Bearing witness to true idiocy is both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, it's hilarious. On the other, it's just plain painful. Either way, we just can't seem to resist basking in a whole 'nother level of stupid. From simple ignorance and honest mistakes to dangerous maneuvers and senseless choices, these Redditors share the most idiotic things they’ve ever seen.
1. The Shapes Must Match
A friend didn't have coins for a vending machine, but she did have a dollar bill. She folded up the dollar bill and forced it into the coin slot, and then did not understand why she did not get her item.
2. Pulling Your Leg
When I used to work at Disney World, there was this incident with this lady and her turkey leg. One day at 9 AM, a lady came into our Guest Services and demanded a refund on her turkey leg because it tasted weird. When we asked her for the details to process the refund, it turned out that she had bought it 3 days before and was carrying it in her bag ever since.
3. Geography Lesson
I was going through security at the American border, and the border official stopped me, telling me that I needed to show a different form of ID. I asked why, because I had given them my (American) driver’s license. They insisted that I needed a US document like a green card or something. I was really confused, because I’m a US citizen, and my license is a US document.
Then I realized what had happened; they were confused about the name of my state, which is called the District of Columbia. I explained how the District of Columbia is, in fact, an American state. It is long for DC. Like Washington DC. As in, the capital of the United States.
4. How Can I Help You?
I'm fairly certain that people who have to work at front-of-house desks deal with so many stupid people that they start to lose their own sense of sanity. I once decided to go see my doctor about something and, as it happened, my bus home from work stopped right outside my doctor's office, so I decided to just walk in and see if I could make an appointment there and then.
The waiting room was empty, so I walked up to the woman at the desk, who asked if I had an appointment. I told her I didn't and would like to make one. She told me that I'd have to call the number, and pointed to it on the digital signboard. I asked if I could just make an appointment with her, and she again pointed out the number on the sign.
I asked whom I'd be talking to when I called that number, and she said that she would answer the phone. So I took my phone out of my pocket, looking her in the eye the whole time, and called the number. The phone on her desk started ringing. She actually said "Excuse me one second!" answered the phone, and then I had a conversation with her. On the phone. While standing right in front of her.
I asked for an appointment. She asked when I wanted it. I said that right now would be good. She said OK, took my details, and hung up. She then looked at me and said, "How can I help you?" I told her that I have an appointment and she told me to have a seat. I went and sat down while she typed some info into her computer, and then the digital sign board popped my name up, and she spoke into the her microphone to call my name, as I'm sitting there. When I went up to the desk she said, "Hello, sir. How can I help you?"
5. What’s in a Name?
A co-worker of mine bought a low-flow showerhead. A few days later, I asked him if he had noticed a difference while in the shower. He gave me a funny look, and then explained that he didn’t take showers. Apparently, he had filled his BATHTUB using the new low-flow showerhead because he thought it would use less water!
6. Orientation Matters
My wife's cousin and her husband fell on self-induced hard times and needed a place to stay for a bit. We set up a queen-sized air mattress in the living room for them. For three weeks, I woke up to go to work every morning and saw them sleeping on it sideways, with their legs hanging off the edge. One day, she asked me to buy her a bigger air mattress because the old one was hard on their backs.
I told her to turn her body the other way on the mattress - the thing even has a built-in pillow on one end, it’s pretty self-explanatory. Her response? “We can’t, because then we can't see the TV. It hadn’t even crossed her mind to turn the air mattress to face the TV! The worst part is that that is only one of many stories I have about this lady.
7. Family Tree Flub
My identical twin brother and I used to work as grocery baggers. One day, we were working at adjacent checkouts. A customer saw us, stared, and then asked if we were twins. I answered yes, and her follow-up question was mind-blowing. "Are you brothers?" We just looked at each other, slowly nodded, and then went back to bagging.
8. No Laughing Matter
I teach high school English. I was working with a small ninth-grade group and found out that all four of them thought Alaska was an island. They were not kidding. I grabbed a globe to show them that Alaska was not, in fact, an island. They were silent for a minute until one piped up with the dumbest follow-up question. He asked, "But how recent is that map?" I laughed really hard but discovered, again, that it was not a joke.
9. A Little Bit Nutty
Once at my old job, a co-worker came into the break room, and I offered him some chocolate that someone had dropped off for us. He thanked me, popped one in his mouth, chewed it for a bit, and then cheerfully asked me, "Oh do you know if there are nuts in this by the way? I'm allergic to them.” I was like, “What?! I've literally never seen a bar of chocolate that doesn't contain the words "may have traces of nuts." Why are you eating this??” And he said, "Oh yeah, good point!" and spat it into the trash. He then happily wandered back out to the front like nothing had happened.
10. Try This on for Size
I have worked at Spirit Halloween every season for the past 5 years, and super shady things happen at Spirit Halloween all the time. So, I have endless stories to tell—but this is the craziest thing that ever happened to me. I was working the dressing room basically just regulating who goes in and taking costumes out of the bags to withhold accessories to prevent theft, etc.
This was my first year working there, so I was about 20. Just a couple days before Halloween, a girl around my age came to the dressing room with a typical college girl costume. She said something like, “Oh good. We’re about the same size! I’m in a rush, so I wouldn’t have time to find an associate to help me.”
I just kind of smiled and took the bag from her not knowing what that even meant. I unpacked the costume, leave the accessories, and put it in a basket to carry to the dressing room. She looked really confused, so I just asked her to follow me and I’d get her a dressing room. I really wish I was making this next part up.
This girl said to me, “Why would I go back there for you to change?” First, I was just like HUH???? I can’t even remember exactly how I responded because I was so confused, but it was something along the lines of “You try on the costume yourself, so you know how it fits you. An associate doesn’t do it for you.”
And this girl had the audacity to be MAD AT ME for saying that! Her response was basically, “Well, I don’t want to have to get out of my clothes and change into the costume, so it isn’t worth my time. That’s so unsanitary to have a bunch of people trying the costume on instead of you just doing it, so I don’t even want it anymore,” followed by her storming out.
11. That’s Definitely Worth It
I had a customer ask me how many ones I could give him if he gave me a $20. I told him $19 because I was charging a finder's fee. He told me that was a great deal and slapped down a $20. We were at a bank. I was his bank teller.
12. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A guy had bought some land that had a really old house on it and wanted to get rid of it; however, he eventually decided that it cost too much to have it torn down, so he asked the fire department if he could burn it down himself. They said no. A couple of weeks went by, and they got a call about a house on fire. Guess who? The guy had set the old house on fire anyway. He was promptly detained.
13. Do Not Enter
One time, I watched someone who had missed their exit on the highway stop on the shoulder, back up, turn around, and go up the entrance ramp. I could not believe my eyes. A couple of fun details about this incident really highlight its stupidity: the next exit was only a few miles up the road. Going there and then turning around might have delayed the person’s drive by 15 minutes, tops. There was also no traffic ahead.
14. Perceived Intelligence
In high school, a person who I thought I knew to be reasonably intelligent, and had recently been accepted to UCLA, and later went on to be an attorney asked if, "assault was a new thing or had it been around a while?"
