We all encounter idiots in our everyday lives. But every once in a while, you meet someone who is so dumb, it takes it to a whole other level. From the relatives who make you question how you could share the same DNA to customers so out of it you wonder "how are you still alive?", these real-life encounters will make leave you reeling and hopefully, laughing.
1. Lost In Translation
My family, including my idiot sister, were out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The waitress, who was Asian, came up to us and asked us what we would like to order, in English. My sister looks shocked and doesn’t even wait for the waitress to leave as she loudly proclaims, “I understood everything she said!” My family looks on at her in utter disbelief as my mom explains to her that’s because she spoke in English.
2. Those Things Don’t Exist
When I did my time in retail, our district manager was dumb. And I don't mean regular dumb. He dialed up to 11. For example, he thought natural disasters were no big deal, and were overhyped by the media. Take this example: At one point, we were having a company lunch which included all local store management and the district managers. We went to lunch at a restaurant.
The TV over the bar had the news on and they were talking about the hurricane that was about to make landfall in Florida or Texas, or something like that. He proceeds to go on a rant about how hurricanes are no big deal, it's just some heavy rain, and all these people being evacuated and relocated were just people using it as an excuse to move on the government's dime.
When asked how he can think that, he gave the stupidest response I've ever heard: “You don't see me trying to move every time there's a hurricane.” This dude lives in Kansas City. He was 100% serious. We pushed him on the subject and tried to explain how he wasn't affected by it because he was over a thousand miles away, he simply doubled down.
We then asked him to explain earthquakes in California. He says they have to be fake because he couldn't feel them. The real reason I knew he was telling the truth was because one winter, he couldn't wrap his head around the fact that we had four times as much snow as him. My store was two hours away from Kansas City. He tried to write me up for lying to him. I had to take it to corporate HR to get it overturned.
3. The Tank Destroyer
So just over a year ago I switched jobs and went to work for a guy (Bob) who is running a new/used aquarium shop. The shop was built onto his house, so as a result I've become pretty close with his family, including his 15-year-old stepson, who is the stupidest person I've ever met. For the first couple of months, I thought he was just a bit quirky and clumsy, but as I've come to know him more, I've discovered that he is an idiot of the highest order.
Now, I've known some dumb teenagers in my time. Heck, I used to be one. But this kid is just on another level. Just in the year that I've known him: He licked a lit match because he thought fire would taste like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto. He cannot climb a flight of stairs without tripping up them. This is a multiple-times-a-day occurrence. And it gets worse.
He once dropped a bowl of cereal and milk, and rather than clean the mess with a towel, he soaked up the spill with his sock. A sock that was still on his foot. He then put on his shoes, went out to catch the bus, and went to school with a soaking wet milk-sock. He went to the school nurse that day because he was convinced that his foot was bleeding and soaking through his sock.
He's failing gym class. I have no idea how one fails gym class. He has broken more than 20 aquariums in the last year. When we buy used tanks, they need to be washed and leak-tested before we resell them. The boy sometimes does this to help out, but his method is mind-blowingly stupid. He can't understand that when you wrap the hose around an aquarium, you can't just yank it free.
Once, Bob was selling an older fairly-good-condition Cadillac that had been sitting in his driveway for a while. The day before the buyer came to pick it up, the stepson was mowing the yard and scraped the handle of the mower along the entire length of one side of the car. Oh, and he likes to use "Jew" as an insult. When I called him out on it, his reply made my blood run cold.
I discovered that he thought that Jewish people didn't actually exist. He thought that they were an imaginary race of people that everyone pretended to hate. He played lacrosse on his school's team this summer, and got benched all season because he told the coach that he didn't need to run laps or go to practice. This is probably why he's failing gym class.
One day, he left in the morning like normal to go catch the bus. Three hours later, he came back saying that he missed the bus, and he needed to be driven to school. The problem? It was Labor Day. There was no school. He stood at the bus stop for three hours on a day when there was no school. He also eats absolutely everything in sight.
If you leave food unattended for more than 10 seconds, it's gone. Bob went to Taco Bell and got food for the four of us. The stepson was left alone with it and ate his, mine, Bob's, and half of his mom's food before he realized that it probably wasn't all for him. When he found out that I'm a chile-head, he bragged for a week about how he loved super spicy food too.
He then tried a glob of my Exhorresco hot sauce(after I warned him repeatedly not to) and spent the next two hours crying and blaming me. It keeps getting worse. We've been gradually remodeling the house when we're not working in the store. His bedroom was the first room we finished. He managed to put a hole in the wall on the first day he moved in.
Bob told him to wash the truck one day earlier this year. He thought he'd be helpful and wash out the fuel tank as well. With water. His parents signed him up for tutoring to help with his grades. Turns out, all the tutoring in the world won't help your grades if you never turn in your homework. He was under the impression that homework was optional. Also, he routinely falls asleep in class.
He thought that fish were just very active plants. Yes, really. He managed to tip over and dump the contents of the trash can he was taking out to the roadside to be picked up. Rather than pick up the mess, he just kicked it around and spread it out across the yard, in hopes that it would be less noticeable if the mess was less concentrated.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. This Untruth Got Flushed Away
My best friend was a girl, and she thought it would be funny to get all the girls I knew in on a prank against me. She told every girl I knew, including my teacher, mom, and sister, to tell me that girls didn’t poop if I asked. They all went with it for a couple of days and I fell for it. I believed this was the case from about fifth grade up until the ninth grade when my sister forgot to flush.
I went in immediately after her, and the truth suddenly hit me. There they were—four years of lies just floating there, mocking me for being so stupid and gullible. My friend thought it was hilarious when I confronted her at school the following day. She couldn’t believe I hadn’t figured it out. She had also almost forgotten about that prank.
7. Baked Before The Brownies
I had a friend who was baking some brownies and the recipe called for a 13 by 9 baking pan. She got upset when she looked at her pans and she didn't have one; all she had was a 9 by 13 pan...She actually argued with me for a minute that they were not the same thing, until I grabbed the pan and held it sideways and said, “13 by 9” then turned it 90 degrees and said, "9 by 13. Make the brownies." To be fair, she was pretty baked. We still laugh about that.
8. Too Little, Too Late
This guy I know told his (stupid) wife about an article he read about people in Siberia digging up frozen mammoth tusks and selling them. Her: "That's terrible!". Him: "Why is it terrible?" Her: "They'll sell all the frozen ones and then people will start hunting mammoths for their tusks, and pretty soon they'll all be extinct!"
9. 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?"
10. She Drummed Up This Tall Tale
When I was little, and my mom got me fast food, I would use the straws like drumsticks on the passenger side dash of the car. My mom told me to stop because I could set off the airbag and break my own neck. Fifteen years later, I drove a friend to get food. He started doing the same thing. I told him sternly not to do that because I didn’t want the airbag to go off.
He just stared at me like I was insane. That moment made me question everything else my parents ever told me.
11. The Birds And The Bees Fail
I went to school with a kid who wasn't the brightest. In many ways, he was like Kevin from that one internet-famous story. The icing on the cake was when he got super angry at a girl in his class and told her, "I'm gonna get pregnant and knock you over.” When asked to explain his reasoning, he said that if he became pregnant, he would gain weight, which supposedly would make him stronger than the girl, which would allow him to "knock her over."
This was in freshman year of high school. The guy had no idea that he couldn't become pregnant.
12. Tea Time
This was probably one of the stupidest people I've ever met. He was a 26-year-old male and turned up an hour and a half late the first day for work. He was brought in by his mom, which I thought was kinda odd for a grown man. I let that slide…but then things just got worse. It was a small roadside cafe/eatery, so I thought I'd get him started on small duties to ease him into the way of the place.
I asked him to put new toilet paper in the toilets. A minute or so later, I hear him yelling "HEEEYYYYY, it won't fit on the toilet roll holder!" I'm like what? That's a pretty simple thing. He calls out again so I tell him to bring it to me so I can show him. That’s when I realize he's carrying a roll of paper towel; it's almost three times the length of the toilet paper holder.
I say, "That is paper towel." “No it's not" "Yes, it is! Have you ever seen toilet paper that big in your life?" "Uh...no" "Right, furthermore, and probably more perplexing—can you not see that this massive roll couldn't possibly fit on this small bar?” "Yeah, I thought that was odd." Oh boy, well, the day goes on and after the kitchen is pretty much closed except for pre-cooked baked goods, I get him to give a general clean and ask to make sure he wipes down all the benches.
I leave him to it as I assume he's doing fine. I found out my mistake far too late. One of the other staff comes and says we've run out of toilet paper, and I'm like what? That's not possible. Sure enough, all the packs are torn open and empty except for the rolls on the holders. At this stage I realize there can only be one culprit, and call the guy over.
“Did you do something with the toilet paper?" WHAT IS WITH THIS GUY AND TOILET PAPER? "Yes, I used it to wipe down the benches in the kitchen" "You used EIGHT rolls of toilet paper to wipe down the benches in the kitchen?! WHY are you using toilet paper to wipe down benches?" "I don't like using the dishcloth" "WHO taught you to wipe down benches with toilet paper? Have you ever seen anyone wipe down benches with toilet paper?"
"The cloth was dirty and I didn't want to clean it out." By this stage I'm thinking, day's nearly over, just let it go and I'm sure it will work out fine...yeah, you know what's coming. He strikes again, and this time, it's beyond moronic. So I've got him on serving customers pastries and the like because all you have to do is take it out of the glass bay, put it on a plate, and give it to them.
He doesn't even have to ring it up, just pop on plate and give. Well, one of the customers’ orders three scones with jam and cream. He's behind the counter doing his thing and I have a little peek and see, yes, he's cut them in half and managed to put jam and cream on them. About a minute later, the customer brings the scones back up to the counter.
"There's something really hard in these scones, I bit down and it was like crunching on a rock or something" Of course I'm puzzled "Oh, I'm really sorry about that—" when the guy cuts in: "It's probably just the seeds in the jam." There's something about the way he says this that makes my alarm bells ring. "Show me what you put on these scones."
I start marching toward the prep bench, and sitting on the bench is the bowl of whipped cream…and next to it, in a plastic bag, is a broken glass jar that contains the jam. This idiot is feeding the customer broken glass. "I didn't think it would be a big deal." "Are you insane?!" I grab the plate of mostly uneaten glass-infused scones.
