Idiot of the Day: Wait, then where is Prime Meridia?

Reader Deborah provides today's tale of stupidity:

Once when I was on a flight to Nairobi, Kenya from Paris, France, I got up to stretch my legs and ended up in conversation with someone I knew from university. We glanced up to see our flight's location on the television screen map, and my classmate, well in his 30s, said, "look, we're passing over Ecuador." I asked if he meant "the equator," and he became a little standoffish and quickly returned to his seat. Perhaps I should preface this story by saying that we both attended an "international" university with multiple friends from the country of Ecuador.

Yikes. The equator, of course, does run through Ecuador, but that's no excuse (particularly as a flight from Paris to Nairobi wouldn't cross South America!). The equator also passes through:

• São Tomé and Príncipe
• Gabon
• the Republic of the Congo, not to be confused with...
• the Democratic Republic of Congo
• Uganda
• Kenya
• Somalia
• the Maldives (although itmisses every island, passing between Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll and Gnaviyani Atoll)
• Indonesia
• Kiribati (again, it misses every island, passing between Aranuka and Nonouti Atolls in the Gilbert Islands)
• Colombia
• Brazil

Despite its name, Equatorial Guinea is not crossed by the equator.