15. Nice Try
This was my first experience in retail where I learned what many customers would be like. Seasons were changing, so we put a lot of shirts that we had to get rid of in the front and made them 50% off. I was working the register when a woman came up to buy her things. I rang her up and could see from the look on her face like something was wrong. That’s when the following happened.
Lady: “Why is this so much?” Me: “Pardon me?” Lady: “This should only be $10, not $20.” I thought that maybe her item was on sale, so I asked if she could point out the sign, because I wasn’t aware of it. It was a small store and we didn't have to walk anywhere. Lady: “This sign here.” Me: “This sign says that all shirts are 50% off.” Lady: “Yes, so why is this full price?”
Me: “Ma’am, this is a hat.”
16. Green Nuclear
Back when the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster happened, we were discussing how the reactor had failed in a science class. Five minutes into the conversation a girl piped up and said, "I don't see what the big deal is. Why can't we just regrow it?" She seriously thought a nuclear power plant was literally a biological plant.
17. Stone’s Throw Away from Common Sense
I work as a server in a restaurant. We use little wooden trays as check presenters, and since it is an open-air restaurant, we weigh down the receipts with decorative stones that are like the shiny ones for the bottoms of fish tanks. I dropped a check for an older couple, and after a few minutes, I went back to get it.
The man said, "You should warn people that those rocks aren't chocolates! I could have broken a tooth!" I get a lot of older people who like to josh around with me, so I definitely thought he was kidding. He was not. He was actually mad at me because he had tried to eat the rock, and it was obviously my fault.
18. Blind Privilege
There was a girl in my high school who forced the teacher to pause a documentary about people living in mud huts in Africa because she was upset that they were showing us “fictional” movies in a history class. It took everyone else in the room to convince her that people actually live like that in some places. That’s wealthy-area living for you.
19. Scot-Free of Relativity
One Wednesday, a customer asked me why our produce section was so empty especially in terms of stuff like lettuce. I told him that it was because of extreme weather in Spain where we source most of our stuff from. He cut off my explanation with, "Why does it matter what's going on in Spain? We're in Scotland."
20. Foreshadowing
A man's convenience store burned down. At first, it looked like a terrible accident. Then the investigators caught the owner in the biggest, dumbest mistake. He did it himself so that he could get a bunch of insurance money. They figured it out when they saw that the owner had conveniently stopped the milk and bread deliveries one day before the "accidental" fire. Buddy was not a mastermind.
21. Multiple Misunderstandings
Someone I knew from school was pregnant, and she knew she was having identical twins. The day before the scan to find out if they were male or female, she posted on Facebook asking her friends to guess girls or boys. One friend of hers replied with, “One of each!” The mum-to-be replied, “They’re identical.” The person actually responded again with, “It could still happen!” No honey. Just no.
22. The Dangers of Sarcasm
A summer camp counselor made all the kids on a school bus keep the windows up on a hot day on an hour-long trip so that they could “feel the air conditioning" coming from the front of the bus. Thing is, she was completely wrong. Even though I was about 10 years old at the time, I tried to explain to the 40-year-old counselor that the "air conditioning" she was feeling was the wind coming in through the bus driver’s open window. She still didn't believe me.
I begged her to ask the bus driver to confirm that the bus did not have air conditioning, but she didn't want to bother him while he was driving. She finally got hot enough that she asked the bus driver if the bus had air conditioning. He jokingly replied, "The bus only has air conditioning when the windows are down and the wheels are turning." She then looked back at me and said, "See? I told you the bus had air conditioning!" and proceeded to force us to keep the windows up.
23. Let’s Call a Square a Square
About a year into our marriage, my wife and I bought a dining table and chairs. It was our first “real” furniture! My wife was so happy, she posted pictures on Facebook and wanted her mom to look. Well, her mom commented on the phone that it was a nice “oval table.” Wife is immediately upset. "You didn't look," she says. "Yes I did!" her mom insists.
"It's not oval, it's rectangular." "No, it's an oval, I looked." Wife finally gets her mom to actually go look for real, and then it gets even worse. She drops this gem: "Well that's what I call it!" “Um, you call rectangles ovals?" This has become a running gag for us. Whenever we lose an argument, we always end it with, "Well, that's what I call it!"
24. Tire Trouble
I once rescued a co-worker on the side of the road with a flat tire. While waiting for the tow truck, I pointed out the nail at the top of his tire, commenting that the problem was clear. He scoffed, looked at me like I was the stupidest person in the world, and exclaimed, “That’s not possible, because it’s only flat at the bottom!” I just walked away and never brought it up again.
25. Yogi Bear Knows Better
I used to work in Banff National Park. One day at the end of the tour, I was driving some guests back to their hotel and a woman was adamant that Banff was clearly a very dangerous place to visit since we "just let wild animals run around everywhere! They should be in cages!" I had to fight the urge to throw her off the bus pretty hard. She also insisted that she needed to change the money she got in British Columbia to Alberta currency, which...does not exist.
26. As Good as Gold!
I worked at a bank when mobile depositing had just become a "thing." We understood that some people would take longer to get used to it, but when we received a picture of someone’s cash, we realized that they sent a picture of their cash to us for deposit…because money is money, right? Yeah…it doesn’t work like that at all.
27. Is it More of a Squeal or a Clunk?
A girl I knew was complaining about her car making a weird noise. She kept bringing it to the repair shop and they kept finding that nothing was wrong with it. So she sold her car and bought another one. She complained that the same weird noise was in the new car too. Then one day she was in the car with a friend of mine, who was driving.
He veered out of the lane just a little bit and hit the rumble strip along the edge of the highway. “That’s it! That’s the noise my car makes!” The girl said excitedly. “What, this?” He purposely drove onto the rumble strip. “Yes!” She said. She sold her car because the “weird noise” it was making couldn’t be fixed. Her nickname was rumble strip after that.
28. Kid Logic
When I was a kid, I had a real old transistor radio, which I used to listen to old music. One day, I asked my parents for a newer radio—so that I could receive and listen to newer music. Not my finest hour.
29. Mixed Up Hybrids
I used to work with a woman who insisted that any animal could reproduce with any other animal. She believed that sperm from any animal was the same and that DNA was irrelevant and didn’t matter. She believed this because she once saw some sickly, possibly deformed puppies and decided that they must have been half dog and half rat.
30. What SIDS You Say?
When my daughter was born, we had to see the hospital pediatrician who was an older southern man before we could switch to our usual one. We're in a tiny exam room and he's going over the do’s and don'ts for new parents. So, he asks us, “And I assume she will be sleeping in a crib in the nursery?” We respond by saying, “We have a bassinet set up beside the bed to make night feeding easier.”
Then he interjects and says, “She can't sleep with you!” But we tell him that, “She won't be in the bed. She has a bassinet beside the bed.” He says to this, “If she sleeps in the same room, there will be too much carbon dioxide and she'll suffocate. That's what causes SIDS.” After a short pause, we say, “...then isn’t this exam room unsafe?” We later put in a complaint with the practice and the hospital. That's some ridiculously incorrect information to be spouting off at people, especially parents who take everything a doctor says as gospel. I can't even find the logic in that.