"How is anyone supposed to eat this?” To my utter—utter—amazement, he proceeds to EAT THEM, in front of me, all the while crunching on glass and flinching every time he does. I’m paralyzed dumbfounded. When he finishes eating them he says, "Do you think I should go to the hospital?" I could only reply: "You're fired.” I will never forget this until my last day.
13. 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.
14. Stuck Between A Rock And A Hard Place
When I was a child, I got upset after a button came off of my shirt. My mother told me not to worry and that if I placed the button under a rock in the yard, the button fairy would replace it with a quarter. I believed it, and to my mother's dismay, I took her story to heart. She discovered I had pulled the buttons off of every shirt in my closet.
To this day, 40 years later, shirt buttons can still be found under random rocks in my parents' backyard.
15. At Least He Was A Sweet Guy
I worked with a very dull dishwasher who was always saying strange things. He was a sweet guy, but without being mean or derogatory, he was literally the dumbest person I've ever met. Anyway, one day he got quiet, set down the dishes he was carrying, and paused for a second. Then he unleashed the greatest question anyone's ever asked me.
"Do you believe in rumors?" Do. I. Believe. In. Rumors. Not "a" rumor. All rumors. Forever. This happened at least 18 months ago, and the dishwasher has since moved on, but we still fondly remember him and this question.
16. Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks
I work a pet grooming shop, and a client just called for the price of a bath and nails. I ask what kind of dog. She says, "I don't know what it is now, but when it grows up, it's going to be a black Lab." I was dumbfounded, literally. I ask her how old it was. She said it was three months, so I'm thinking maybe 20 pounds max, so I tell her maybe $20-$25.
I swear to God, the lady brings "Red" in, and he is a POMERANIAN, a POM. I said, sorry but this is a Pomeranian, and she tells me, "Well, I know it's going to be a black Lab because I have papers at home." I pulled up pictures of Labs and Poms on the computer and I still think she believes it's going to be a black Lab. I'm going home to drink.
17. 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.
18. It Was A Total Snow Job
One time, when I was about five or six years old, I was staying in with my father, when his good friend came by. It was evening and I was doing my own stuff, such as playing with Legos and watching TV. Meanwhile, they were in the kitchen talking, laughing, and generally, doing what adults do, or at least that’s what I thought.
Then, my dad suggested we all go for a walk. It was deep winter, but pleasant out—very snowy but not too cold. So, of course, I was down for the walk. I figured I would get to play with snowballs and mess around. We went and at some point, my dad's friend started to walk sideways and behave funny. A few times he even fell in the snow and started eating it.
It was very amusing, so my dad and I laughed our butts off. When we came back home, his friend just collapsed in the corridor and my dad got him some pillows and a blanket. I asked him, “What's going on?” He said that his friend ate too much snow. We laughed again and I went to sleep. When I was 18 or 19 years old, it finally hit me that they were both loaded.
The walk was to go to a store and get more booze.
19. An IQ Of 10
I used to work in Yellowstone. The amount of stupid coming through the park is unimaginable. We had a bison come and lay down close to the boardwalk at Old Faithful. A woman holding a toddler started running up to it. Luckily, I had grabbed her by the back of her shirt and pulled her down. She kept screaming she was going to sue me and the lodge for ruining her perfect vacation photo.
When this happens we are on higher alert. We always had to watch tourists like they have IQs of 10. Often, they prove that assessment correct.
20. Mucho Macho Man
When we were all younger and dumber, one of my closest friends married the craziest man I've ever met. Let’s call him Kevin. My friend had just come off of a very bad relationship that she'd been certain was going to end in marriage, when in reality the guy was cheating on her while using her to support his wannabe pro-golfer existence. He then dumped her when someone with more money came along.
So she was in a bad place. A few months later, Kevin appears. The first time I met Kevin was when the two of them showed up at my apartment to announce their engagement. Since I'd met the previous guy that she was "seriously" dating just a month before, I know they couldn't have been seeing each other very long. Turns out, Kevin proposed five weeks after their first date.
Maybe she was a bit of an idiot for saying yes at that point, but like I said, bad place. It's hard for me to accurately describe Kevin without dipping into being mean. Because I never liked him from that first meeting. It was like he really wanted to be one of those hyper-masculine manly men , but didn't quite know how. He liked to take any opportunity to bring up in conversation that he was a black belt.
I remember the first time he said it because I asked, "Oh, yeah, in what?" And he looked at me like I was an idiot. "In martial arts." Oh. Right. Of course. He also would talk, at length, about how much he worked out (turns out, he didn't actually work out at all). Welp, it only went downhill from there. He liked to think of himself as a car guy, because he had a sports car he couldn't afford and treated it like his baby.
He didn't actually know anything about cars, but he had one. So, car guy. But the thing that really got up my nose about the guy was that he prided himself on how very smart he was. He'd make the most outrageous claims with the most pigheaded certainty. He just knew these things were true, and if you disagreed, even if you showed actual physical proof that he was wrong, he'd just condescendingly tell you that you didn't understand these things like he did and go on with his idiocy.
Just as an example, he once declared that you can't break the law at night. What exactly does that mean? We still don't know. He wouldn't elaborate. As a second example, he had trouble getting a fire going in their fireplace when he was home alone one day. His solution was a total disaster. Mix up some homemade napalm from a recipe he found on the internet. It set the kitchen on fire.
Luckily my friend arrived home in time to grab the fire extinguisher. Yet he insisted doggedly that he knew what he was doing, and really this was the best way to get the fireplace going, and obviously she just didn't understand because she didn't know as much about this stuff as he did. There’s one last important thing to know about Kevin before we get 'round to the divorce I promised.
Kevin was a religious nut. I don't mean he was crazy because he was religious. I've known many wonderful, intelligent religious people in my lifetime. Kevin was a crazy person who used religion as his MO. He would randomly proclaim, "The Bible says..." to support whatever other crazy thing he'd said. Most people let him get away with it, because heck the Bible is really long and says a lot of crazy stuff.
Who could say that, somewhere in there, it didn't actually say whatever insane thing he was claiming? And besides, who wants to confront crazy? Even when the claim was something insane like, "The Bible says that birds are of the devil." (Yes, this is a thing he said one day when he was angry at birds for some reason). I was raised going to church twice a week, once upon a time.
So I knew a bit about that particular book, and I had a pathological need when I was younger to call people on their lies. So we often butted heads. Unsurprisingly, when confronted, Kevin could never actually tell you where in the Bible it said you shouldn't take the first slice of pizza (yep, he said that too), but it didn't decrease his certainty that it was in there.
So, as anyone but the two of them could have predicted, the marriage didn't last. Only, it was so much darker than we knew. He became increasingly erratic, forbidding her from speaking to friends, including me, because, "the Bible says so." Hitting her, because the Bible says she has to do whatever he says and that he's allowed to beat her if she doesn't, stuff like that.
So she left…and here is where the wackiest stuff begins. She gets a lawyer to initiate divorce proceedings, and the first thing that comes up is the house. They bought the house from his parents. More precisely, she bought the house from his parents. He had terrible credit. As a result, his name wasn't on anything related to the house. He also had no job.
Meaning he'd never made a single payment on the house. As far as she saw it, the house was hers. His mother, who came into town to support her son through his misfortune, didn't see it that way. Their reaction was completely cruel and unhinged. They declared that the house still belonged to the mother and threw all of my friend's stuff out on the lawn.
Friend's lawyer gets a preliminary hearing date set up, to determine the initial dispersion of important stuff like the house, at least until the divorce proceedings get all sorted. So Friend's lawyer says to Kevin, have your lawyer contact me to set up a meeting before the hearing. A meeting is set up, and who arrives at the lawyer’s office but Kevin, dressed in jeans and a windbreaker, claiming to be, "Mr. Steele, the lawyer."
I kid you not. He decided he'd be his own lawyer and he'd call himself Mr. Steele (not his name). I don't know how the initial meeting went, but when the time for the hearing came, Kevin was once again acting as his own attorney. This time I can only assume he wasn't working under a pseudonym. Keep in mind, the rest of this is totally going off of her story to me immediately after the hearing.
Kevin and his mother arrive 20 minutes late, not at all dressed for court, casual jeans and shirts. The first thing he says when he walks in is, "Can I approach the bench?" "Why?" The judge asks. "Because I have some receipts." So Friend gets called to the stand. Her lawyer asks a bunch of questions illustrating just how crazy Kevin is and how bad things had gotten and about the house and stuff.
Then Kevin, since he's the lawyer, gets to cross-examine. His first question. "Is it not true that you were beaten as a child?" Her lawyer, "Objection." The judge, "Sustained." The question had nothing to do with anything. Other questions included, "Is it not true that you were seeing a psychiatrist and on medication for depression?" "No. It's not true."
She'd never seen a mental health professional. Not sure if he thought he might trick her into lying on that one or if he was so crazy that he actually thought it was true. But he was his own worst enemy. He asked a bunch of other ridiculous questions, which her lawyer let him ask because they were completely out of nowhere and just helped prove to the judge how nuts he was.
Then he takes the stand. Her lawyer gets him to admit to pretty much everything they said he did, because it was all true, but he refuses to give specific answers to some of the more serious questions. Not no. Just doesn't want to give specifics. Then he gets to make a statement. His statement is how he doesn't want a divorce and also she was abusive to him, such as "peenching" him once when they were on the highway.
Also, the Bible says that she's his wife. So she has to do whatever he wants, and that divorce is bad. How can the judge make them get a divorce when the Bible says not to? Apparently he went on in this vein for a while. She just gave me a couple of the highlights. Needless to say, the initial hearing did not go his way. She ended up getting the house in the short term and a protective order against him after he admitted in court to his mistreatment of her ("the Bible says it's ok, though!").
After this he dragged his feet at every point of the process. For more than six months, he wouldn't show up to things or would refuse to sign things until the last possible moment. He moved to a different city and apparently joined the Army reserve. This was also a big problem. When Friend found out about this, her lawyer contacted someone there to point out that he wasn't allowed to be around weapons something like that because of the protective order.
