Why Is That?

Have you ever seen, heard, contemplated something that made you scratch your head? Perhaps you looked, listened, contemplated again and still couldn’t figure it out? Something that made you question: Why is that? Well I don’t know about you, but I do this on a significantly frequent basis.

Just the other day I was whipping up a loaf of sweet bread and the recipe called for 1 teaspoon of vanilla. Which got to me thinking, why only one teaspoon? And that lead me even farther down the path of wondering. I started looking at other recipes that called for vanilla and, sure enough, every single time, only one teaspoon. Why is that? Why in every instance when you add vanilla to something is it always one teaspoon?

And just a couple of days again I had a craving for hot dogs. (Don’t judge me. I like hot dogs.) Of course we had no hot dogs or buns in the house so the hubster volunteered (after I asked him) to go to the store for these items. He came home with a package of 10 hot dogs and 8 buns. That of course got me to wondering, why only 8 buns? The next time I was at the store I had to examine all of the hot dog packages and sure enough, almost every time, there’s 10 in a package. And then when I was in the bread aisle, I checked out the buns. Yup. Only 8 in every package. Why is that? You’d think someone on the packaging side of things would figure out that dogs and buns should be packaged in equal amounts. I did find a couple of packages of hot dogs with only 8 dogs, so kudos to them.

Another weird thing I recently noticed (can you sense that I’ve had some time on my hands and no real clear train of thought?), is that whenever there’s a prediction of rain in the weather forecast, it’s always an even, rounded up or down, percentage. There’s a 50 percent chance of rain, or a 35 percent chance. It’s never a 17 and a half percent chance or an 83.2 percent chance. Why is that? They can predict at what precise time a hellacious thunderstorm will bear down upon you but not the exact percentage of possibility of rain? Seems fishy to me.

Which begs this question: why is the head honcho in the weather department called the chief? What’s up with that? I mean the underlings aren’t called warriors, so why chief? It’s just odd. I know there are other “Chief” positions out there but those positions are always followed by “of.” Chief of Staff, Chief of Police, Chief Financial Officer (ok so there’s no “of” in that one), etc. Why just plain ole Chief Meteorologist? Wouldn’t Chief of Weather be more appropriate? And why “chief” in the first place. Seems a little obscure if you ask me. But, what do I know?

So there you have my random weird thoughts for this week. What craziness do you ponder? Any anomalies or oddball things ever make you go: Why is that? Come on share with me. I’d like to know I’m not alone in this wacky world of whys.

Word of the Day: Uncial

Fun fact about me: I’d like to be a meteorologist. It’s the only job where the person can be dead wrong every single day and still keep their job.

Original post by Jansen Schmidt, July 2018. Photos courtesy Google Images.