31. What About ‘Cousin It’?
I once had to explain to a girl that she couldn’t grow her hair down in front of her face like a curtain, and just cut out eyeholes. Even after explaining it, she couldn’t grasp it, and brushed me off as being "too smart."
32. Muddled Mayonnaise
I once worked in a Midwestern US grocery store deli, and I was trying to explain to a woman that the name brand and generic brand of the macaroni salad that we carried were, in fact, identical. The woman yelled at me, saying she could only have the generic brand because, “One is made with mayo and the other is made with mayonnaise and I don’t like mayo.” When I tried to explain that mayo is an abbreviation of mayonnaise, she just said, “I’m from the south, I know my food” and stormed away.
33. College Catastrophe
One day, a friend was making a sandwich in our college dorm. It had walnuts garnished on top of the bread. I then remember him telling me “Oh look there’s walnuts on here!” before he proceeded to eat the entire sandwich. At the time, I didn’t know he was allergic to nuts. I left to shower and when I came back, my jaw dropped: There were two paramedics in our dorm taking him out on a stretcher.
Luckily, he recovered. The following day, I asked what happened, to which he replied, “I accidentally ate some walnuts, which I’m allergic to, and by the time I went to get a Benadryl, my throat had started to close and I couldn’t swallow it, so I had to call an ambulance.” I was just utterly shocked how he even let this entire situation happen. I really couldn’t believe it. He knew there were walnuts on the bread and still ate it?!
34. Mirror Image
I have an identical twin sister. My sister and I worked in adjacent buildings connected by a skywalk. One day, I thought I saw her as I was walking across and cheerfully said hello—to a mirror—in front of a bunch of coworkers.
35. New Technology
A friend of mine from an African country told me that when they were in Europe, someone in an elevator asked him if they had elevators where he came from, as if my friend should be amazed to be riding in one. He told them no, jokingly, and when they asked if it was hard walking upstairs all the time, he said "No, we take a helicopter to the roof and walk down." They seemed impressed.
36. Seeing is Believing
My stepbrother was baffled that dogs were color blind because he could see his reflection in our dog’s eye when he looked very closely, and it was in color. It was not a black and white reflection, he reasoned, so how could the dog be color blind? I tried explaining it to him and I don’t think he really got it.
37. A Little Too Meta
I’m an identical twin, and I have been asked all manner of utterly ridiculous questions about it throughout my life. I think my favorite was when a girl once asked me, “Do you ever get yourselves mixed up with each other?” I responded, “Are you asking me if I ever sometimes think I’m my brother?” She replied, “Yeah,” as if it was a valid question. No. I don’t.
38. Math Lesson
While driving from one big city to another, I stopped in a small town to eat at a fast-food chain in Texas. I ordered my food, got my orange number, and sat down to wait for my order. The lady who was bringing out orders had this "I give up" demeanor as she was calling out numbers that guests weren't claiming. Each time this happened, she spoke to a couple of tables to seemingly figure out who the food was for.
Then I heard her call for number 55 while holding a tray of food for one person. I was number 54, and noticed I was the only single-party guest there. We made eye contact and she headed towards me, looking grumpy. She confirmed my order with me and said, "Sorry, for some reason the computer prints 1 number higher on our side." I immediately asked, "Well then why don't you just call out one number lower than what's printed?"
She froze and I could see the gears turning in her head. I thanked her, and she went on her way.
39. Selfie Snafu
My friend was trying to take a selfie with his phone in selfie mode, using the front camera. The lens was smudged, so we told him he should clean it. He then turned his phone over and began to clean the camera on the back. He turned it back over and tried to take a selfie again, and couldn’t understand why it was still smudged.
40. Where’s the Connection?
When I started working from home, I had a few users submit tickets for "connectivity issues." These tickets got through two lines of support before landing in my queue. After asking a few questions, it turns out that they thought the corporate Wi-Fi would follow them home. They genuinely didn't realize that they'd need home internet in order to connect to their workplaces.
41. F for Effort
In grade ten, we had a science test, and the teacher gave one point for putting a date on the paper and one point for your name on the paper. And then there were 98 points for the rest of the test. All you had to do to get two automatic points was just your name and late. A guy sitting in front of me got 0.5/100… He didn’t write the date and only wrote his first name…
42. Dumb High-Risk-Ways to Die
I work in highway safety, and I can no longer count on two hands the number of people I’ve stopped with in the middle lane of traffic on a freeway with no bigger problem than a flat tire. When I question them as to why they stopped in the middle of a freeway, the typical answer is either the vehicle wouldn’t go any further, or they don’t want to damage their rim. I swear, people will put the well being of the rim on their car above their own safety and even the safety of their children.
43. Bleach Brain
I knew a kid who drank bleach to prove it wouldn’t kill you. A week later, he showed up at school after taking a shot. He said he “proved his point” when the teacher asked why he was bragging about it. Mr. Hawk just said, “but you cannot argue that without that medical treatment you’d have passed on though. You even said you have stomach damage and a burnt esophagus yourself.” This kid was bragging about that. He was not mentally disabled or otherwise. He was just that dumb.
44. March Right Back Over Here
Our town was live-streaming a holiday parade in case people weren’t able to make it out in person. This included a live chat feature as well. One mother who lived nearby wrote into the chat that her daughter didn't get outside in time and asked for them to turn around and come back to her street so she could see...????
Wikimedia Commons, Annie Jackson
45. Well, That Blew Up in My Face
I knew a girl in high school who really wanted to breathe fire. On her first, and last, attempt, she put the lighter fluid in her mouth and, instead of blowing it onto a flame, she lit it on fire inside her mouth and then tried to blow it out. She came to school the next day with a bandage over half her face.
46. Saw It in a Movie
When I was in high school, we were reading a short story about what would have happened if the Japanese attacked us back with nuclear arms after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A girl in my class raised her hand and said something along the lines of “why does this matter? None of it is real anyway.” When the teacher asked her to clarify, the girl (who’s actually half Japanese) told her that the bombings of Japan were just from a movie and didn’t actually happen.
47. Different Schools of Thought
A former co-worker was talking about how she wanted to go back to school to get her Master’s degree because she only had a "bachelorette" degree and wanted more job opportunities. I asked her, "Do you mean a bachelor's degree?" She INSISTED it was pronounced bachelorette when it was given to a woman. Then she led me back to her office and pointed at her diploma to the word Baccalaureate, and said, "SEE?! Bachelorette!"
48. Had to Be There
I've got two little girls who were born 15 months apart. They look pretty similar, and we get asked if they're twins pretty often. Even though one is quite a bit taller, you'd be forgiven for thinking they were fraternal twins. But yeah… I once got into an argument with somebody over whether my daughters are twins or not. It wasn't until I pointed out that I was literally there watching them being birthed that they finally conceded.