The lawyer even contacted him and offered to drop the protective order so he could stay in if he'd just agree to finish the divorce proceedings in a timely manner. Kevin refused. In the end, he got pretty much nothing and quietly disappeared.
21. 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!
22. I Was Out Of Tune With Reality
When my sister and I were kids, our mom lied and told us that she was a Grammy-nominated and winning singer. She said that all of the trophies were in our attic, knowing that neither of us would ever go up there and check for them. My sister and I bragged to all of our friends about it for years, only to discover that our mom wasn’t a very good singer at all.
We held this lie over her head for years. We finally gifted her a fake Grammy that had her name and her favorite music category engraved on it, citing her as the winner of it. She laughed until she cried.
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23. Just To Be Sure
I needed safety boots for my first job. I was 15 years old or so. My mom took me out to buy some. She's a coupon collector and had a 10% off coupon and a $10 off coupon. An older lady approximately in her 50s was working the counter. I asked if I could use both coupons. She said no. I said, “Okay, the 10 percent off one, please,” since the boots were $180.
She said, "Now hold on, the $10 one might save you more." She busts out a calculator. My mom and I just looked at each other in stunned silence. We didn’t want to be rude to a seemingly nice, but quite dumb, woman working a bad job. I'm amazed she knew how to even do the calculation. However, it appeared the answer she got didn't align with her worldview. So, she insisted on ringing the purchase up with both coupons "just to be sure."
At the end of the day, she was just trying to be nice and save me money, but my god.
24. Round And Round In Circles
My dad and I were downstairs in the living room where the landline was kept. The landline rang and my mom (5’ tall, chubby Asian lady) comes barreling down the stairs at top speed. The phone stops ringing. She goes back upstairs. A minute later, the same thing: phone rings, she bolts down the stairs, phone stops, she goes back upstairs, this time audibly annoyed by the mystery caller.
After this happens for the third time in 10 minutes, we ask her what the heck was going on. Turns out she was unknowingly calling the landline from her new cell phone. Then, upon hearing the phone ring, she was hanging up her cell and running downstairs to grab the phone. We haven’t been able to figure out why she dialed the landline number in the first place. She didn’t have an answer for that one.
25. 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.
26. Her Answer Wasn’t Quite Black Or White
I was four, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom. One day, she was washing dishes in the sink and I came over and asked her what my dad’s favorite color was. Without turning around, she told me it was grey. I said, “Grey? That’s an ugly color!” She replied, “Well, don’t you know that your dad’s colorblind and can only see black and white and shades between?”
I obviously believed that wholeheartedly because Rugrats didn’t have an episode explaining what color blindness was. I then spent the next four years telling my dad what color the stoplights were when he and I were riding together. I figured because he was colorblind, he didn’t know what color the stoplight was. I never did it when my mom was in the car because I knew she obviously had a secret signal to let him know while he was driving without making it obvious.
So, every car ride would always start out with me telling him the light was red, and then green, or that it was green so he could drive straight through that but the next one was yellow and he needed to hurry up, and so on. His response was always polite at first, but it would escalate until he yelled, “Thanks, thank you, yup, thaaank you, THANK YOU, YES I KNOW YOU CAN STOP NOW.”
I would end up pouting the rest of the ride. Eventually, I stopped and learned his favorite color was blue. I was telling this story at my high school graduation party. My dad overheard and confronted my mom in front of everyone, exclaiming that he had never known why I had done that and how annoying it had been. My mom had never realized I was doing it because I never did it when she was in the car.
27. A Strange Thing To Ask
"Was it difficult for your husband to learn English? Is there a language barrier for you guys?" My husband is Scottish, born and raised. The people asking me this question were supposed to be well-educated teachers. They had never met my husband, so they didn't even have the excuse of hearing his accent. But, had they met him, they would have been more surprised at how diluted his accent was.
His diluted accent was due to leaving Scotland at 18 to live in London for seven years. By the time I met him, he had been in the United States for 14 years. He had an accent, but was very easy to understand and had adopted a more American style of speaking so people could understand him. He would even say things like “pants” instead of “trousers.” So, no, there is not a language barrier.
28. Speaking In Tongues
Austrian here. My sister used to take in couch surfers from all across the world. Most were lovely fellas with interesting stories to tell. But one time, we hit the jackpot. We got a set of four American stereotypes. The ones that I used to think were only real in movies. One of them was an air-headed cheerleader who was one heck a pain in the behind.
Since they're not relevant to the story, I won't go into detail about how rude and obnoxious this girl behaved during the days leading up to the event, but let me tell you, at this point, even her friends were done with her. Anyway, it's New Year's Eve and the couch surfers decide to stay with us instead of going out into the city. My sister and I go about our New Year's celebration the same way we always do.
We’re having fondue, dancing to "The Blue Danube" and watching Dinner for One. Midnight comes and goes and within less than five minutes, the cheerleader takes her laptop to the other room to video call her parents, leaving the door open. The words that came out of her mouth made my jaw drop. She starts complaining loudly about how my sister and I are "embarrassing."
She also talks about how "that Austrian food we had suuuucked" (as much as I would love to claim fondue for our cuisine, the French would likely be opposed), how "the mountains looked fake" and whatnot. My sister and I were in the living room with the others, perfectly able to hear every single word while her friends turned red as tomatoes and started giving us apologetic looks.
Cue her return, marching into the living room with the carefree attitude. Her friend: “Uhmm...we heard you. All of us." Her: "Sooo whaaat? I was talking Americaaaaan." My sister and I just looked at each other and started laughing so hard, it took us a few minutes to calm down. She had been talking to us every single day in English, but somehow that was different in her world.
Her friends apologized profusely, but the cheerleader did not because she just couldn't believe (even when we told her) that, yes, we do understand "American."
29. 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.
30. 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 caught by the authorities.
31. A Grizzly Tale
My dad always liked to make up silly stories to freak me out when I was little, and this one I believed for YEARS. He would sometimes pick up odd jobs to do for friends. One time, when I was about six, we were at our friend’s house. He was trimming up the bushes in the backyard, while I stayed inside playing. He came into the house with huge scratches all up his arm, and I started freaking out. I asked him what had happened.
He told me, "Well I was out in the backyard cleaning things up, and all of the sudden a bear came out of nowhere and asked me to race him! So of course, I did and OF COURSE, I won. The bear was so angry that he scratched up my arm and ran away." I literally believed this story until I was in high school. We were with family and I had brought up that one time my dad raced a bear in the backyard, and I swear I've never seen my dad laugh harder than that.
32. A Simply Incorrect Conclusion
I, the IT person, was walking past a user in the office who was at her desk. Her computer was slow that day. No one ever realized that having 12 programs open at once and 15 tabs in Internet Explorer would slow down the junky PCs we had. I said it over and over, but what would the IT guy know about computer performance? Then she topped herself for stupidity: “My computer is connected with a blue network cable and the rest of yours are all yellow. Mine must connect somewhere else and that's the reason why it runs so slow.”
33. Just Call Me Mrs. Clean
So Lisa was one of my best friends growing up. More due to proximity, as she was the nearest neighbor my age. Sweet and funny, Lisa was also not the brightest bulb. When she was born, she had blonde hair. Naturally, it darkened with age. Lisa hated that, so she tried Sun-In. Her hair turned tangerine blonde. She hated that even more. So I suggested she bleach her hair, as in hair dye. It went so, so badly.
I probably should have been more specific, in retrospect. In any case. Lisa was excited. She said she was going to do it that night and go super blonde. I was relieved and excited for her, as I thought I was about to finally hear the end of the seemingly never-ending hair saga. I went over to her house the next day. There were tears in Lisa’s eyes, as her mom was cutting off her hair in uneven clumps.
Bright blonde bits were strewn across the floor like some weird, broken halo. My mind was racing, struggling to figure out what led us here. Did she use too much dye? Leave it on too long? Forgot to wash out the Sun-In and some weird reaction occurred...? I asked her if she was okay and what happened. Her answer stunned me into silence.
Through a mix of what was now streams of snot and those kind of tears you only get from ugly crying, she said, “I did what you said. I used bleach. And now my hair is ruined!!!” While Lisa glared at me balefully, the pit of my stomach dropped from a mix of guilt and fear. Guilt that I’d apparently destroyed my best friend’s hair and fear that Lisa couldn’t handle this existential hair crisis, as she was already super self-conscious about her looks.
As she continued to glare at me from under patches of hair that increasingly looked like a three-year-old’s efforts of cutting Barbie’s hair, I struggled with what to say. Finally, I stammered and mumbled in front of her mom, ‘“I’m so sorry. I didn’t think this would happen..”’ Now, they were both glaring at me. Great. There was a long pause as my mind raced about what could have gone wrong.
I bleached my hair all the time and it never looked like this. What could have gone wrong...? Was it the brand...? After what seemed like hours of watching Lisa in absolute misery and just wanting to hug away my best friend’s tears, I asked “Lisa, I’m just sooo sorry." Maybe it was the brand or something? What brand did you use?” “Clorox,” Lisa replied. Yes, she used household bleach.
34. 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.
35. He Was Just Pushing My Buttons
When I was a kid, my dad always told me not to touch the button on the armrest of a plane because it was an "emergency" button. One time, when I was about five, we were flying to visit family. My dad fell asleep, so I pressed it a bunch of times because I was curious. Nothing happened, and I fell asleep thinking it must be broken. I woke up in a stroller with my parents, upset because the plane had to make an emergency landing. I started crying because I thought it was my fault.
36. The Same Is The Same
I went on a hike with a few friends and one girl who I didn't really consider myself to be close with. In the past, she always seemed to disagree or argue with me over really small things, and it annoyed me. Anyways, we had all agreed to get back to town by two in the afternoon for a late lunch, and the hike was taking longer than expected.
I suggested we head back because it was getting close to one and it'd take about an hour and 15 minutes to get back. Well, she disagreed with me and asked me why I thought that. I told her that to get back to the beginning of the trail, it would take about 45 minutes. She said she thought it would only take 30. Then, I said that the drive into town would take about 30, she then disagreed and said it would take 45.
I kind of just stared at her until she realized what she had just done and she shut up after that.
