front of my mother she called me a heathen.

I saw that in a movie once! Heathens!!

@Dutchess_III Using the block of butter really wasn’t a big deal. If there were any fibers left we would just pick them out with a knife and use the rest of the block for other things. The corn hits the butter fairly sterilized.

My dad’s family did the block-of-butter-for-corn, my mom’s the pat-of-butter, so I’ve grown up with both. But more importantly, the on-going argument of which was is superior. haha : )

I was baking cookies with a friend—quite a while ago, actually—and I got a wisk to stir the dry ingredients together before mixing them with the butter/sugar/eggs… she thought I was so weird for doing that, and let me know, and know, and know. When she left I had to go to my mom and get reassurance that I wasn’t crazy. That’s just how my family does it, and it works quite well!

Another: for the longest time I said women like wuh-men, not wih-men, like I guess it ‘really’ is said. Actually, I still say it like that in my head… I guess I do it for spelling? It was spelled like woman with an e instead of an a, so that’s how I said it.
I found out when I was in 8th grade, I think it was, that I was saying it “wrong”. Our teacher put up the word ghoti (I think that’s the right way to spell the riddle?) and asked how it sounds out as fish with other english phoenetics. The O to I was from the word women. I was all ‘oh…’

Whu-men is how we pronounce the singular of women. Wi-men is how we pronounce the plural. We change the first sound, not the second…which is odd!

@Dutchess_III yes it is!! ... and dangit you’re right about woman, I’ve been pronouncing it wrong too… : |

I was brought up to say grace at every meal, but I was embarrassed to discover people don’t do that in restaurants.

I say grace in restaurants.

I butter saltine crackers when we have them with soup or chili. My husband looked at me like I had three heads. My whole family does it, but, come to think of it, I haven’t seen anyone else do it. I never noticed until he pointed it out.

Mom used to feed us buttered Saltines for dinner. She grew up really poor, but we weren’t poor as kids!

Two words: pear cutter.
Then I went to college and learned that to every other kid, it was an apple cutter. Who would use that device on their apples? Just eat the apple or use a knife!
Mm I could go for a pear right now.

That reminds me @sliceswiththings….when I use a potato peeler I use it by sweeping it up the potato and away from me. You can really get to flying that way. But I’ve noticed that so many people use it like they’d use a knife, by peeling it back toward them, and I always wonder why they just don’t just use a knife…..I can get two potatoes done to their one….How do you guys use your potato peelers?

@Dutchess_III I peel the same way you do!
Of course, I cut outward, too. Probably has something to do with having a dad who had a finger reattached after slipping once while using a knife… yeah ouch—so I learned the art/science/religion of knife safety. I can’t cut towards myself, I don’t know how to

I’ve been tying my shoes differently my entire life… Same loop knot, but just ass-backwards.

I call the glove compartment of a car a jockey box.

^^^^ Really? Why?

In the old days of horse drawn wagons, the jockey box was a box on the wagon where the wagon driver/owner kept the tools needed to fix the wagon. Like when a wheel started squeaking and needed to be greased. In my father’s family the term simply went along with cars when they were developed.
Also, the trunk was where luggage was put in the back of the car.

Too late to edit: Only in my dictionary (Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate, 2012 ed.) does it say that a trunk is the luggage compartment of a car. In the other two dictionary’s (1944 and 1960) the trunk being the luggage compartment is not mentioned.