49. All About Labels
I worked with a lady who was talking about how one of her friends had lost a bunch of weight. She pondered, “I wonder how many Diet Cokes she had to drink to do that.” This was the same lady who was convinced beyond repair that when you sneeze, the air ONLY comes out of your nose. There was no convincing her otherwise.
50. Superfluous Spam
My boss asked me to file the spam mail. This man was one of those people who think they are the smartest person in the room, and nobody is allowed to question him. So, I thought, spam folder, okay. Weird, but okay. I went through the emails and couldn’t find any spam mail that wasn’t already in the spam folder.
The afternoon arrived and he stomped over to my desk area, wanting to know why the spam wasn’t in the spam folder. He then threw a Manila folder on my desk. The folder was hand-labeled “Spam.” My jaw nearly hit the floor. He apparently printed spam mail out and filed it. Catching the skepticism on my face, he insisted that the IT guy told him that’s where spam goes, so he had got himself a folder and that was it.
51. Think Outside the… Options?
I gave a multiple-choice quiz to my high school students this year. I went to grade the first question and saw that instead of choosing option A, B, C, or D, a student had written in his own option and circled it: "E) I don't know." He went on to do this for roughly two-thirds of the questions on the quiz. I appreciated the honesty, but guessing to have a chance at some points or at the very least just leaving it blank might've been a bit wiser. Oh well.
52. Technically Illiterate
During the pre-hotspots and widespread WiFi days, I had an Editor-in-Chief ask me for “access to the server” before she went on vacation. I set her up with VPN and FTP access for all the servers she used and called it a day. The next week, she called my boss screaming, because she was at “the cabin” in the middle of the woods and had no Internet.
Apparently, I was not only supposed to divine that “access to the server” meant a wireless Internet service, but also somehow empower her “new,” neon-orange iBook to access some mystical WiFi network made from sunshine and rainbows. My boss wanted me to apologize, but I told him that the only apology she’d get from me is that “I am deeply sorry I assumed you weren’t a moron.”
53. Lacking Logic
I accidentally locked my purse with my keys and cell phone in my apartment. I went to the office to ask maintenance to let me in. The woman at the desk said she would call maintenance, and asked for a phone number they could reach me at. I said there wasn’t one, because my cell phone was locked in my apartment. She insisted she needed a number.
I said I could give her the number, but that I wouldn’t be able to answer if they called. She suggested I get my phone out of my apartment so that I could answer when they called. I rolled my eyes at her and said if I could get in my apartment to get my cell phone, I wouldn’t need maintenance to let me in. She never did understand me. But maintenance did show up ten minutes later.
54. Strange Times
In March 2020, a friend was freaked out to hear that there was a case an hour away from her. She thought she should get in her car and drive in the other direction to keep ahead of it. She genuinely thought the virus was approaching like a wave of zombies and was an hour from reaching her.
55. Dip in the Brain
When I was in university, I brought hummus to class one day. A girl who sat next to me was like, “Oh that looks good! What is that?” And I said it was hummus and she went, “Don’t you mean dip? Hummus is the capital of Saudi Arabia!” And then I just explained to her that hummus is a type of dip made from chickpeas. Then I offered her some. I thought it was just a brain blip. I was wrong.
We were class friends for a little bit, but I had to stop studying with her because when we talked about Latin America and poverty in class, she informed me that to “cure” Latin America’s poverty, Peru should just get rid of Machu Picchu and replace it with a giant resort to attract tourists. She felt that Machu Picchu was too old and that no one cared about it anymore. I found new people to study with.
56. Alien Technology
We were in seventh-grade science class and the teacher was telling us about the vacuum of space. A girl I knew raised her hand and asked, “If a spaceman talked into a rock and handed it to somebody, would they hear it?” The class was silent for a few seconds before our teacher explained that rocks are, in fact, not alien tape recorders.
57. No, Eh?
I was born in Toronto and then moved to the US. In middle school, people would ask me if I lived in an Igloo, or even if I had TV and electricity. Over time, I realized that too many people asked about it for me to chalk it up to isolated stupidity. I can only hope the internet has improved general knowledge of how other societies live, and of basic geography.
58. Confusing Conversations
Back in my senior year of high school a bunch of friends were eating lunch together in the cafeteria. All of us had to explain to two things to a truly stupid girl: why time zones exist and why you can’t raise chickens without bones. First, she argued that China should just have to “deal with” keeping the same date and time as the US. We tried explaining the International Date Line and all of that, but to her, it was all preposterous and unnecessary.
The conversation somehow devolved into her suggesting that scientists should find a way to genetically engineer chickens to be raised to slaughter-age, as we already do, but without bones so that people don’t have to deal with them while cooking and eating. She now has a Master’s degree and teaches elementary school, so it’s likely she’s learned a thing or two since then. For the children’s sake, I sure hope so.
59. Canadian Zoo
I work for Parks Canada in Yoho National Park. I have been asked this question not once, but twice in my career: “Where do you keep the animals at night?” To this day, I still find great joy imagining what they thought was going on each night as we “collected” every large animal in the Parks, including moose, grizzlies and mountain lions, just to name a few.
60. Ma’am, This Is Emergency Services, Not 4-1-1
About half the calls I take as a 9-1-1 operator on a daily basis are from people who call 9-1-1 to ask whether Walmart is open, to report that they didn't get enough mayo on their burger, to complain that the cleanup at a fatality wreck is taking "too long" and all sorts of absurd, out of touch, beyond insensitive stuff. It truly makes you lose faith in humanity.
61. Right Before Your Eyes
I worked in retail for a few years, and it taught me that many people are either incapable or unwilling to read. I have had people walk up to me to ask me how much something is only for the price tag to be featured prominently on the item. It usually goes with me saying, “it's $9.99, ma'am,” which is usually followed with a very loud, “HOW DID YOU KNOW?” I finally concede with, “it says so on the price tag, ma'am.”
62. Fowl Understanding
I used to manage a retail store that sold teen clothing, so as expected, I primarily had teens working for me. One employee came to the back room while I was on break and asked what I was eating. Somehow the topic turned to how I should’ve brought chicken for lunch because she wanted chicken. I told her I was a vegetarian and therefore don’t eat meat.
She tells me chicken is NOT meat. It’s “poultry,” and according to her, vegetarians can eat poultry because at the grocery store the aisles list “meat” and “poultry” separately so they’re obviously different. We argued for a couple of minutes before I finally told her to go back to the sales floor. She didn’t last at the job long, but MAN.
63. Not Really Tapping In
One of my friends showered in cold water for a year because he never thought of turning the other tap to see what it would do.
64. Sounding Foreign
I used to work for a chatbot app. Our app would text our users every morning with a greeting in a different language, i.e. Hola, Bonjour etc. One day, a user blew us up saying their account was hacked. She said, "my name is Kim Smith not Kim Konnichiwa. Someone's hacked my account!" When we explained that our service has been clearly saying hello to her in other languages every day and that Konnichiwa is hello in Japanese and her account was fine, she went on a prejudiced rant and said Disney was behind the destruction of America. Yep.