37. Here For A Bad Time, Not A Long Time
A few years back, one of my husband's fraternity brothers, Chad, stayed with us for a long weekend so he could attend some reunion-type thing. Since hubby and I had a long-standing family obligation on Friday night, Chad was left to his own devices in the house. I knew this wouldn't end well, but I was expecting get the dog high-type antics. It went worse than I could have ever imagined.
Chad went in the freezer for some ice cream, or maybe he was just being nosy. Anyhow, he saw some unlabeled tablets in a blister pack and decided they were drugs. Why? Who knows what goes on in the mind of a Chad. Hubby and I aren't the types to have anything stronger than Advil in the house. Regardless, he popped a couple. After an hour or so of nothing happening, he decided to take four more.
When we got home, Chad informed us that we'd better ask for a refund because those pills in the freezer were duds! What pills? The ones in our freezer? That's cheese curdling enzymes called rennet. I'd been going through a phase of learning to make my own cheese. Rennet is a necessary ingredient that comes in that form and is best stored in the freezer.
It absolutely will not make you high. In that quantity, it will cause severe gastric distress best not observed in nature. I will never forget the sounds that came from the bathroom all Saturday. Don't take mystery pills from the freezer, Chad. They're not all gonna be party favors.
38. 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.”
39. This Strategy Backfired
When I was younger, I was told that my stepdad traded his watch and all the money in his wallet for our family's chessboard and that he had hiked out of the jungle with it. My mom corroborated the story and it was easy to believe cause my stepdad was a former officer. About a decade later, my then-boyfriend walked into my house and said, “Hey my ex-girlfriend has a chessboard just like this one!”
I told him that was impossible because my stepdad had hiked it out of the jungle. He said, “No, really!” What happened next shattered me. He proceeded to pull the chessboard up on eBay. It was $30. Later, I confronted my mom by sending her a screenshot. She just laughed. I was honestly hurt and felt very stupid.
40. A Doctor’s Understanding Of It
I'm a paramedic and I was responding to a call for a child who was injured. I arrive on scene and the firefighter hands me a limp five-year-old. I immediately check that he has a pulse and is breathing, which he was, and take him into my ambulance to assess him. We try to verbally stimulate him and try to provoke a pain response and we're getting nothing.
As we're checking all his vital signs, which are all coming back normal, we prick his heel with a tiny needle to check his blood sugar, and he suddenly wakes up and starts crying. My partner and I looked at each other in relief. A crying baby/child is better than a non-responsive one. All his vitals continue to check out normal and his responsiveness is good.
At this point, the mother arrives on scene and comes into the back of the ambulance. She looked worried and we calmed her down and explained what happened. We recommend transport to the hospital so they can run some tests to figure out why he was non-responsive in the first place, and she agrees. Along the way, I'm explaining everything to her in layman's terms and she is staying very calm.
Apparently, the reason she was not there initially was that she hired a babysitter for the night. While she was out, she got a call from the babysitter saying she had to call for help because the child wasn't acting right. We get to the hospital, and after getting a room, we place the child on the bed and the doctor arrives. At this point, I switch to full medical terms as I give the story to her.
She is asking follow-up questions and I'm responding. The mother was concerned about all these terms that are foreign to her and she asked, "What is this word ‘LETHARGIC’ that you keep on saying?" I turn to the mother and start explaining that it just means her child was excessively tired beyond normal. That's when the doctor said something that made my jaw drop: "No, ‘lethargic’ means ‘dead.’ I need to figure out why the medic was using that term."
To any non-medical personnel, and apparently even medical personnel, "lethargic" does NOT mean "dead." At this point, the mother starts freaking out saying, "Wait, are you telling me my son was dead earlier?" I very quickly ask the doc if she needs anything else from me and when she says no, I turn tail and book it. I was not about to start dealing with that mess that the doc just started.
41. Better Keep On Hoping
When I was working in construction, I had a guy I was working with say, “I hope the sun comes up on that side today,” pointing west, “Because yesterday it came up on this side and it was so hot,” with us being on the east side of the building. Buddy, that’s not how the sun works.
42. Love A Man In Uniform
This guy named Neil is a bass drum in our marching band. In addition to his former band felonies (always being late to rehearsal, not knowing how time signatures work, dropping his drum on a daily basis), Neil has committed a new and worse crime. After 12 hard years of constant fundraising, our band finally bought new uniforms to replace our old ones from the 90s.
These were not cheap. Each uniform came with a cost of about $1,000, not including the price for hats, gloves, and shoes. Because of the new uniforms, our band director drilled into us the no eating in uniform rule, a simple enough rule to follow especially if we heard it dozens of times a day. Our last competition of the year was in a large football stadium, and due to some timing issues we wouldn’t be allowed to take our uniforms off between our performance and when we had to leave.
Therefore, we would all have to wait an hour or so until we could get back to the bus and eat the dinners we had packed. Neil had a different, much more destructive idea. Apparently he had shoved money in his uniform before performing and used it to purchase a large serving of barbecue chicken wings. He then proceeded to eat them in uniform, and was completely clueless to the giant orange stain going down the entirety of the front of his white uniform until my band director saw and freaked out.
Needless to say, it was a fun time and he was extremely confused as to what he did wrong. Hopefully the dry cleaners can fix it, or our band is down a $1,000 uniform.
43. 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.
44. I Was Conditioned To Believe This Tale
When I was about ten, I was in the car with my father on a hot day. He told me to roll my window up because the air conditioning would run out. Because of this, I believed air conditioning was consumable in a vehicle and if you had it on with the window down you would run out. I was 22, driving in my work truck, and every time my coworker rolled the window down when he lit up, I turned the AC off.
He finally asked me why I did that. I'll regret my answer forever: I told him it was because I didn't want the air conditioning to run out. He laughed for the whole hour's drive back to the shop.
45. Not The First Time
I’m European, and when I was in the US, I was eating a pizza, and someone asked me if that was the first time I ever had pizza…I tried to explain that Europe kind of has pizzas too, and that we frequently vacation in Italy. This was still met with a confused look on their face. I gave up.
46. Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Oh the stories I have. I think my husband could be the king of all idiots. One of my favorites is when he wanted to remove his back hair but no one was around to help. He is not a hairy person at all but when he gets something in his head he can’t stop thinking about it. His great idea was to get Nair body hair remover, spread it on the bathroom floor and lay in it.
I can picture all 6’4” 300+lbs of him doing Nair angels in our bathroom. He gets in the shower and rinses it off and then goes about his day. Went to a work appointment, worked out at the gym, then picked up the kids from school. While walking out, our son asked a question that made him stop in his tracks. He asked why he had a bald spot in the back of his head.
Oh my God. He got Nair in his hair and had a perfect bald shaped 3 on the back of his head. After a few more days more hair fell out and it was a perfect 8.
47. The Long Curve Of History
My now ex-wife was something else. On one of our first dates, we decided to watch a movie and have dinner at my place. We decided to watch American History X. She picked it, for what it’s worth. So, anyone who has seen the movie knows the scene where Edward Norton starts screaming at his mom’s Jewish boyfriend. Well, we get to this scene and my ex-wife pauses the movie.
I kid you not, she says, “So these angry bald guys and these Jewish people...They have an issue with each other?" She thought WWII was just a movie she watched in the eighth grade.
48. 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 criminal mastermind.
49. 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.
50. My Stuffy Was Away On Vacay
When I was five, I lost my stuffed animal in the Miami airport. It was my favorite, and I was really sad about it. A few weeks later, my mom presented me with a brown dog that otherwise looked exactly like the white one I had lost. She said the workers at the airport had found it and mailed it to us, but he got a tan because he was in Florida. For a few years, I bought it hook line and sinker.
51. Just Kept Pushing
I'm an American of Mexican descent. Someone asked me where I'm from. I told them that I’m from California. He then asked me where my parents were from. I told him that they are from Michigan and Texas. Looking at me rather upset, he said, “No, where are your people from?” I said, “Dude, I can trace my family back to within the United States to 1817. Where the heck are you from?” He just walked away after that.
52. Typical For The Industry
I work in the restaurant industry. I was refilling items on the breakfast buffet, and this lady walks up to me and blurts out, "I want some of that," and points. Keep in mind, we don’t physically serve the food to people, and I don't want to directly be placing food on people's plates. So, I give her a polite response like, “Oh yeah, it's really good today.” She then somehow asks an even dumber question: "How do I get the stuff over there?" I just look her right in the eyes and say, "Walk around the buffet." You really see the dumbest people in the service industry.
53. Live Together And Learn
Back in the 90s, I lived with an idiot named John. He was a great guy, but I ended up having to establish some unique house rules because of him. The first was “no baking citrus fruit.” One day I came home and could smell something burning. I looked at the oven and it was set to 450F. I looked inside. In the oven was a cookie sheet. On this cookie sheet were several whole lemons and limes that had swollen to the size of grapefruits.
I called to John, who was lounging on the sofa, and asked in confusion, "Why is there citrus fruit in the oven?" This was the response: "I was watching Martha Stewart make potpourri and I decided that I wanted to make it." Now, Martha had apparently sliced up the fruit, laid it out on the cookie sheet, and put it in the oven at the lowest temp to slowly dry out.
John had attempted this, grown impatient, and raised the temperature. The resultant caramelized, burned discs ended up discarded. For attempt number two, he had placed them in the oven whole. Had I not interfered, his plan had been to slice them up once they were hot. When I explained that the process was meant to dry the fruit, not cook it, he removed them from the oven in defeat. The fruit had swollen as the juices inside heated up. I watched as John proceeded to spear the fruit with a fork, spraying searing hot acid all over himself.
The next rule was “don’t use Pledge on the floor.” I arrived home starving one day and proceeded to prepare a snack of cheese and crackers on a plate. I then attempted to carry this plate into the living room. Attempt. We lived in an apartment with parquet floors. We had no area rugs. I am not, by nature, a clumsy person, so imagine my surprise when I completely wiped out between the sofa and coffee table.
While I was lying there, covered in broken crackers, I couldn't 't help but notice the distinct smell of lemon furniture polish. This was odd, because there was no wood furniture in the room. John arrived home a while later and I was compelled to ask, "Um... Did you Pledge the floor?" He grinned and informed me that since it makes furniture so shiny, it would be perfect for the wood floor.
