Albert Einstein once said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former”. Indeed, there seems to be an endless supply of stupid in the world. However, sometimes even seemingly intelligent people say things so ridiculous that there are no words by which to respond.
1. This Was Out Of The Ordinary
I was in an ASL class, and we were learning signs for different sodas. We went through them all, but the girl sitting next to me seemed to be a bit confused. She looked like she had a question but was just too scared to ask. So, I leaned over and said, "Are you alright? Did you miss one"? She looked at me and asked, "I get why we're learning sodas, but who is Dr. Pepper"?
2. Something Didn’t Gel Well
My friend once thought aloe vera was the name of some European model. Since cosmetic ads would always say the product name and add “with aloe vera” as they showed a number of models washing their faces or whatnot in the background, he believed that aloe vera was one of them. He actually said something to the effect of, “It’s crazy how she gets hired for literally every single commercial”.
3. Geography Was Not Their Strong Suit
I lived in Juneau, Alaska for a year. When the tourists started coming off the tour boats, that's when the real fun began. I often had people who would ask me why Alaska was cold and Hawaii was hot because “they’re next to each other on the map”. It was shocking that even one person would ask such a thing, but countless tourists asking was unbearable.
I was also asked how to pet a bear. It was just wild.
4. Shell-Shocked
We had a new girl at work. She was horrified that we would eat the eggs that came from our chickens. She insisted that store-bought eggs were “normal good eggs”. She then really blew my mind when she said she doesn't eat chicken and that she only buys hens. She about had a panic attack when I explained to her that a hen is just a female chicken. She was obviously very sheltered.
5. Spellchecked
My sister was working on something and asked me if a word was spelled right. As I was looking at it, she said something I'll never forget, "It must be right; there isn't a red line under it". She wasn’t on a computer. She was writing something on paper by hand. I couldn’t get over it. It was too perfect. I'll mock her forever for that one.
6. Their Thinking Was Unreal
Once, I was on a class trip to Washington DC. We went to a museum and saw a filmed reenactment on the big screen of something featuring George Washington. While we were watching it, I heard two girls from the front row talking. One of them asked the other, "Is this real footage"? And the other one then replied, "No, if it was real, it would be in black and white".
7. He Was A Certified Idiot
My wife had only been in the United States for a year, but had a green card. It came time to do our taxes and so we stopped in the little Jackson Hewitt kiosk set up inside of Walmart. As we were getting started, the accountant asked her about her immigration status and she told him she was a Cuban citizen. He lifted up her social security card and told her that—in no uncertain terms—she was a US citizen and her card proved that.
I told the guy he was wrong and that every green card carrier has a social security card and that doesn’t make someone a citizen. He then turned to me, shoving the card in my face, and yelled, “Look Mister, here is the proof she is an American citizen!” By now I was angry and asked if he had a boss. He smugly stated that his mom was the owner of that Jackson Hewitt franchise and so I suggested he call her.
He did, and while on speakerphone, she found out what he had said and done, and proceeded to call him an idiot. After she got off the phone, he tried to backpedal and act like it never happened so he could still keep our business. However, it was too late. I stood up and said to my wife, “Let’s go, this guy is too stupid to trust him to do our taxes”.
That moment will stay with me for the rest of my life!
8. His Reasoning Left My Head Spinning
I had a roommate who refused to believe that the Earth rotates once per day. He insisted that it rotated 24,000 times a day, and it was just so fast that you couldn't see it. I thought maybe he got confused with 24,000 miles per day—like perhaps how fast a point at the equator would rotate around the earth per day—but no. He said it was like when something is spinning so fast it's like a blur and you can't see the spinning anymore. He believed it was 24,000 complete rotations per day.
9. She Was A Total Bird Brain
We had bigwigs from another lab come to audit my lab one day. To enter the property, you needed a key card at the front gate entrance. One of the auditors commented at the number of Canadian geese on the property. I said something about how it had just rained, so they were out in full force that day. This woman—who made a good six figures and had a PhD—looked me straight in the eyes and said, “How do they get past security”?
I laughed and said, “You’re right, they should have cards at the least”. She wasn’t joking and was expecting an answer. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, I was just like, “They flew”. I didn’t know how else I was supposed to answer that utterly ridiculous question.