65. Consider the Lobster
I was a cook a few years ago. On a particularly busy night, we ran out of lobster mac and cheese. This one waitress could not understand how this was possible and just kept nagging and nagging in disbelief. I got annoyed to the point that I told her the reason for this was that there was a shortage of people with small enough hands to milk lobsters’ tiny nipples, hence a worldwide shortage of lobster milk to make that dish. I had to come clean with her when she started telling this to customers and they demanded to speak with a manager.
66. The Manhattan Theory
My former boss was worried that the island of Manhattan would sink with all the extra visitors for New Years' and the ball dropping. She thought islands float, and when she found out that wasn’t true, she thought it was so funny that she told everyone the story. She was later fired for withholding a pay raise from someone on her team because he didn’t accept her romantic advances. He had the texts to prove it.
67. Two for Dumb
I remember once, this dumb guy that I knew from middle school put money into the vending machine, and then his item didn’t come out. So then, to try and get it out, he put MORE MONEY into the machine, and then two of what he wanted dropped to the bottom. He pulled out his items and then exclaimed, “All right! 2 for 1!” Oh buddy, do I have news for you.
68. The Lie Detector Test Results Revealed That…
One time, my now ex-girlfriend and I were watching Maury Povich and it was one of those paternity test episodes with the classic "you are NOT the father!" moments. As the episode ends, she turns to me and says the dumbest thing I've ever heard: "if we ever have a baby and I found out I'm not the mother, I'll kill you." Thankfully, we didn't end up reproducing.
69. In Different Quarters
I was working retail at the time, and this lady walks in and asks me to tell her when it is quarter after 10 because she needs to catch a bus. We were slow, so I obliged. 10:15 rolls around and I tell her, so she drops her stuff and runs out to get the bus. Five minutes later she comes back in scowling. And she then lectures me on how to tell time. "How much is a quarter? 25 cents! So why would you tell me a quarter after 10 is 10:15!! It's 10:25!"
70. Absent Alaska
I spent seven years working for Transportation Security Administration in the US. I had a pretty sweet detail where I would assist passengers who did not have ID, or assist TSA agents if they had questions about the validity of the given ID. One day, I got a call on the radio asking for assistance in verifying an ID. I had no idea what I was in for.
I went over and asked what the issue was. The agent handed me a driver’s license and says he, “can’t accept this Canadian ID.” Hearing this, I assumed it was expired or had the wrong name. I took a look and saw that it was an Alaskan driver’s license. I quickly approved the passenger and sent them on their way.
I then spent 10 minutes explaining that a) Canadian driver’s licenses are acceptable according to TSA regulations and b) Alaska has never been a Canadian territory. This co-worker has a Masters degree in mathematics and served 25 years in the US Air Force.
71. Face-Palm
I worked at a deli for a summer job, and a woman came in and asked if we had any meat without spices or sauces. She then proceeded to tell us that "the doctor" had said that her dogs got sick because she kept feeding them pizza, and they couldn't handle the spices. I suggested that she stop feeding them pizza. She then said, "Oh but they love pizza so much, I feel bad for them. I'm probably still going to feed them pizza."
72. Wrong Universe
Sitting in a 300-person lecture for a first-year University Astronomy class, I witnessed a girl raise her hand and ask, "Is the sun in our solar system?"
73. Naturally Gluten Free
I work at a grocery store. I once had to explain to a woman that apples did not contain any gluten, meat, or dairy ingredients. How can one think apples contain dairy? She thought gluten was found in every major grain, and that apples were a grain because they "have seeds."
74. A Little too Literal
A girl once told me that the London Eye was a giant statue of an eye in London, which was pointed towards England. When I pointed out that London is in England, she said that the city of London had been moved. Her perception of history was that since England and France had fought so many conflicts in the past, they had switched the names of their capitals. Then her reasoning somehow got even stupider.
This was because, "English people don't want to invade London and French people don't want to invade Paris, duh." According to her, before the English gave up the name London to the French, they built a giant statue of an eyeball to look back at England from its new home in France, like the city missed its homeland.
75. Anatomy Lesson
I had a concussion and was getting X-rays taken. They gave me a lead blanket to wrap around my twig and berries. Instead of wrapping it around my waist, I took it and wrapped it around me like a cape. I could not for the life of me understand what they wanted me to do. I blame the concussion.
76. Unconstructive Criticism
I was helping a colleague with his graduate thesis film. My job was to animate a solar eclipse, since we couldn't shoot one for real. I animated it using some real-life reference footage to make it look realistic. When I showed him, he asked why the moon was black and had no detail. I asked him if he had ever seen a solar eclipse. He replied, "Yes of course, but I want this one to look surreal since it's the moon in front of the sun, it's not like a normal solar eclipse."
At this point, it became clear something was amiss, and after asking a few more clarifying questions, it became clear he had no idea that the large object passing in front of the sun during a solar eclipse is, in fact, the moon. I confronted him about it and he apologized for "not being great with astrology."
77. Misguided Selfishness
I just learned that people in my workplace, a paper mill in Maine, are taking extra facemasks from the boxes that are provided by the company. However, they aren't wearing them or using them, or even taking them for their families; they're taking them and throwing them out, under the impression that if they get rid of them faster, then they won't have to wear them for as long.
That's right, while first responders and healthcare workers are in danger, sometimes because they can't get the appropriate supplies, these people are just taking face masks and throwing them out. It even got to the point where a few employees rushed the temperature-taking room, took as many whole boxes of masks as they could carry, and made a point of dumping them in the trash in front of the person taking temperatures that day.
78. Tall Tale
My good friend is from Estonia, and he came to visit me in Germany. He was in a bar waiting for me, chatting with his girlfriend in Estonian. As the language is not really known, they attracted the attention of the neighboring table, and were asked about their origins. As you know, everybody is a little bit more relaxed after a few libations.
My friend was fluent enough in German to reply. By the time I made it to the pub, he had persuaded the table next to him that Estonia had no electricity, that he communicated with me through snail mail, and that they had borrowed their neighbor’s horses and ridden for over a month to come to visit me in Germany.
79. Biology Tutor Needed
I demolished my right foot in a motorcycle crash and had to have the top of my foot removed. A guy I worked with asked me when it would grow back. I explained that the skin and stuff was going to have to be grafted, but that the tendons and bones that had been removed were gone forever. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why don't they just cut the whole thing off and let it grow back?"
80. Should’ve Put Your Foot in Your Mouth Instead
My friend had just purchased a new, high-powered bb rifle. We had just finished shooting it in the backyard when he points the barrel at my face and pulls the trigger several times. I tell him to stop being dumb, and he just laughs and says, "it's not loaded!" Then the moron puts the barrel in his mouth and POP! He shoots a bb right through his tongue and into his uvula.
81. Complicated Conversion
I asked a temp at work to weigh a couple of lever arch files for postage. She came back and told me they were 65 kg. I asked if it were possible that it was 6.5 kg, but she insisted it wasn’t. We argued about it for a good 5 minutes. It wasn’t until I asked her how much she weighed, which was 59 kg, that she finally realized that these two small folders couldn’t possibly weigh more than her.