The third rule was “no hiding coffee in the furniture.” Never, in the entire time we lived together, did I ever see John consume coffee that didn't come in a paper cup. We didn't own a coffee maker of any kind. Because of this, I found it odd when I could smell rancid coffee in the living room. I looked around for an abandoned cup but couldn't find anything. Finally the mystery of the smell got too much and I decided go hunting.
There was an empty ceramic vase on the coffee table, and for some inexplicable reason, It was full of whole coffee beans. I took it to the kitchen and then went back to my TV show. Why can I still smell coffee? I start examining the sofa. All along the piped edge of the back cushions, I found a row of individual beans. I confronted him later that evening.
He told me that he found old beans in the back of the fridge and thought they'd smell good. He also said that he'd debated putting them in the VENTS but couldn't find a way to make them stay.
54. I Know You Better Than You Know Yourself
I was preparing for my baby shower. My friend, who can be a little stupid, asked who would be there. Upon, hearing my two-year-old nephew would be there, she said “I haven’t seen him since your wedding five years ago.” Me: “He’s two. You have never met him.” Her: “Yes, I did at your wedding, he was the ring bearer.” Me: “My wedding was five years ago, he’s two.”
Her : “He was your ring bearer.” Me: “That was my cousin.” Her: “No, it was your nephew.” Me “I only have one nephew and he wasn’t born when I got married. The ring bearer was my cousin.” Her “Your other nephew then.” Me: “I only have one.” I bust out a picture of my cousin, saying, “this boy, who is my cousin.” Her: “ No, that’s your nephew the ring bearer.”
I don’t remember what finally convinced her but this went on for another five minutes.
55. 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.
56. 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.
57. A Salty Tale
As a kid, my whole extended family would go camping, and my great grandfather would bring a giant salt shaker for every kid. When we arrived, he would pass them out to each of us and tell us, “If you get salt on a squirrel’s tail, it throws off the squirrel's balance, and he can’t climb the trees anymore. That’s how you can catch one and keep it for a pet.”
We all went running around for hours chasing squirrels with salt shakers trying to catch one while the adults sat around drinking uninterrupted. I never got my pet squirrel.
58. A Dumbstruck Moment
My coworker told me that he thought he was allergic to peanut butter. I asked him, “Oh, do you have a peanut allergy?” He said, “No, I think it's the butter.” I don't even remember what I said to her after that I was so dumbstruck. Pun intended.
59. The Job Of The Trees
I was on a very windy hike and I passively mentioned that it would be better once we were protected by the trees. A friend of a friend who was with us stops and says, “Wait, don’t the trees make the wind?” I stopped in my tracks. This human being got to 23 years old believing that trees activity flapped their leaves to generate wind. They felt the wind on their skin, saw the leaves moving and their brain went, “Yup, I accept that this is the way the world is,” and never questioned it.
60. Going The Wrong Way Round
My friend Will got a job at a gas station/fast food place. During his first week there, they were training him on the sandwich line. He said everything was going well and he had the manager there with him to help him out. He finally gets his first customer. The guy orders a steak and cheese. Keep in mind that a steak and cheese sub is Will’s favorite food and he makes good ones at home, so it should be no issue for him.
Well Will makes the man's sandwich and even the manager comments on his good job making it. Right as he was about to wrap the sandwich, the customer notices that he forgot to cut the sandwich and asks Will to do it. This is exactly where it all went wrong. Will says, "Oh ya I forgot sorry about that," then proceeded to lay the sub down on its side and cuts the sub long ways.
The manager and the customer are now just both staring at Will in complete disbelief. Finally the manager asks him why he cut the sandwich like that and Will responds with "that's how you showed me." That was not how he was shown. So the manager and customer at this point start to laugh about it. The manager explains that in no way, shape, or form were you trained that way. He tells Will he can keep that sub for himself and to make the customer another one.
Will makes another perfect sub and begins to wrap it up when the customer notices for a second time he didn't cut it. Now to this day none of us could figure out what went through Will’s mind. Maybe he thought it would get a good laugh, maybe he was super hungry and thought he would get another free sandwich. All we know is that he laid that second sub down on its side and cuts it lengthwise again.
Both the manager and the customer were upset by this point and the manager sent Will away and made the sub himself. Will was removed from the sub station permanently and made into a cashier that shift. But the story didn’t end there. I finally asked Will (in front of some other friend) about the fateful sub day and his unorthodox cutting methods.
I said, “Will, if you had a long day at work and you're starving so you stop to pick up a steak n cheese on the way home and right before they hand you what looks to be a delicious sub...They cut it in half like the way you did, would you accept that sub? Will emphatically said with a look of disgust on his face: “Heck no! I wouldn't take that sandwich." He didn't understand our laughter.
61. Some Neighborly Advice
We had new neighbors move in three days ago, and we’ve already had some interesting interactions. This is gonna be rough!! On their first day here, they knocked on our door to ask if our power was out. We said “no” and they said theirs was. I asked if their breaker switches were flipped. They had no clue what I was talking about. Not a big deal, not everyone knows about this, although they should.
So I offered to come over and have a look. When I walked in their house, I immediately got confused. The lights were on. I said, “I thought your power was out?” They said “It is! Our TV and Nintendo switch won’t turn on!” I went over to the entertainment stand they pointed at and had a look. They had the TV and the switch plugged into a power bar. The power bar has a red light up switch on it to indicate whether it’s turned on or off.
The light was off. I flipped the switch over and of course it worked. They didn’t seem embarrassed or anything. Turns out, that was just the prelude. Later that night, we have another bang on the door. It’s the neighbors. They say, “Are you sure the power isn’t acting weird? Ours is out again.” I ask them if all the power is out or just the TV and Nintendo switch.
They say TV and Switch so I tell them just to flip the light up button to on, on the power bar. They said they did and nothing happened. Reluctantly, I drag my butt over there to have a look. They now have a few more things plugged into the power bar, like a Scentsy candle, a charger of some sort and their cable box. When plugging these other things in, they unplugged the TV to make room for the other cords.
I let them know that if your TV isn’t plugged in, your Switch or cable won’t show up on the screen. OBVIOUSLY. Once again, they weren’t embarrassed. Fast forward to the next day. I can smell the scent of food. Really strongly. I can’t make out what it is, but something smells off. Almost like a chemical smell mixed with spices or something like that.
Anyways, I continue on with my day, scent in the air the whole time. I should have known disaster was coming. I’m out in my backyard doing some gardening when my neighbor yells at me over the fence. “Hey! Do you like deer jerky?” It didn’t click in my head immediately. I said “Yeah I do, why? You got some?” He says “Well not yet, but I will soon. I’m smoking it in the basement.”
It instantly popped into my head to ask what the heck he was using, because it shouldn’t smell like chemical. So I ask him, “You got your own meat smoker?” He says “Yeah I made it myself. It’s not that hard. Just need an old rain barrel pretty much.” I said “A plastic rain barrel!?!? Are you serious?!?!” He looked confused and said “Yeah. Why?”
I then explained to him about how plastic is toxic and when it’s heated up, it releases all that onto your meat. He shrugged it off and said “No big deal, it’ll be fine.” Somehow, that wasn’t the end of it. Today, their children (6 and 8) were running around in our front yard. We don’t really care if kids walk on our grass, as long as they stay out of the garden.
They were wrestling and we had a good time watching them scrap out the front window for about 5 minutes. That was until the younger kid hurt the older kid. As soon as he hurt him he knew he was in trouble. He took off running through the garden, trampling all over my wife’s flowers. His older brother followed and trampled over them some more.
My wife and I went running out to tell them they can’t do that. We told them nicely, didn’t raise our voices or swear. They apologized and left. Not even five minutes after we left, their parents came banging on the door. “Why are you telling our kids off?” We were stunned and explained the situation to them. Their response “our kids don’t lie.” I literally laughed.
Instead of continuing to argue with someone that won’t listen, I was just going to walk away. As I was about to close the door, his wife pipes up, “I don’t get why you guys would be so mad about them wrecking some ugly flowers anyways. It’s the city’s flowers. Like, why do you care so much?” My wife went off. “The city’s flowers? Ugly flowers? Why the heck would these be the city’s flowers?”
The wife then responds, “Like, how dumb are you? All front yards are city property. Like, know your laws idiot!” That’s when I shut the door. Wish me luck!
62. 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."
63. 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.
64. Poisonous Gingerbread
Back in elementary school, when I was about seven years old, we would make gingerbread houses with icing and stuff. My teacher told us NOT to eat the gingerbread and the icing because it was poisonous, and we could get really sick. Being the teacher and someone you should listen to, I believed her. So, while I was growing up and for most of my life, I thought that gingerbread was poisonous.
I never ate a gingerbread house in my life nor any of the icing. At 29 years of age, my fiancée and I were making a gingerbread house, and she started eating hers. I freaked out. It was then that she informed me that the teacher probably said that so she wouldn’t have 30 kids hopped up on sugar in her class for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe I was duped that hard and never realized it.
Pexels
65. Time To Buzz Off
I know a middle-aged man named Aaron who is 100% a complete idiot. This man can hear anything on the news or on the radio, interpret it using his small brain, and take it as end-all, be-all fact. Don't even argue with him. This particular time a few years ago, it was extremely hot outside and he was trying to explain what he learned on the news.
Apparently, he was told the air isn't actually hot it's just "vibrating" (yes, at super basic level this is sort of true). He went on to say that wind was made by said vibrations, and when it was hot it vibrated so much it produced the “summer noise.” I think this brilliant gentleman thought the noise of CICADAS was produced by the heat itself. Yes, the bugs that make the loud chipper noise. The bugs.
At this point I was too dumbstruck to even have any sort of explanation or counter-argument.
66. Show And Tell
When I was in high school, some of the jocks decided that Home Ec would be an easy A. One of the jocks was an absolute fool. So, the Home Ec class is learning how to use sewing machines. This guy is sewing merrily away, with his thumb sticking out perpendicular to his left hand, putting it on trajectory toward the needle. Not surprisingly, he runs his thumb through the feed and punctures it several times.
He calls out to the teacher for help. She comes over and asks him, “What did you do?” He replies, “I did this,” and proceeds to repeat his actions, including going through the feed and getting additional puncture wounds to his thumb.
