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wundayatta's avatar

That's easy! I saw it on TV!

Asked by wundayatta (58741points) February 7th, 2012
9 responses
“Great Question” (6points)

I was probably seven or eight and my family was on vacation at the shore. They decided to rent a pony so I and my two siblings could have a little ride.

“I don’t need you to hold it for me,” I said. “It’s easy.” I’d seen people ride horses so often on TV that I knew exactly what I was doing.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

So they gave me the reins. I gave a little kick and the pony started walking. The pony’s gait caused my legs to bounce a little on the pony’s sides, so the pony started trotting. My legs bounced a little more, so the pony started galloping and after that my legs couldn’t bounce any more because I was lying on my back in the sand.

Did you ever “learn” anything on TV (or the internet) that didn’t turn out to be the same in reality as it was on the screen?

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Answers

ucme's avatar

Soon after I first learned to drive i’d wind down the window on the driver’s side of my car & “slide in” like they did on the Dooks of Hazzard. I have a bad back as a result of that….well, stupid belief in TV land tomfoolery.

rebbel's avatar

Surely, after seeing hockey skaters doing it, I could make those nice, spectacular breaks/stops while skating on the frozen canals when I was a boy!
Not.

saint's avatar

Combat

Coloma's avatar

@wundayatta Hahaha….well come on out to my little farm and I’ll teach you to ride. lol

No, nothing that comes to mind. I was about inventing my own tomboyish tomfoolery.
Once, when I was about 10 my girlfriend and I were spending a weekend at my families cabin in the Sierras. The river at the bottom of their property was flowing fast from a lot of runoff and I came up with the bright idea of getting a rope and tying it around our waists and to a big tree on the edge of the river so we could float in the rapids without being carried off downstream.

I was the bolder one of the two of us but she reluctantly agreed to my scheme.
Needless to say, it DID prevent us from being swept away, but, we also got nicely battered by being bounced around the boulders in the river. My aunt heard us screaming and came to our rescue, all tangled up with nylon rope burns and boulder bruises. lol
I was forbidden to go near the river again without an adult.

Kardamom's avatar

Romantic love scenes. They’re so beautiful and clean and no one is making any ugly faces or sounds.

Coloma's avatar

Actually, later, we would tie our Barbis with string and float them in the river, so, I can say I was the inventor of “White Water Barbi.” I should have sold the rights to Mattel. lol

Male's avatar

I think it depends on the thing you’re watching. If it’s technical and involves precise steps, there’s no way you’re gonna learn just by watching. It’s like watching someone play a piano. You can watch and read all you want for years, but when it’s your first time playing, you’ll probably play like…your first time playing. These kind of things require more than visual input to learn. They require experience.

However, if it’s something simple and doesn’t require much, then sure…like cooking (but even then, it’s only for some).

YARNLADY's avatar

Painting – I used to want to paint beautiful country scenes, and those TV shows showed how to do it step by step. Mine never came out like that.

Dutchess_III's avatar

Hmmmm. No. That’s not to say I didn’t get into plenty of scrapes and accidents, but it wasn’t because of something I saw on TV.

I remember seeing pro snow-skiers, and how they’d go into screaming, sideways sliding stops with the snow flying. The first time I ever went snow skiing my BIL, who was an expert skier, was supposed to be my guide down. His idea of teaching was to put on his Walkmans and….bonzaiiii!!!!! He was flying over jumps and shit. I was desperately trying to keep up with him, managed to get all the way down without wiping out….then realized I was at the bottom heading straight for a snowski rack at (what felt like) 90 mph! I remembered how the pros did it on TV…and I did just freaking that! I threw my self sideways, dug the left edge of my skis into the snow, snow was flying and I came to a stop just a foot away from the shit.
I turned around, looking for my BIL, murder in my eyes…I caught sight of him staring at me, mouth wide open…he started to say something, then he saw the look on my face and took off as fast as he could, yelling over his shoulder “THAT WAS FANTASTIC VAL!!! THAT WAS AMAZING!!” It’s hard to run away in skis, but he managed because I was chasing him in skis.

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