82. Just a Pretty Face
A friend of mine in his late 20’s is a sweet guy but is overweight and balding and quite frankly, not very attractive in the face. Well, one day he lets us know that he has met a girl and she might be the one. Well, I've met some of the jewels he's hooked up with in the past so I wasn't expecting too much. I finally meet this girl, and she is drop dead gorgeous and has a body that is incredible.
I talk to her for a while and she is super friendly and outgoing. I'm stoked for my boy! He found the best he's ever going to find. The night progresses, and the new couple starts talking about their plans for an upcoming trip to New Mexico, and she starts telling us how excited she is because she has "never gone to another country before." I laughed a bit and realized she was dead serious. My friend just looked at me and shook his head. That’s when I knew that he knew she was dumb as a rock, but she was his dumb rock.
83. Living Life on Half the Time
There was a girl in my sophomore year of high school who truly believed that there were six months in a year. She was really nice but very surprised and confused when we tried to set her right. If you’re wondering which months she would have included in her version of a year, don't bother. We tried asking her about it and it was clear that hadn't thought that far ahead.
84. Trucking Up
I was at a party when someone's trashy old truck got stuck in some mud. So, instead of sobering up and coming back the next day like a logical person to get it out of the mud, he decided to go with a bright idea of his own creation. This guy made a Molotov cocktail with gas and threw it at the truck thinking the blast would push the truck back onto dry land. Nope, obviously the truck caught fire and was completely destroyed.
85. Self-Defined Cartographer
A girl in an AP US history class laughed at me when I was talking about driving to Alaska from Oregon. She insisted Alaska was an island because of how it is separated out on maps. I don't know if she was the dumbest person that I’ve met overall, but it was certainly the dumbest thing someone insisted they were right about.
86. Getting the Wrong Message
I remember proofreading a paper for a freshman that my college roommate had the hots for. It was on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal, but somehow this freshman didn't catch that it was satire. The opening lines of the paper are burned into my memory forever. It said, “eating children would not be a good thing to do. In fact, we could say it would be bad.”
87. Absolute Train Wreck
When we hired a girl a couple of years ago, I told her where the manager's office was her first day. On the second day, she asked me where the manager's office was, so I walked her to the door. Then on the third day, she asks me where it is again. After, our manager chewed out the girl who trained our new recruit for not teaching her about the job properly.
The trainer pulled out her phone and showed the manager a picture of the girl wearing the uniform backward and said, “Look at this. This is untrainable." The new girl got fired about three weeks later for stealing the product because she thought she got it for free because she was an employee.
88. Might as Well Be Worlds Apart
I live in southern Spain, and I once met a girl from the US who was here on some kind of exchange program. When I asked her about how she was liking Spain so far, she said, “I’m loving it. I just don't know why the plane took so long to get here. I mean we are just a bit BELOW MEXICO. I really don't know why the flight was that long." I told her that we were in Europe, and she didn't believe me.
Her reply was, "Europe? It can't be. Everyone speaks Spanish so we must be somewhere near Mexico for sure!" She was in university. I still don't know how or why.
89. It’s Different for Boys
My ex-sister-in-law is hands down the dumbest person I've ever encountered. There's literally a plethora of insanely stupid things she's said over the years, but I'll use the one that almost made me slap the taste out of her mouth. I had my first son back in 2001, and while I was pregnant, she asked me if I was going to breastfeed. To which I replied that I was. She then asked, "even if it's a girl?" and I said of course.
She then proceeded to tell me that it's perfectly fine to breastfeed boys, but doing so with girls is creepy and could make the child a lesbian. Because "they get the feel of a breast and will remember it and want that sexually." To say that I was stunned by her thought process is an understatement. I asked her what she thought people did before formula was invented, and she said "cow's milk." And before bottles were invented it was a "rag soaked in cow's milk."
90. Mom’s Misstep
I got a bad grade in geography in high school. My teacher kept trying to push me to do better, and suggested I talk to my parents about it. I very reluctantly told my mom that I was failing geography. I’ll never forget her response: "How irresponsible can you really be Justin? How do you fail geography? It's just shapes!"
91. Lost In Translation
I was working at a grocery store in the US that had a Coinstar machine. Basically, you could place all of your unwrapped change in it, and it would be converted for a small fee into a receipt that you could claim for actual cash. I was walking past and noticed a woman struggling with the machine, so I stopped to help her. Big. Mistake.
It turned out she had accidentally hit “Spanish” as a language selection. I quickly explained what she needed to do, figuring she couldn’t read Spanish. I ran through how it worked and showed her where the receipt would print out that she could turn in at customer service for the cash. She turned, looked at me and said, “but I don’t want Spanish money!”
92. It’s About Time
On 9/11, the General Manager called his daughter who was attending Arizona State University to wake her up and make sure she saw what was going on in New York. The customer service MANAGER said, "But it won't be on her TV yet. Arizona is two hours behind us.” Too bad Australia didn’t warn us earlier when it happened to them.
93. Solving for X-planation
I teach sixth grade. One time a parent came to me after trying to help their child with math homework and asked, “what number is x worth? It feels like it changes with every problem!” The parent came to me after school without their child because they knew something was wrong and didn't want to look stupid in front of their kid. This is filed in my brain of parent reactions I can't fathom along with the mom that year who asked if her child could play piano in marching band.
94. Clocked Out
I worked at Little Caesars and we were proofing the dough for pizza. My boss said at 7 PM that the dough needed to rise for 12 hours and took out her calculator to do the math. So, I said, “Ummm, that's gonna be 7 AM.” Then she said the dough will expire in 48 hours and started doing the math again. I told her it would expire two days from now, and she said, “That's kinda weird how that works out huh?” I quit shortly after that.
95. Oh Honey
We had to do a class project on controversial issues where we all got assigned a topic. The teacher went around and just said them to us verbally, like gay marriage and stuff. One girl handed in a full paper and did a big bristol board presentation about "youth in Asia" since the teacher had gone up to her and said "euthanasia." It was....incredible.
96. Facing a Challenge
I was working at a grocery store over a decade ago. I wouldn’t call the kid dumb because he just didn’t know. It’s more of a funny thing. He was new, and the manager asked him to “face” the store when he asked what he could do. “Facing” means you make sure the aisles look nice and neat and that the product is pulled forward and visibly facing you as you walk down the aisle. The kid couldn’t be found until someone told the manager one of the workers was just standing in the parking lot facing the store. I will never forget that.
97. Drowning in the Water Under the Bridge
I was working in a French company. We were working with a development team in Vietnam on some IT project. The project manager they reported to in HQ is French. They didn't like him, and he knew it. Even so, the Vietnamese team did a great job. He wanted to find the correct words to congratulate them, hoping to smoothen the future relationship.
He sent this incredible "thank you" email that said, “When we see the quality of your work, we can only realize how sad it is that we lost you guys as a colony." The French ex-pats in the Vietnam office told me they were hiding in shame for a full week.