10. He Managed To Be A Total Jerk
My wife's grandmother was nearing the end right around Christmas. I was scheduled to work that Christmas Eve. She took a turn for the worse that morning, and I was told we'd all better get to the house quickly. I tried to call my manager, but there was no answer, so I left him a voicemail. I called the manager on duty and said I was sorry, but I had a family crisis.
The duty manager said it was absolutely no problem. I even called their manager as well, to ensure that I had covered all my bases. They both told me to take all the time I needed. I was supposed to work the weekend after, and they told me that they would get me covered for then as well. She passed on a Sunday and I got back to work on Tuesday.
My own manager came to my desk, mad at me, and asked me why I didn't show up for work on those days. I told him the situation and told him that I had called everyone to make sure I was covered. His response revolted me, "Well, you should have planned that better". That was the only time I had ever seen my cube mate—this mild-mannered guy I had worked with for years—get upset.
He leapt out of his seat, grabbed my manager by his arm, and dragged him to his office. Apparently, the shouting match went on for some time, but I was too busy sitting at my desk with my jaw on the floor, processing what he had just said. I never got an apology, but my manager was fired a few months later for unrelated reasons. He was the worst.
11. Nothing But Turkey Talk
I was calling around grocery stores in Missouri looking for Tofurky for Thanksgiving for a vegan girlfriend. I called one store, and the woman who answered the phone said, “Let me transfer you to the meat department”. Before I could object, I was talking to some guy in the meat department. I told him I wasn’t sure that I was in the right department, but I was checking if they carried Tofurky.
He said, “Oh, I think I’ve heard of that! That’s like the vegetarian part of the turkey, right”?
12. Chicken Or Fish?
We were at a combination A&W/Long John Silver restaurant. My mom looked at both menus and asked me, "What's the difference between the #2 on this menu and the #2 on the other one"? They were clearly different, so I told her, “One is fish and the other is chicken”. Her response baffled me. She said, "I know but what's the difference"? She just didn’t get it.
13. This Person Was Certifiably Stupid
I used to work as a paralegal and had to fight with someone in the social security office when they accused one of my clients of deceit. I got on a call with the agent who insisted that my client was faking the disability that her daughter had. The daughter had lost her life as a result of the disability, and it said so right on the death certificate. The agent told me that wasn't enough proof.
14. The Dumbest Place On Earth
I was at the electronica dance party at Disneyland. They had one of those laser shows where an actor bends the laser as part of the show. This fully grown dude—with the thickest yokel accent—said, “If they is real lasers, how ain’t he cutting his fingers off”? It was so funny my family had to give up our spot by the stage so we wouldn’t laugh in his face.
15. It Was A Signal Something Was Off
I worked on trains and have heard a lot of stupid stuff, but this was my top one yet. We got to a station and the signal ahead was on a red light, meaning “stop” or “do not proceed”. Basically the same as traffic lights. I made an announcement saying, "Sorry for the delay, we are currently being held on a red signal and will be moving momentarily".
Five minutes later, we moved but got stopped at the next station. A couple was walking down the platform toward the exit and I heard the husband/boyfriend go, "Ah, stuck at a red signal again". I acknowledged him and said, "Yeh, red signal again". The woman looked me straight in the eye and asked, "What’s a red signal"? I was stunned for a moment as I thought she was pulling my leg, but she was serious.
Her husband chimed in, "You know, red means stop and green means go". We both saw that it still hadn't sunk in, so he said again, "Like a traffic light". She took about five to ten seconds, and finally said, "Ooooo", as they kept walking down the platform. All I could think of at that moment was that she was having a blank day where her head was not functioning correctly, or she was one of those people that get you thinking, “How do you get up in the morning”?
16. Her Thinking Was Week
I had been working nonstop and hadn’t seen my friend for a while. We were finally able to meet up for lunch. When I saw her, she said to me, "I never see you. I miss you". I explained to her that I had been working a lot and that I had recently worked nine days straight. She seemed confused and asked me, "HOW? THERE ARE ONLY SEVEN DAYS IN A WEEK".
17. It Seemed To Be A Foreign Concept
During a foreign language class, we were learning the names of different countries. Suddenly, someone stopped the lecture and asked the dumbest question known to man: They asked why the language we were learning made up names for different countries. They said, “Why can't we just use the real names like Germany, Japan, etc”? There was total silence in the classroom.
Then, we spent 10 minutes of the entire class time trying to get this person to understand that “Germany” is not the name of Germany in German. We had to explain to them that all the country names we know are all English "made up" names for those countries. They did not comprehend this concept. It confounds me to this day, especially since that person was not from an English-speaking country to begin with.
