17.89 or "How'd you just think of that?"

I am not a huge history buff.

And please realize that every one of these posts requires me to google a year in order to find out what happened.

That being the case I still try to impress people by knowing things that happen in the year 1789 when I have just paid $17.89 for two giant sandwiches, a whole mess of fries, and a greasy little sack of deep fried cheese curds.

The blocky green display glowered out the numbers 17.89 signifying I should take out my debit card and hand it to the lady on the other side of the Burger Time food window. Then a magical transaction would happen and hopefully that same amount of virtual beans would be deducted from my pile of virtual beans in my bank account somewhere on the other end of that telephone line the credit card machine was hooked to. See, I'm a simple guy, and the fact that I never actually see "real" money anymore mildly terrifies me. But anyway due to this simple-old-fashioned kind of attitude Brett and I actually went INSIDE at Burger Time, something I didn't even know was possible 2 years ago. As I pondered the fact that right now a new line was being added to my online banking statement that let me know that apparently my life is worth some sum total of currency I looked up at 17.89 and popped right off. "1789, that's the year the U.S. Constitution was ratified."

Brett looked at me in slack jawed wonder and said "How'd you just think of that?"

"How'd you just think of that?"

--------->IMPORTANT!!!!!<-----------

This was absolutely incorrect! The U.S. Constitution was ratified June 21st, 1788!!!!!!

I then took a second to personally plug my blog which, when I asked if he'd ever read it the only response was an audible grunt of a scoff. 

Which I suppose I deserve in light of the fact that I totally blew my first actual opportunity for a real world application of this skill I'm working on acquiring. However, I like to think that if I had some sort of wise spirit guide named "Chippewa Pete" or something who could visit me and give me advice no one else could hear Chippewa Pete would tell me "Hey, you were only a couple months off big guy. It could be a whole lot worse."

Well now, let's look at what actually happened in 1789 Courtesy of Wolfram|Alpha (The real SkyNet):

So, hey! It went into effect that year! However, I was totally thinking of the Bill of Rights.

Now, Wolfy doesn't really give much thought to other countries besides the U.S. there's one little note about France which is funny because the one thing they ought to say about France is

The storming of the Bastille! Which started a little thing called the French Revolution.

There were two pretty cool little babes born that year. One was James Fenimore Cooper, unfortunately he died in 1851 so he probably never knew how totally badass Daniel Day-Lewis was in "The Last of the Mohicans" and the little german dude who went on to come up with Ohm's Law.

Also, Wikipedia believes that Thomas Jefferson brought the first macaroni machine to ever grace american soil back home that year. Huh. Neat. I have no idea whether or not this is actually true, but it's stated with such certainty that who could doubt it upon initially hearing it? I didn't. And so, I guess that's something. A year comes up and I can just say whatever I want. It might be right or it might be wrong but if it's asinine enough who's going to bother to check? After all, Brett'd never even heard of this blog before and he's featured in it now.

P.S. I'm totally going to post this on his timeline.

P.P.S. Writing that last post-script made me feel really uncomfortable. Just thought you should know.