67. 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.
68. 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.
69. This Lie Stunk
We used to make an annual trip to the mountains in North Carolina for about two weeks starting the day after Christmas. I went through a phase when I was younger where I wanted to know the etymology of every word. We were driving through Jacksonville just before rush hour. At the time, the area used to reek from the mills and the coffee plant.
The smell was so strong that even if you weren’t paying attention to the road, you knew you had reached the area, simply from the smell. So, while everyone in the car was commenting on the odor, I asked my dad how Jacksonville got its name. Not knowing, he did what every good dad does—he made something up. He said it was because everyone passed gas at the same time.
For years, I had this image in my head of business people all over Jacksonville, commuting to work in their business suits and skirts, holding briefcases throughout the entire city, all busting wind in unison throughout the day. It was one of those lies that you believe as a kid, and don't bother questioning it. You don’t even think about the answer until you're sitting in class and the real answer is explained in a book. I'm guessing I believed that one until I hit middle school.
70. A Gnarly Party Trick
When I worked in the oil field, I had an accident that chopped off the top quarter of one of my fingers. I was young, so I was still going to parties and such with my gauze on. When it finally healed enough to let it breathe, I took it off and people were looking at how gnarly it looked. This girl came up completely seriously, looked at it, and said, “How long will it take to grow back?”
71. If At First You Don’t Succeed, Fail Again
I met this guy, Lewis, while interning at a non-profit organization. Lewis interned in the archives department, and once the summer was coming to an end he decided he would get a permanent job there no matter the cost. This led to several hare-brained schemes and unsuccessful attempts to show how good of an employee he could be. He tried to apply to a position in his department that had not existed for years because of budget cuts.
But Lewis was a member of the organization and thought he was superior to everyone else, so of course he thinks they'll just find the money so that he can continue working there. He meets with the main hiring director who again tells him there is no money or need for the position but that doesn't stop Lewis. Instead he comes up with an even worse plan.
Lewis decides to apply for another position in a completely different department that he has no qualifications for. His plan is to get the job....and then after a couple weeks move back into his old office at the archive department and pretend like he had been working there the whole time. Of course, his plan was ruined by the fact that he told co-workers about it, so some people already knew about his false intentions before he even had the interview.
Before this interview, Lewis tried to show how he can be a model employee. One day my soda got trapped in the vending machine. Lewis attempted to prove how macho he was in front of the hiring director by shaking and punching the machine until he was red in the face and ran out of breath. The best was yet to come. The hiring director then proceeds to pull out a key and unlock the machine in a couple seconds.
This make Lewis look like an absolute idiot while he's about to pass out from exhaustion. A few days later at lunch, one of the other interns mentions how she's getting some furniture delivered to her apartment. Lewis butts in and says, "I can come over to your place and help assemble it for you." She tells him thanks but I can do it on my own, but Lewis is unfazed.
"NO, I'm going to come over and help you, this is a man's job." What’s creepy is that Lewis was older than most of the interns by about five years. having already gotten a master’s degree while everyone else was undergrad students. A week later, Lewis receives a visitor in his office. The new CEO who was due to start in a month wanted to check in with everyone.
The CEO begins to explain how he wants to run things when Lewis tries correcting him. Despite having only worked there for two months and being due to leave in a week, Lewis starts to lose his patience. "THIS IS HOW WE"VE DONE THINGS IN THE PAST AND THIS IS HOW WE"RE GONNA KEEP DOING THEM." Somehow he still thought he had a good chance going into the interview despite screaming at the new CEO, who would have to approve new employees.
Well this ends exactly how you thought it would. He doesn't get the job and mopes back to his office to pack up his stuff, riding off into the sunset to scam his way into another job.
72. When It Crashes, It Burns
The dumbest thing I ever heard was when my former coworker said that she doesn't wear a seat belt. Even though she drives like an absolute maniac. Her reason was the most insane part. It's because she wants to be able to escape her car when…not if, but when…she crashes and it catches on fire. I kindly informed her that at the speed she likes to drive, she will absolutely not have to worry about being trapped in a burning car.
73. A Special Guest
I used to work at a motel. It was not the sort of motel chain that brings to mind images of chocolates placed on pillows or romantic evenings in the hot tub; indeed, its signature decor can be seen in the background of certain low-budget rap videos. However, Mr. and Mrs. Idiot made it their monthly romantic getaway. In fact, due to a generous corporate policy that directed managers to provide an extra night free of charge to soothe any complaining guests, for a period lasting a year or more, they succeeded in stretching their monthly getaway to two nights.
Among the complaints that won them an extra night: The room was full of bugs after they left the door open all evening. The toilet stopped flushing after they emptied their ashtray into it The manager eventually received permission from corporate to cap the number of free nights a guest could be eligible for. The couple were the only guests ever to reach this lifetime cap at our motel.
Their shock over no longer having one free night a month did not end their regular getaway, however. It had to get much grosser. That was achieved after an incident involving copious amounts of vomit. Mr. and Mrs. Idiot were informed that they were now on the no-rent list. Apparently, this monthly stay was important to their marriage, because a few months later the manager received a call from Mrs. Idiot's divorce attorney.
What vital information did he need? He wanted to confirm that Mr. Idiot was responsible for both of them being banned from the motel. Yes, this was apparently part of the divorce proceedings. The manager explained that he considered each of them equally responsible, which was not the answer the attorney expected or wanted. Not long after, Mrs. Idiot called the front desk.
"You have me banned under the name Jane Idiot," she announced. "But—" and here she could not hide her pleasure at her own cleverness, "that's not my name anymore. I got divorced, and now my name is Jane Kelly." We had the pitch-perfect response. The front desk employee, trying to hide their laughter, said, "Ok, we'll make sure to ban you under the name Jane Kelly, too." A gasp of dismay, and the line went silent.
74. Stay Thirsty
My sister used to work with a lady who was a total airhead. Let’s call her Kelly. There were a ton of stories, but this one in particular really stuck with me. One day Kelly had to call out from work in the middle of a heatwave. She was in the hospital, on IV fluids, from dehydration and heat exhaustion. After returning to work, my sister asked her how she got so dehydrated. The answer was mind-blowing.
Apparently, poor Kelly had no idea why at first, although I'm certain they tried hard to explain it to her at the hospital. I wasn't there, but from my sister's story, the conversation went something like this: Sister: "What happened? How did you get so dehydrated?" Kelly: "I don't know! I was just swimming." Sister: "Were you drinking water?"
Kelly: "Not really. But I was swimming!" Sister: "Uh, ok? You weren't drinking anything though? Like all day? It was almost a hundred degrees!" Kelly: "Yeah but I was in the water so I wasn't hot. And you can't get dehydrated when you are in water." No amount of explanation could convince her that she could, and did, get dehydrated while swimming because she didn't drink any fluids for hours on an incredibly hot day.
Too bad my sister doesn't work with her anymore, the woman was a gold mine.
75. 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.
76. 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.
77. My Uncle Milked This One As Much As He Could
A college nearby has a cougar as its mascot, and they sell cougar cheese. It's delicious. My uncles told me that cougar cheese was made from the milk of cougars. It made sense to me. Then when I got older, I saw a can of that cougar gold and wondered how they milked the cougars. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that you couldn’t have a cougar milk farm with angry cougars hooked up to milking machines.
I got a chuckle out of the image and realized that I was a grown man who believed that they were milking cougars down at the college and turning it into cheese.
78. A Stranger Knows Best
My son was two years old at this time. He has always been very tall and spoke clearly in complete sentences early. This lady in a grocery store asked how old he was and I replied. She proceeded to tell me I was wrong and that she worked with kids and he was clearly at least three or four. I ignored her and she kept pushing. So, I replied she was probably right and I just didn't know the age of my son.
79. A Hard Lesson To Learn
There is a ridiculous girl in my class this semester. Entry level course. Students are around 18 years old. First week. I teach physics. That day, I used an example based on the scan of a running body. I then let the student work on another example based on a javelin. The girl raises her hand to signal she has a question. It was the strangest thing I ever heard. I walk to her desk and she asks, “Can you tell me what my finger has ?”
I don't understand so I freeze, confused. She then puts her finger really close to my face and I see some reddish skin shedding. “My finger, it hurts and I don't know what it is.” I'm baffled and I say I'm not a doctor and that questions about physics would be more appropriate. “Well.. you talked about the body of a person running. I thought you were a doctor.”
A few days later, we are in the computer lab. They have to follow a few steps, written on a sheet of paper, to retrieve some files. She raises her hand. Apparently, the computer is broken. She says that when she follows the first step, the computer shuts down First step is to click on the "start menu." She repeatedly pushed the power button. The "start button."
She did a few other dumb things not worth mentioning, but she managed a 0 on her final exam. But that’s not even the weirdest part. The weird part is that her copy was not blank. In fact, it was filled with words and equations. Except nothing made sense. But it wasn’t like some students do when they don't know the answer. Usually those are copying formulas for the sake of putting something on the paper and you can see on paper that those students do not feel strongly about their performance.
Her exam was not like that. It was an actual "resolution" of the problem. Basic algebra logic was thrown out of the window, but her way of giving her answers was full of confidence. I have never seen someone so blind about their lack of skills. She failed way under the passing grade, then asked to see her exam in my office. She tried to argue about my grading being too harsh.
I explained calmly how everything was defying reality on her copy, but she was still arguing some of it was good. I'm simplifying here, but her arguments were like: Ok, you said I should have used the conservative principle of energy here and the answer was 256, but my answer is 28 and at least I have one correct digit, even without using the right approach.
I don't even know how she made it that far. I don't even know how she will be able to provide for herself as an adult.
80. 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.
81. 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.
82. Really Doubling Down On The Dumb
My brother’s wife is a pharmacist. A friend introduced him to his fiancé and upon hearing my brother’s wife was a pharmacist, she said, "Oh cool, I've never known anyone who worked on a farm before." He tried to correct her, but she doubled down with, "I think I know what someone who works on a farm is called."
83. Wildly Inaccurate Information
This girl had had multiple dogs for years. One time, I told her not to give one of them a marble cake because it was chocolate. She looked me straight in the eye socket like I was the stupidest person ever and told me, “Chocolate isn’t bad for dogs! The only thing that’s bad is holding it above their nose, it causes sugar to fall into their eyes and it can make them blind.”