18. He Served Up A Slice Of Dumb
My friend’s boyfriend was a restaurant server. One day, he actually asked, "What is roast beef made of anyway"? I couldn’t believe he was for real. I told him, "It's beef—roasted". He was shocked. He got a surprised look on his face, and then he laughed at himself. Needless to say, he wasn't the brightest person around.
19. Communication Breakdown
My brother and his girlfriend had broken up, but I didn’t know yet. My mother was trying to inform me but did so in a rather odd manner. She said, "Oh, by the way, your brother’s girlfriend is no longer with us". I thought she had passed, so I called my brother to offer my condolences and ask about the wake and funeral arrangements. He was completely baffled.
He told me, "She's not dead; we just broke up. What are you talking about"?
20. Weird Science
In my freshman year of college, a biology professor started his semester with a speech saying science is how we explain everything in the modern world through experiments and peer review. The girl next to me had a smug look on her face and said, "If science can explain everything, then why are people still doing experiments? Can't science just explain it? I mean, just read a book".
It took me a while to realize her wisdom, and then it took me even longer to hold back my laughter.
21. You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Brain
One of my college roommates wandered in while we were watching JAWS. We were down to the final 15 minutes where the shark was tearing the orca apart. Then the scene where the shark heaved itself up on the stern came on. What happened next was legendary. My roommate said, “It’s pretty neat how they trained that shark to do that”. He was totally serious.
22. Lion King
I once had a co-worker tell me that he wanted to eventually take some time off of work so that he could drive down to Africa and see the lions. However, we lived in the United States. For whatever reason, he forgot that South America existed below North America and that Africa was not connected to us in any way, shape, or form.
23. An Uneven Exchange
Back in the 1990s, I went into a store in Canada—where I lived—with a $100 American bill. I bought a bottle of vino for about $13. When the woman working the register worked out the exchange rate, which was about 13%, she said, “Oh, you get $100 back.” She then proceeded to hand back the American $100 bill to me and said, “Funny how that works.” I took it and left snickering.
24. She Was Way Off Key
My dad was a violinist in The Cleveland Orchestra. Years ago, they were on tour in East Germany. He was on a train talking to one of the other violinists. He mentioned how crazy it was that after all these years, there were still shelled-out buildings that hadn't been torn down or dealt with since WWII. Then, the stereotypical blonde chimed in.
She said, "Wait, wasn't Germany our ally in the war"? It was one of the stupidest things I've ever heard and I wasn't even there.
25. Oh Deer!
I had a friend who once said to me, "I've always wondered how goats grow into deer in the wild but stay goats at the farm". I was completely baffled. Shocked, I said, “What on earth”? They said, "I know, crazy, right? With ponies at least you can see them grow into horses but the goats"?? Someone obviously didn’t know much about animals.
26. They Were Only Bills
When I was in high school and in Grade 11, I was taking a law class. The teacher was talking about different bills that the government had implemented throughout history, such as the Bill of Rights. Thirty minutes into the lesson, the girl next to me raised her hand and asked the teacher, “Who’s this bill guy we’ve been talking about”?
The whole class burst out laughing, and the teacher was struggling to keep it together as well.
27. An Abnormal Experience
I was going to a gynecologist and had an ultrasound done. The ultrasound found a mass on my ovary. When I was getting my results, the lady on the phone told me, "We are a gynecological office. We specialize in ovaries, fallopian tubes, and the uterus. You have a mass on your ovary. We can't help you. Go see your primary care physician".
Then the gynecologist told me that the discharge, pelvic pain, and burning I had was "normal". Needless to say, I changed gynecologists. That first gynecologist was an idiot.
28. I Had To Spell It Out
My sister had very severe dyslexia. Once, she asked me how to spell USB. I was dumbfounded and thought she was joking. She asked again, “How do you spell USB”. I was like, “Yeah ok, it's literally spelled USB, as you say it”. She freaked out and told me not to poke fun at her for her dyslexia and to tell her how to actually spell it. I started laughing and wrote it down on a piece of paper. I will never forget the look on her face when she realized it.
29. Bad Timing
My ex-wife and I had a one-hour-long argument because she was insisting that 10:30 AM was in the afternoon. It all started with her saying, "We need to go at 10:30". I told her, "I thought you said it wasn't until the afternoon"? She relented, "It is in the afternoon. 10:30. You know, later on". I told her that afternoon doesn’t mean, later on, it means afternoon.