98. Unnatural Landmarks
Someone in my work expressed shock once at my postcard of Niagara Falls because she didn't believe it was a real place. She told me, “I thought that was just for films. I always thought it was a made-up place... like y'know...the Grand Canyon."
99. Sniffed Out
I once knew this kid who was dumber than snake mittens and just about as useful. He came into our government class claiming that you could still smell the tea spilled into the Boston Harbor during the Boston Tea Party. My government teacher spent the next five minutes explaining to him that that was physically impossible. This kid, after some deliberation, seemingly grasped the concept of time and relented on the topic, or so we thought.
Not five minutes later, he said, "I bet you can still smell it when you're underwater," as certain as a man can be. Now at this point, we were juniors in high school and for the first time in my life, I was in utter disbelief that a person could have survived under the sheer force of their own stupidity up until that point. Class was completely derailed at this point with the teacher trying to explain to him why you can't breathe underwater but to no avail.
Bless his heart he tried. He said that he didn't want a student drowning because he didn't understand you couldn't smell underwater, but the kid was dead certain. After that year in class with him, I never saw him again. Probably drowned.
100. Me ‘n My Moo
My friends were always convinced that my girlfriend was too dumb for me, but I always defended her saying you just had to get to know her. One day, we're attempting to do that over at my best friend's place, and we're all having milk and cookies. She remarks how fresh the milk is. I say, “Yeah, it's local so it's practically straight from the cow.” She gets quiet then says, "Cows? I always thought milk came from pigs!" So, I say, "But there's a cow on the carton?" She goes, "I thought that was the mascot!" My friend just turned his head slowly and looked me right in the eye. I looked away.
101. Wrong Foot Forward
This is a true story. I worked with a guy who made a bet that his steel toe shoes could stop a freight elevator and tested it with his foot in them still. Exactly what you'd think would happen happened and now his toes are gone. That's the dumbest person I know.
102. Got Milk?
Once, I jokingly told an insecure flatmate that drinking milk would make her chest grow larger. I walk into our kitchen one morning and find her downing a liter of milk while leaning over to one side. When I asked her what she was doing, she looked at me like I was an idiot as she told me that her left boob was smaller than her right so she was trying to help it catch up.
103. We Didgeridoo Things Differently
I was traveling with this American guy and I tell him that, “We don't get snow at Christmas in Australia dude, because it's summertime.” He nods in agreement and says, "Oh yeah right... You know the heat wouldn't bother me. I just couldn't get my head around having Christmas in July. It's always been December 25 for me" I just say, “....no...it's...no...don't worry,” because I really didn’t know what else to say.
104. The Paternity Is in the Tongue
My girlfriend at the time, C, lived with her friend, K who was not the sharpest tool in the shed. I would always be there hanging out and somehow, I got sucked into Days of Our Lives. I know, stupid, but hey, being forced to watch it weekly made me invested in the characters to a degree. So, in the show, Sammy and Lucas are the star-crossed lovers.
They're not always together throughout the show, but they find their way back to each other. In this story of mine, they have been set back together, and they're still working things out. BUT, wait! There's a handsome, young Englishman named EJ who just moved into town. Sammy ends up having a one-night stand with him. Oh dear!
Two weeks later we find out on Days of Our Lives that Sammy is pregnant! We wonder whose kid it was. Then K pipes in and says, “This is so stupid.” I, knowing that this will be good, ask her, “Oh? why do you think that?" She says, “There's no tension. This is dumb.” Well, we had to know why, so I ask, “why is that, K?” Her answer was priceless.
She explains, “Well, they're going to know whose baby it is if it comes out with a British accent or not.” I put the TV on mute and say, “I'm sorry. One more time." K looks at me like I have two heads and says, "like this -standard cry- or like this -Disney stereotype of a chimney cleaner in London losing his wife to typhoid-.” I just go, “nope," and walk out.
105. Hiding a Meltdown
Once, my roommate finished ironing his clothes, and he wanted to put the ironing board away, so he put the hot iron on the carpet and put the board away. I came home to find a large speaker from our old entertainment system sitting in the middle of the living room. When I went to move it back, I found the giant patch of melted carpet shaped like the iron. He genuinely thought he could hide it with the speaker.
106. Getting Steamy in the Meat Department
We played a prank on some chick at my work who honestly had the IQ of a toothbrush. She wasn't very good at her job, and we only gave her the simplest of tasks. Seriously, even a task like "wash the dishes" required many questions before even being attempted. "Where's the soap? Where's the hot water? Will the tap automatically turn off when the sink is full?"
One day, we decided to play a prank on her. We asked her to go to the meat department and get us a bucket of steam for cleaning...A BUCKET OF STEAM! She left the department, and about 10 or 15 minutes later, my buddy Rob phoned me up and said, "Dude.... Naomi is here" I start to laugh and say, "Yeah? And what is she doing?"
He says, "I can't explain it man... it's like... you have to be here. She's like, got the hose right, and turned on the hot water. She's spraying the hose on the ground with one hand, and with the other hand, she's trying to wave the steam into the bucket. My mind wants to be literally rolling on the floor laughing at her but...I'm not. I think you've broken me..." I have never laughed so hard in my life. She did this for about 45 minutes before the manager called her back to the Deli.
107. Interior Doctor-ater
My sister-in-law was at a doctor's appointment when the doctor asked her if her stool was black. Later when she came home, she sat down on one of their black kitchen stools and proceeded to ask my wife how the doctor knew what color they were.
108. Special Unit of Measurement
My friend's brother is definitely the stupidest person I've ever met. I was always nice to him, but wow, he was not a smart guy. One time, my friend had bought a new 42" LCD TV. His brother comes in the room and starts making small talk. He said, "I just bought a new TV, too. It's bigger than that though." I reply, "Oh, you bought one, too? How big is it?" He looks at the TV, measures it up, and says, I swear on my life, "Ah, I dunno, it’s like...five...dicks bigger." Needless to say, I totally lost my mind with laughter, and he winds up leaving the room because I can't stop.
109. Trying to Do the Right Thing
This old co-worker of mine is, well, we'll just say he’s a bit thick-headed. His son is a law enforcement officer. My co-worker goes out to the bar one night and gets pretty loaded. He then thinks it would be a good idea to drive home. On his way home, he decides maybe that wasn't such a good idea, and a light bulb goes off in his head. His son could take him home! What does he do? He drives to the station, drunk as a skunk, willingly walks in the front door, and asks to see his son. The desk officer could tell he was loaded and detained him on the spot.
110. No World Record Holder
I was walking through the mall with a buddy of mine a couple of years ago and came across one of those stands selling hats and t-shirts. My buddy turns to me and says, “you should buy me that hat because it says genius.” I look wide-eyed at the hat and reread what was written across it three or four times before turning to my buddy and saying, “Dude, the hat says Guinness." Yes, Guinness, as in the beer company.