84. The Mother Of All Idiots
At one point, I believed my mother might have a severe learning disability, coupled with learned helplessness. No, she's just an idiot. When given directions to go to the end of the block to find parking, she shot back, "How am I supposed to know what a block is, I don’t remember that from school!?" After learning I have a gluten intolerance, she makes sure to buy me foods that don't contain gluten.
"I brought you gluten-free olives, gluten-free tomatoes, and gluten-free baby carrots." When I explain gluten comes from wheat, she shoots back, "Well I'm not wrong!" Speaking of baby carrots. I love them. My mom tells me how horrible they are because they are packaged in cancer. The water inside is cancer. She yells at me anytime I eat them. Unless they are the gluten-free type she brings over.
The first time she declared bankruptcy (the first of three) she claimed it was the furniture store's fault. She had purchased a new living room set. Yes, and it gets more bizarre. Despite having money for it, she mistook the "No payments for a year" deal as meaning "You are not allowed to pay for this for a year." By then the interest had made it far more expensive and the original money was spent.
The first time I brought my new boyfriend, now husband, over she giggled and told me she had something to show me. She walked me to her bathroom and said, "I've never pooped so big in my life! I saved it to show you!" It had been there for days. My husband still mentions this. I once bought her a laptop. This was an enormous mistake.
I spent the next year giving lesson after lesson. Simple things like how to make folders and organize pictures, how to use Google or Netflix. It was fruitless and caused a lot of fights between us. Eventually she said the computer stopped turning on and I viewed it as a blessing. After about six months of her complaining, I finally went to her house to see why it wouldn't turn on.
It was not plugged in. It. Was. Not. Plugged. In. I also bought her a cellphone. She can never remember how to find the pictures she's taken, how to access her email, and specifically how to connect it to her WIFI to save data. She told me she had the cable guy come out three times to see why it wouldn't connect, but it was simply broken.
I went over, looked at the password that comes printed on the router, typed it into her phone, and it connected. My mom swears I should go into tech support. Despite being technologically inept, though, she sadly knows how to use Facebook. I am not on Facebook. Daily she'd send me Facebook links to gluten-free recipes and warnings about cancer in every product I use.
I would respond daily, "I am not on Facebook and cannot view the link." Her solution was ridiculous. She would screenshot the articles, take her phone to Walgreens, have the photo center people get the pictures off her phone, print them, and she'd then physically mail them to me. I have received over one hundred 4x6 screenshots of spam since December.
Speaking of Facebook, she believes everything. It's sad and annoying, but occasionally hilarious. My favorite was when she excitedly told me that this Halloween is the first in 666 years to fall on Friday the 13th.
85. Catch Me If You Can
This server at the restaurant I work at apparently took a customer’s credit card info while checking them out. He then goes on shopping spree with it , pending close to $7,000 in a matter of a few days. He wasn’t just using it on online purchases but somehow even used it at places like jewelry stores where there are no shortage of surveillance cameras.
I don’t know how he thought he could get could away with any of that. What truly makes this a great story is how they busted him. Once the owner of the card notified authorities, officers went to one of the jewelry stores where he bought a $600 gold necklace and had them call they guy to come back him for some reason. Not sure how they convinced him to return but he did.
Sure enough, he walked right back into the store with officers just waiting for him. Last I checked, he’s being charged with around seven felonies, and he had priors. I doubt he will see the outside of cell for a long time.
86. Too Much Of A Good Thing
This was related to me by a co-worker. This is at a casino coffee shop that also serves soft-serve ice cream and makes ice cream sundaes. On the condiment bar, there's a large glass bottle with honey syrup in it for adding to your tea or whatever, along with cream, sugar, etc. It's in an old Torani syrup bottle with a stopper/pourer thing and clearly liquid.
It's a honey/water mixture, like a non-alcoholic mead. Family of idiots come in and order three sundaes, all different. They each grab the honey syrup container and just dump it on their ice cream sundaes. Like, all over the sundaes. And the counter. They each take a bite of the sundaes and come up the order counter and complain that they're too sweet.
They want a refund or new sundaes. This is about $16-$22 worth of ice cream depending on what they got. The refund or free sundaes are denied since they did this to their own ice cream. They buy all new sundaes, walk over to the condiment counter, and add honey syrup again, but this time not as much.
87. A Game Of Telephone
My sister turned 21 today so I have been mulling over some of her more extreme stupid moments while writing a speech for her party. This is one of my faves: About three years ago my brother was about to move to New York (we live in Western Australia). My sister came up to him with a grave look on her face and asked if he was going to “Gunpoint.”
He was confused and asked to her clarify. She said that she didn’t think he should go there. My brother asked her if she thought “Gunpoint” was an actual place and she responded that she thought it was a place in NYC and it didn’t sound very safe because people were always getting "held up at “Gunpoint.”
88. Getting Her Wires Crossed
The woman I work with is a lovely lady, but a bit clueless. In addition to that, she refuses to take hints. As an example, she became a huge fan of the show The Expanse and she tried every day to make me watch it. I told her over and over that my husband had watched it, and I'd glanced at a few episodes over his shoulder, but, while I could see that it was an amazing show, it just wasn't my cup of tea.
That didn't work. She still kept trying to make me watch it. Finally, in some desperation, I said "If you want to talk about the show with other people, have you tried Reddit?" She'd never heard of Reddit, so I explained, "There are discussion threads for every topic you can possibly name. I guarantee there will be some about The Expanse." She seemed interested and said she'd check it out.
Fast-forward a couple of months. She and I were discussing some random topic, and I said "I saw a post about it on Reddit." She got a very weird look on her face and said accusingly, "What were you doing on Reddit?" Puzzled, I said, "Why shouldn't I be?" She said angrily "Oh, gee, I don't know—because you're married?" Now I was even more puzzled and asked, "What's that got to do with it?".
She looked a little less certain and said "Well, it's a dating site, isn't it?" Turned out that she'd completely forgotten our previous conversation and had Reddit confused with Tinder.
89. Acronyms Are Hard, To Be Fair
This happened way back in high school. Senior year government class. I had grown up with this girl. She was your classic dumb blonde cheerleader type. We all expected dumb things to come from her. But usually they were good natured and an attempt was made. But I’ll never forget this one time. We're learning about the different government entities and we get to NASA.
The teacher asks "who knows what it stands for?" and most people get it wrong but are very close ("National Air and Space Association" is what I hear the most). But this girl, to the surprise of everyone, raises her hand so fiercely. And she's like "I know this!" This is a girl who thought the American Revolution happened in 1900…But we're all very interested to know what she's going to say.
The teacher is taken aback that she might know this too. But he's like "please, share with the class!" Because he really wants her to do well. So, with so much pride she sits up and goes "NASA stands for NATIONAL AUTO PARTS OF AMERICA!" To say the class laughed was an understatement. The teacher laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes.
He wasn't trying to be mean but was caught off guard. She rolled with it because her making dumb statements was the norm. This has stuck with me for almost 20 years and still makes me smile.
90. This One’s A Keeper
Last year I had the luck to live with an idiot roommate in a shared house at university. Here are a few of his adventures. He got hit by a train. Tipsy ad trying to get himself home, he realized he was on the wrong platform…so walked straight across and woke up in hospital with officers by his side telling him not to leave. That’s not what ended up happening.
He jumped out of a window onto his damaged legs and took a taxi home. He was later fined for trespassing on the railway. He also managed to score 109% plagiarism on an essay for his course. He claimed that ‘because he copied it from a book and not from the internet, he didn’t think they would be able to tell.” They could tell. He scored zero. We are still unsure of how 109% plagiarism is even possible.
He managed to lose three iPhone 7s in the space of five months and would just buy a new one every time one went missing. One time, still tipsy, he climbed a building and proceeded to fall two stories onto the pavement. He woke up with no memory of the night but couldn’t walk properly and was peeing blood. He decided not to go to the hospital because he doesn’t like queues and waiting, so he limped for two months and ignored his bloody urine.
He once showed up to work eight hours late. When asked where he was, he told his managers that he was still coming down off Ketamine from the night before. Somehow he was not fired for this. One time when we had a party, he got on our roof and proceeded to fall off, ripping the guttering off with him, which he proceeded to stab my other housemate with for a joke.
He once snorted cocoa powder as he was told it would get him high. He has failed his first year of university twice now, and is currently paying to retake it for the third time. He hasn’t told his parents. They expect him to graduate this year.
91. Man On The Run
A few years ago, I was a Driver Trainer for a large trucking company. Basically, my job was to take newly-minted truck drivers and teach them how to handle themselves in the real world. Sometimes, it was easy; other times it was like teaching a fish to play tennis. One of my students, Dale, was so dense he made a lead brick seem like a feather pillow.
Not because of his driving, but because he almost got himself (and me) thrown in the slammer. Here’s the story. Dale was on my truck for about three weeks. He wasn’t the worst student I had, but he was far from the best. At week two, we end up stuck in Salt Lake City, Utah after delivering a load. It was a slow time of year and SLC had always been a sparse area for outgoing loads, so I expected to have to wait to leave out.
Not a big deal; I needed the downtime. Dale, from out of nowhere, started to seem anxious about something. When I ask him why he’s so tense, he tells me he needs to get his license changed to his home state. He lived in Louisiana, but his license was from Iowa. The company used a loophole in Iowa state law by granting temporary residency to students to get them a license.
After the license was issued, they had 30 days to get it switched to their home state. Not a major issue since management knew the drill and would get us to the student’s home state in plenty of time. “Dude,” Dale asked, “When can we go to Louisiana? I need to get my license changed.” He asked this every day for a week, but it wasn’t until we were stuck in SLC that is really seemed to bug him.
“Look, I’ve told dispatch you need to get home. They’ll work it out. Just relax.” He didn’t. After three days, we finally get to leave SLC bound for Chicago. It takes a few days and the entire trip, I can tell he’s getting more and more nervous. Eventually, he can’t talk about anything else except how he NEEDS to get home. He was getting pretty annoying.