That was when the arguing ensued. I still think about it all the time.
30. It Was A Sign She Was Plain Stupid
A woman from North Dakota called a radio station to ask for their help. She had spent two years writing letters and attempting to get the deer crossing sign removed from a high traffic area to a safer place. She assumed that the deer were looking for the deer crossings in the same way people use the pedestrian crossings. The sign was there because deer commonly cross there, not because the animals are abiding by human traffic laws and are looking for a place to cross the road.
31. There Is No Substitute For Stupidity
When I was in high school, a girl in my government class was absent on the day that we had a substitute teacher. When she and our teacher were back, the teacher asked her about her absence. The girl responded indignantly, "I don't know why they marked me absent, I wasn't even here that day".
32. Her Speech Couldn’t Move Mountains
I was in my ninth-grade speech class. Our topic was Louisiana, the state we lived in. We had the choice to present something about the topography—the landscape, nature, state recognition, what we're known for, etc. One girl in my class picked mountains for her topic. We have "a" mountain in Louisiana—just one—and its elevation is only 535 feet.
We braced ourselves, knowing this was going to be good. It was finally her turn to give her speech. The class’ attention was fixated on how bland her speech could possibly be. She began, “Ahem. There are many mountains in Louisiana". Instantly after hearing that opening, the teacher blurted out, “Sit down”. We could not contain our laughter.
33. Her Common Sense Flew The Coop
I lived in Southeast Asia, so traditional food and/or herbs were pretty accessible there. I knew that there were benefits to some herbs, but there really wasn’t enough scientific evidence for me to believe that a herb could help prevent a HEREDITARY autoimmune disease. I had eczema all my life, but it would usually come and go. However, when it did flare-up, it was BAD.
It wasn't a result of anything that I did or ate; it would just flare up occasionally. After I gave birth to my daughter, I immediately knew I had passed her my eczema gene. My sister-in-law took a look at her and said, "She must have eczema because you didn't drink bird nest during your pregnancy".I was like, “What on earth”? My daughter’s symptoms were the same as mine, and she would have occasional flare-ups.
After several years, my sister-in-law would still say the same nonsense whenever my daughter would have a flare-up—"Must be from not drinking bird nest when you're pregnant".
34. She Was Really Bat-Brained
When I was in high school, we were studying pre-Christopher Columbus civilizations in the Americas. On one particular day, we were studying the Iroquois people. The teacher said that they lived in the territories of what is today New York and Pennsylvania. So one girl raised her hand and said, "Isn't that where Count Dracula lived"? She was never precisely bright, but still.
35. Moving Target
A friend of mine looked at me, and, in all seriousness, asked, "Can you get a tan on a cruise ship? Since, you know, it's moving"? I was confused, so I asked her to explain what she meant. She thought that since the cruise ship was moving, the sun beams wouldn't be able to hit the boat…since it was moving.
36. What An Airhead!
I went to a friend's house and saw that his carbon monoxide detector was sitting by an open window. I found it odd, so I asked him why it was there. He told me, “The smoke detector said ‘get to air,’ so I moved it so it would stop going off”. I honestly don’t know how that guy is still alive.
37. Crossed Country Lines
I was reading a newspaper in class, and a front-page headline said, “Russian Troops Invade Georgia.” The person sitting next to me gasped and said something like, “Oh no, Russian troops in Georgia? Bush better do something”! They actually believed that Russia had invaded the state of Georgia in the United States.
38. Something’s Gotta Change
A woman I used to work with—who was a staunch Christian—said that she wasn’t concerned at all with climate change and that climate change activists were selfish troublemakers. I vehemently challenged this view by saying that the activists are only trying to get people to wake up, because if we don’t address climate change, we will be destroying the Earth.
Hence, if we destroy the planet, we would be destroying ourselves and all future generations. She responded by saying, “Well, if the Earth does get destroyed then God will just make it all again, so I’m not worried”. I was rendered utterly dumbstruck by both her stupidity and her selfishness.
39. Dumb And Dumber
I was a 17-year-old summer student landscaping on a crew that ranged from a 16-year-old kid to family men in their 40s. The kid was the most naturally muscular kid I had ever seen, which was odd, because he was also the laziest coworker I had ever encountered in my forty years of working. He was also pure stupid. He got all serious one day, wanting my thoughts on a matter.