111. Optical Delusion
I had a friend once who truly believed that magicians like Criss Angel and David Blaine had some kind of magical power or telekinesis or something along those lines. While watching one of those magicians on TV performing on the street, he argued, “How could this be fake? Look at all those people. Can’t fake all that. Has to be some kind of power or magic.” I then have to ask him, “Do you realize that movies are fake? They fake entire universes, planets, cities, battles, etc.” He didn't understand what I was getting at.
112. Pounding on Eggshells
I just had a customer yell at me for putting their eggs in a separate bag saying they don’t want all those bags and the paper ones always rip. She said all of this before putting it in the bag and throwing a pound of flour on top. It was somewhat satisfying seeing their face as we heard the cracks...until I realized I’m the one who needed to clean it up. Oh, also she complained that we hadn’t warned her about the fragility of eggs.
113. Vitamin D Supplement
I'm a physician, an eye doctor specifically. I will tell you that the longer I work, which is now 15 years, my standard for the "average" person's intelligence continues to decline. Thanks to the awful information filtering out there, I had a patient just last week who read that Vitamin D helps you resist lung infections and that he could get more Vitamin D by getting more sun. So, he wanted to "collect" as much light as possible with his eyes. As a result, he stared at the sun for a solid 60 seconds and burned holes directly into his retinas. His vision is permanently reduced and there is no chance of future improvement.
114. In No Particular Order
I used to teach university students. The kids were 20-21 years old and in the second year of either molecular biology, biochemistry, or microbiology. When I handed back assignments, I told them that they were alphabetized by last name. Every week, 90% of them would flip through the stack one-by-one whether their name was Atkins or Zanzibar. They didn't listen, and they didn't learn.
Pxfuel
115. Only in America
When I was a sophomore in high school, a classmate asked to borrow a pen, and I lent him one of mine that had the Eiffel Tower on it. He asked where the building was from, and I said Paris. He gave me a confused look and asked where Paris was. Was it further away than Chicago? Now it was my turn to be confused. We were in high school. How the heck did he not know Paris was in France? But whatever, maybe he's not the brightest. So, I inform him that Paris is in France. But he still looks utterly confused. I assume he misheard me, so I start explaining it.
"France, you know, like, FRANCE. From history class? WWII, Napoleon... that France." He says he was bad at history and has never heard of France before. He then asks me if it was another state or if it was like a region of our state. Utterly baffled at this point, I try to explain that it was another country entirely, and it was in Europe.
Exasperated, I remember saying, "you know, Europe?! That other continent?" He still looks confused, so I add, "THE LAND ACROSS THE OCEAN!" Finally, there is recognition on his face. He tells me he heard of oceans before, and he thinks he understands now. I remind you that this encounter was with a student who didn't know what Europe was took place in high school.
116. Double the Heartache
A girl in one of my college classes argued that heart transplants shouldn't be allowed because "that's where the feelings are" and the person receiving the heart wouldn't be the same person anymore.
117. Not but a Train Ride Away
My favorite was a guy who was planning his honeymoon, but he didn't have a lot of money. He was bummed about the cost of air travel. A friend suggested a train ride might be cheaper. He became frustrated after a few days of trying and complained that he couldn't find any trains going from Chicago to...Hawai'i. He genuinely couldn't understand why not.
118. Cheat Code: Self Destruct
I went to renew my license at the DMV. I was waiting in a room with the computers that people use to take the written portion. The clerk sat a man down, looked him in the eyes, and said, "If you pull your phone out it's an automatic fail." This guy says, "Aight," while pulling out his phone and immediately failing.
119. Pronounced Frustration
At a work Christmas party in a Mexican restaurant, an Irish colleague was trying to argue with the Mexican waitress that the pronunciation of "jalapenos" was really "ja-la-pen-nose." He wasn't joking, and he got so upset with her telling him he was wrong that he made a huge scene, and we were almost thrown out.
120. Speaking of the Past
One of my closest friends is a really good guy, but well...I’m learning Spanish, and I once told him I was reading this Don Quixote book. I complained about how difficult it was because it was written in 1605. And he said, “wait... Spanish existed back then?”
121. Give Me a Hand Here
An infantryman was told to trim the hedges. Instead of getting shears, he decided to just lift up the enormous lawnmower, and then have his buddy start the motor...as the infantryman holds the hedges in place with his bare hands. When the medical team got called in, we bandaged him, then used a tourniquet temporarily. Senior medics took him to the ER, but they couldn't save his hand. Shocker...
122. Birds of a Feather
Friend: Birds are mammals, right? Me: No, they're birds... Friend: I know, but they're still mammals, right?
123. She’s Driving Everyone Crazy!
Every Friday, my mother goes grocery shopping. The store is a block away from where she lives and she usually drives there. On this particular day, after she finished shopping, she decided to walk back home. The next morning, she wakes me and my father up in a panic to let us know that her car has been taken. Law enforcement comes, we fill out all the paperwork, and she gets a rental car for the time being.
That’s not even the best part. The following Friday, she drives again to the grocery market and parks the rental right next to her "stolen" car. Now, her car is a champagne-colored Mitsubishi Diamante—not such a common car or color. Nevertheless, when she sees it, she comments on how similar the car looks to hers, but makes nothing else of it.
A few days later, law enforcement calls us to let us know that the car is in the grocery store’s parking lot just one block away from our house. Yea, that call was awkward, to say the least. I’ve got plenty of other stories about her, but this is probably the best one.
124. Jumping All Over
My wife wanted to meet an old friend from school she hadn't seen for about 20 years. We went to dinner, and he brought his wife along with her two kids. He had met her just two months prior and she worked as a "male entertainer" (her words). He was white, she was black, and he spent the whole night trying to start fights with people for "making prejudiced comments about their relationship behind their back," even though no one was.
When we finally got into talking, he told me about nine "jump points" that exist to get off the Earth. I thought to myself "Oh boy, a Flat Earther. I've never met a real one before." But no, that's not what he was talking about. That would have been so much better than what he was talking about. He said there are nine jump points on Earth that are essentially wormholes to other planets, and that there is one in New York City that goes to Mars. He also informed me that the American government has already colonized Mars and is hiding it from the people. And he was dead serious.
125. The World Does Not Revolve Around the Greenback
I was on a tour of Europe with my first wife and her mother. I believe we were in France and mother-in-law was really angry that stores wouldn't take her dollars. A few places (large department stores) would do a dollar exchange at the cash register, meaning that if she was buying 30 Euros of something and the exchange rate was 30 Euros = 50 dollars, they would take her $100 bill, convert it on the spot to the equivalent in Euros (in this case 60 Euros), give her the purse, and then the change of 30 Euros.
She was furious, thought she was going to be ripped off, and wanted to call local law enforcement, the US consulate and 9-1-1, which isn’t even the emergency number in France. She wanted to pay in US dollars and get change in US dollars. The best part of the story? Back in the US, she worked retail at Macy’s. So I ask her, “When French people come into your store, would you take their Euros?”
Her reply: “Why should I? That's America, we are American, we use dollars; why can't they learn to use dollars just like they learned our language?” She was dead serious. Yes, she was not that bright.
Sources: Reddit, , , , , , , , ,
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