We make our delivery in Chicago and get another going to Laredo, Texas. Normally, we would have gone through Houston, Texas, but this happened during the massive floods and I knew going that way would be a bad idea. Fortunately, I found a way that would avoid the flooding AND get Dale to his hometown. Better still, we would have enough time for him to get a ride to the DMV, get his license changed and still make delivery in plenty of time.
Win-win-win. And Dale finally seemed relieved. We get to Dale’s hometown on a Sunday afternoon. As he gets ready to leave, I tell him “First thing in the morning, get your butt to the DMV, get your license taken care of and get back here pronto so we can get going.” He says “OK” and leaves with his girlfriend while I enjoy some time to myself.
The next morning, I give Dale until 10AM before I start getting impatient. I texted him, asking where he was, and got no reply. I text again; again, no answer. I call...no answer. I tell dispatch, who’s asking me when we’ll get moving, that Dale has disappeared; he was supposed to get his license changed over but I haven’t heard from him all day.
Dispatch tries to call him and they don’t have any better luck. Apparently, Dale has disappeared. By late afternoon, I start getting the feeling this little jerk has bailed on me (this was a common occurrence for new drivers). I tell dispatch that I’ll give him until the morning to reach out; if he doesn’t, I’ll continue on to Laredo on my own.
There was still plenty of time and dispatch agreed. Morning came, Dale was still AWOL and I was out of patience. I send him one more text telling him I’m leaving without him and head out. I drive for several hours before taking a mandatory break and check my messages. I check my texts and see a huge surprise. Dale had actually reached out to me.
“Hey, man. My PO found out I took a job driving and was angry that I left Louisiana. She told me to get back as soon as possible or she would have me listed as a fugitive. I called her yesterday (Monday) but she’s out of town and told me to wait till she gets back on Wednesday.” I’m completely shocked. PO?…as in PAROLE OFFICER?!?!
“Dale, are you telling me you’re on parole and leaving the state without permission?!” “Yeah, I got parole for two years. I didn’t think it be a big deal since I was working.” “Dude, you violated your parole! You’ll be lucky if you don’t end up back behind bars. “Well, my PO said she wants to talk about it Wednesday.” “Yeah, I imagine so. You better get in touch with dispatch and let them know so they can work something out.”
I end the conversation and continue on to Laredo. I deliver the load and pick up another headed to Atlanta, GA. Thursday, I call Dale to find out what the deal was. He tells me that his PO gave him the OK to keep working. “I assume you have some kind of official document that says that.” I tell him. “Uh…no. She didn’t give me one.” “Then you better GET one because there is no way I’m leaving the state with you unless I have something from the state saying it’s OK.”
“Uh…why?” “Because if I carry you across state lines KNOWING you’re violating parole, that makes me an accessory.” “Oh, ok. I’ll ask her.” I tell Dale when and where to meet me. I tell him that if he disappears again, I’m not coming back to get him. He says he understands. I get to the location when I said I would….and he’s nowhere to be seen.
I text…no answer. By this point, my patience for this clown is completely gone. I tell dispatch I don’t trust this guy’s word and I’m not taking a chance on him lying to me. I leave out again and head for Atlanta. Dale does reach out…six hours later…and wants to know if I’ll come back for him. I tell him that he has lied three times and acted so shady that I can’t trust him to do the right thing.
If he wants to finish his training, he can sort something out with management but he won’t see me again. Months later, I found out the whole story. Dispatch told me later that Dale’s PO had NOT given him permission to leave the state again. Apparently, I made the right call by leaving him there. Fortunately, they weren’t interested in prosecuting me. I have no idea what happened to Dale, but I imagine he did something else that was stupid and landed back in the slammer.
92. New Account Balance: $9.11
I work in the dispatch center for a department that serves a city with a population just shy of a million, so we get a buttload of calls every day. Naturally, we get some wild stories about various cons, especially these days. Because of this, I quickly became numb to some of the mental gymnastics people do while they rationalize why they sent the IRS $5,000 worth of Best Buy gift cards purchased from five different Best Buy stores.
Half the stories give me a chuckle, but an overwhelming majority of them just cause me to feel bad for the caller because I know they’re not getting any of that money back. This brings me to a call that I took last year from a younger woman who was likely in her late 20s or early 30s. Her story started off like any run-of-the-mill scam: Someone claiming to be from the FBI called to inform her that she had a warrant out for her but that she could “clear her name” if she sent them money.
Well, how much money did they ask for? They told her that all of the money in her checking account would suffice...Yup, that’s correct. Whatever random amount of money she had would do—so, that’s what she sent. The total amounted to about $4,000. But wait—there's more. After feeling bad for her and gathering some additional information, I began to let her know about the various reporting options and whatnot. She cut me off and asked, “Well, what can I do about the verification pictures?”
I was like, “What are you talking about?” What she said next blew my mind. She explained, “Well, yeah, they said they needed to verify my identity through their body verification system. So, I sent them several naked photos as they asked me to—pictures from the front, the side, and from the back while I was bending over.” I was absolutely stunned.
She had to do a quintessential, “Ya there?” into the phone so that I could come back to freaking reality for a moment. At this point, I thought I was the one getting messed with! But she was bawling her eyes out by this time, so I made no assumptions, other than the fact that there was probably even more to the story—WHICH THERE FREAKING WAS.
Like a respectful kid listening to a bedtime story, I was just like, “And then what happened?” She proceeded to tell me that they threatened to send the photos to her friends and family if she didn’t pay them even more money. How much money? Well, in true FBI-Body-Verifying-Agent form, they doubled down and said that all the money she had in her savings account would be enough, WHICH WAS $25,000!
I’m just sitting there in my chair like, please God, no. But of course, she sent it to them. I’ve considered getting into the scamming business ever since.
93. How Do You Like Them Apples?
I asked my boyfriend if he wanted an apple. He said yes, so I pulled one out of the fridge and handed it to him. He looked confused. I asked him what was wrong…his answer still blows me away to this day. He asked me to slice it for him. He'd never eaten an apple whole before. He wasn't sure how to bite into it. He was 27.
94. A Human Anatomy Lesson
My friend and his EMT partner got a call that a woman just had her water break while having intercourse with her boyfriend. They rushed over to find this young woman freaking out, complaining she has liquid oozing from her vagina, and that she believes she broke her water. My buddy calms her down, puts on his gloves, and does a quick examination of her nether regions.
After a moment down there he says, "Ma’am," holds up a finger, "This is sperm. Your water isn't broken. How long have you been pregnant?" She replied, "No, I am not pregnant, but I thought he broke my water!" After a quick explanation of human anatomy, they left.
95. 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!"
96. 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?"
97. No Connection
A very grumpy high-society woman came to the store saying her brand new 3,000-dollar Microsoft surface bought by her husband was defective because she could not get internet when she was on the move. I quickly realized she was talking about Wi-Fi, so I tried explaining to her how Wi-Fi actually works. Boy, was that a mistake!
I told her that she could not use her Wi-Fi outside her house, but that she could share her smartphone internet connection. She would have none of it. She said I was lying to her and making fun of her. She even asked to speak to my manager, who then proceeded to tell her the exact same thing, almost to the word. She left screaming.
98. Put It In Writing
The other day, my 18-year-old brother-in-law got married to his high school sweetheart in a parking garage so that they can live off campus at their Christian college together. The girlfriend's, now wife’s, mother is an ordained minister. His parents, my in-laws, were very upset and he couldn't understand why because, "it's just a fake marriage for school."
Oh no, sweet boy. You are MARRIED. I just laughed and laughed. I love him dearly. He is an idiot.
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99. The Gullible Virgin
I had a high school friend, Sam, who wasn't…the brightest crayon in the box. Last I saw him, he was living with his addict girlfriend, who's pregnant with his child. Or, so that's what I thought. I haven't spoken much to him since he had gotten expelled from school, and our relationship faded into only Facebook updates on each other's lives.
The other day, I was speaking to a friend, who we'll call Sara, that still keeps in contact with Sam. He got brought up in conversation, mostly laughing about the ridiculous things he did in school, and then I asked about what he was up to. Now, back in high school, Sam vowed himself to celibacy. He didn't want to be intimate before marriage. Also, despite how strung out his current girlfriend is, the only drug he ever used was pot.
Sara: “You know the baby's not even his.” Me: “Wait, seriously?” Sara: “Yeah, he's a virgin.” Me: (confused because he posts on Facebook all the time of how happy he is about becoming a father) “Does…does he know?” Sara: (shaking her head) “Nope. He legitimately thinks he got her pregnant.” Sara let me have a moment, just to see the astonishment on my face.
She went on to tell me that when Sam first told her his girlfriend was pregnant, she asked him when did he start being intimate. Sam said he never did, however, they do perform oral. Sam believes that when his girlfriend…swallowed…it impregnated her with his child. Sara and a few others tried to explain to him that's not how it works, but he's either just lovestruck or just plain stupid.
There has been speculation that the true father is a guy who graduated a few years before us. He is Black. Sam is white. His girlfriend is white. She's about four months pregnant.
100. His Story Didn’t Ring A Bell
When I was five years old, my dad told me and my nine-year-old sister that telephone poles were actually trees that had been genetically engineered by the power companies to grow straight up into a perfect pole with two little arms on each side to hold the lines. It was just one of the many “dadisms” that he preached when Mom wasn't around.
One day, he brought my sister home earlier than usual from school. He explained to my mom that the principal had called him to come and pick her up. When she asked why he told her that a local power company worker had come to her class that day to talk about power line safety. The power company worker had asked the class, "Who knows how telephone poles are made?"
My sister raised her hand and proudly shared what my dad had told her. The worker laughed and said, "I think your dad lied to you." My sister's response completely threw him. She said, "I think you're a liar." We still quote her at family gatherings whenever we think someone is pulling our leg.
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101. Simple Physics
I remember having to defend myself on a speeding ticket. I had footage of the dashcam, which clearly showed me not speeding. I was going 30 mph, but the officer claimed I was driving 50 mph. The dashcam footage showed him driving at 40 mph and catching up to me fairly quickly. That’s when he decided to pipe in and make a fool of himself.
He asked, "If you were really going 30, then why did I have to go 40 to catch up to you?” I responded, “Because in order to catch up to anything, you have to go faster than what you're following. If I was going 50, you would have never caught up to me while going 40.”
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