He told me his 14-year-old girlfriend wanted him to get her pregnant so that she could drop out of school. She must have been dumber than him.
40. Their Ignorance Was In The Bag
Someone told me, "I recycle everything but plastics". I had no words at first and then I told this person that plastics are probably the worst thing to choose not to recycle. I told them that they surely must have seen all the horrible articles, documentaries, and news reports regarding birds and sea animals dying from eating plastics. They said they hadn’t.
41. She Was Hardly Street Savvy
When I was in the eighth grade, I knew someone who completely believed—and argued with me—that mice ran the traffic lights. She really thought that rodents went into the traffic lights and changed their colors, and that was why you would always see mice around busy roads. This was someone who was 13–14 years old. Obviously, she didn't have the best upbringing.
42. His Mind Was Not In Working Order
I was doing a New Year’s shift as a food runner. I brought out an order to a table and said, “Veal Classico”, as I placed it down in front of the customer. This dude turned to me and said, “I didn’t order the catfish. I got the pork chop”. I was so confused. It was a Sunday night, and we only had catfish on Wednesdays and Thursdays at lunch. Not only that, but we didn’t have pork chop ever, and veal is neither.
43. This Session Is Over
I was expressing to a therapist how I was worried about being snatched and harmed, so she pulled up some statistics and said, "Well Google says there have been only been X kidnappings and Y assaults in the last Z years in your city. So, what makes you so special that you think it'll happen to you"? I was like, “I'm sorry, what”? This was not an exclusive club with a velvet rope.
I'm sure no one felt "special" for being chosen to be a victim of a crime. I wasn’t sure what she wanted me to say. I dumped her immediately after that session.
44. Balk At The Moon
My husband and I once happened to be staying at a hotel when there was a total lunar eclipse. Years later, I’m still kind of surprised that no one but us seemed to care enough to go outside and watch it. Anyway, when it was almost in total, a young woman walking by, stopped, and asked hesitantly, “Is there something wrong with the moon?”
45. Stupidity Makes No Eggceptions
There was a guy who asked, "So when a woman is pregnant, her eggs are scrambled? Or were they scrambled after the act? Wait so the egg comes out of you? Do you have to manually put it back in? Like does it come out all the way?" Then, I explained to this grown man that the egg cells women lose when they have their period aren't visible to the eye.
He said, "Ohhhh, I thought it was an actual egg, like a regular-sized egg".
46. She was A Real Pill
When I was 17, I casually mentioned to one of the high school nurses that I didn't want to have kids until I was at least 25. She told me that by the time I was 25, it would be "too late" to have my first baby and I should have two kids by the time I was 20. She then called the girl who got pregnant at the beginning of freshman year "the smartest girl in town" because she was the same age as me, and on her third baby.
I remember it so well because it was the last time I ever saw her. She apparently told the other school nurse about the conversation. BIG MISTAKE. Her coworker was so revolted—she reported her to the school board. The board then transferred her to the elementary school. She eventually got fired from there for calling a girl's clothes trashy and revealing.
47. Her Nutty Thinking Ended Him
This woman’s dad had a stroke. She was in her late 20s and held his Power Of Attorney. There was a chance to reverse the stroke, however, they needed to do an MRI, which required her permission. She refused to allow it because she said that the MRI would take his "essence" and instead, she thought that coconut oil rubbed on his scalp would help. The consequences were heartbreaking.
He passed two days later.
48. He Was A Suite Talker
The first hotel I worked at was new, so some of us working there were also new to the industry. A guest who was already checked in came up after his meal and asked if we had any sweets. That's when I made a dire mistake. I said that we only had mints and brought the little bowl up onto the counter. He said, “No, I mean suites, like large guestrooms".
I was completely embarrassed. The guest was not impressed at all by my stupidity. In my defense, the hotel didn't have any suites, so the word wasn't in my vocabulary as of yet.
49. It Wasn’t Brain Surgery
A girl in my high school said that if she and her hypothetical husband had undesirable facial features that they didn’t want to pass on to a child, such as a bumpy nose, one of them would just get plastic surgery before conceiving a child. I told her that, with her logic, if both my partner and I chopped off our index fingers, our child would be born without index fingers.
She said that wasn’t the same thing. I still think about that nonsense 18 years later.
Sources: Reddit,.
