Who wouldn’t love to live in a world where common sense prevails, and nonsensical arguments are non-existent? Unfortunately, such a utopia is a concept that only resides in our fantasies. And, as these Redditors experienced, trying to correct someone caught up in a circle of stupid is useless. Lesson learned—never argue with an idiot.
1. Give Me A Sign
For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon-style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc.). There was a “Staff Only” sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level. Usually, if a staff member from the customer side would come in, they would say, "Coming in" before opening the door so they didn't hit anyone.
But, of course, customers didn't know that. So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him. His response made me laugh out loud: "You should really put a sign up". We showed him all the signs, and he goes, "That seems a bit excessive".
2. Towing By The Book
My old office was across the street from a federal courthouse. On the first Wednesday of the month, when the bankruptcy people had court, our parking lot would always fill up with people parking unlawfully. This, despite there being "NO PARKING. YOU WILL BE TOWED. FOR REALSIES", signs posted all over the place.
Whenever they would inevitably park in our lot, and I would tow them, they would come in and scream that they were going to sue us and that they towed us without warning. But I could always shut them up with one thing: I started taking a photo of each car before it was towed because they were almost always directly in front of one of the signs. Although some people always STILL tried to argue with me. One guy accused me of Photoshopping it.
3. I Almost Had A Fit With This Fool
I had someone attempt to explain my epilepsy to me. I’ve been diagnosed with JME, a form of epilepsy, for almost three years now. They kept claiming that you could always feel the seizure and choose not to have it. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I started off just saying, “No, that’s just not true. I can’t remember mine and am not conscious, so how can I control it”?
Then, they doubled down and said I choose to lose consciousness, and it got to a point, I knew I couldn’t win. I was really tired, so I just went, “Ah, right then”, and walked off.
4. He Was No Match For The Law
As a lawyer, I had to go to a hearing for a new client who broke someone's nose in an altercation. Before the hearing, I was explaining what to expect and how to address the court, etc. He said he knew the law and he wouldn't get anything but a tap on the wrist. He knew other people and events, blah, blah, blah. I said okay then. Little did he know, I was going to give him what he deserved.
I entered the hearing, and before anything started, I stated to the judge that my client claimed to know the law better than me, so I felt my services were not needed, and I quit. The judge recorded my statement. I went back to the seating area, sat down, and watched the show. The Idiot know-it-all ex-client got 4.5 years. They tried to sue me afterward, claiming I didn't do my job.
5. Can’t Shut Them Down
I tell people to just reboot their computer, and it will fix all their problems, and yet they won’t because they said if you wait long enough, it will shut down when in reality, it only goes to sleep. Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down, they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did. I tell them it seems like it, but it only went to sleep. They argue back. Every. Day. Of. My. Life.
6. Pedaling On The Edge Of Civility
I've worked retail as a bicycle mechanic for the past 12 years. Only recently have I experienced the ultimate low. This woman paid us to service her e-bike so she could grant it to her son, so we did. We serviced it well. Two people tested it before she got the invoice and notified her that her bike was ready. She came and picked it up, and that should be that.
The next day, she arrived at our shop near closing and started a fit with me, saying how we didn't do a good job. So, I asked her what the problem was. Apparently, she couldn’t disengage her battery's lock anymore; this type of bike had an electronically operated lock. I told her I was sorry to hear that since that would basically mean the brain of the bike was malfunctioning.
The only thing we're allowed to do is send it to the manufacturer to get it tested, possibly repaired, or maybe replaced. If a replacement is needed, that's a €250 ($270) or more fix. This is when she went OFF. She started yelling and blaming us—we didn't check the part, we updated the bike, which probably ruined that part, you name it. I told her the timing was terrible, but if this happened, there was nothing anyone could've done.
This was nearly a 10-year-old part, from a time when e-bike life expectancy was around five years. I told her all that calmly. She refused to believe me, then demanded to speak to someone higher up. I told her to pick it up with my boss. I pointed to him, told her he'd be there shortly, and I left the shop floor. She started talking to my boss, and at some point, she lowered her voice a bit; my boss did the same.
Later my boss told me she had a complaint about me. Her complaint was that I was too civil and verging on "being emotionless". So, I was too good at my job, apparently. I told my boss I'll explode with rage or cry my soul out the next time she has a complaint with me.
7. The Edit Trap
I was arguing with this dude about something math-related. He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. He claimed he was in multiple AP math classes. He tried saying that I “probably don’t even know basic integration”, and gave me a common integration problem. Immediately, I realized he was an idiot. He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable.
I pointed it out, and he edited the comment to make it correct. I told him that some people can see when you edit comments. He claimed that he had just capitalized a letter, and it went on and on and on.
8. Cloudy With A Chance Of Stupid
I once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking arguments. He'd start an argument over the smallest thing. If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something. The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition. One day, he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app.
He got all offended because his weather app said it was a couple of degrees warmer. So, he came up with a genuinely unhinged plan. He decided we were going to have a weather app competition. He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner. The loser would have to start using the winner's app.
To which I responded, "What is your problem"? For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off of my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off. This started on a Monday. He gave up after Wednesday, either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not care about weather apps. Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment.
9. I Had My Fill Of Their Nonsense
Once, I had two customers, a married couple in their 60s, asking for two small coffees. We had run out of small cups, so my co-worker, who usually didn't man the coffee machine, gave them two small coffees in medium cups. They kept insisting that last time "it was more". We kept trying to explain. Their only reaction was, "But last time it was more"! I felt like I was losing my mind.
After a few times, I realized that it didn't matter how I explained it because they were just not listening to me and would only be satisfied if I gave them more, which I didn't because I was right and they were not. Since then, I have noticed more people who, when you invalidate their point, simply repeat it. Their "Yeah, but" actually stands for, "I hear you are talking, but I refuse to process your words".
It infuriates me. You don't have to agree with the point I make, but if you simply refuse to process my arguments and instead ignore them, you show that you are not open to any correction. It shows a complete lack of respect for the person you are talking to.
10. He Couldn’t Grasp The Basic Fax
I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments. Our primary method of communication was fax. One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper. “No problem”, I said. “One of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour. I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you”.
His response was so stupid, I couldn't help but laugh: “NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER. IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE”. 20 full minutes of arguing over how faxes worked ensued. It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree—difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing.
11. She Lost Her Sense-rs
I was on my condo board which meant a lot of dealing with idiots. The worst thing was they aren't normally stupid people until they focus on some minor issue. The sensor for the lights in our laundry room failed. We replaced it. I got a knock on my door from an owner, Bonnie, who was upset because the sensor still wasn’t working properly. Now, the issue was the lights won't turn off.
When she explained, I facepalmed so hard: "I stood in there for 15 minutes, and they didn't turn off! It wastes electricity"! I told her, "Bonnie, the sensor keeps the lights on as long as somebody is in the room. And you were in the room. So, the lights couldn't turn off ". After about ten minutes, she was still not grasping that being in the room meant the light sensor won't turn them off.
At the ten-minute mark, she was not in the room but instead in my face, and the lights went off.
12. Disposing Of The Divorce Drama
A friend was going through a particularly nasty divorce. His wife was the one who cheated, but she blamed him for destroying their family because she couldn’t live with the guilt like many cheaters do. Every time he would regularly turn up to pick up their kids, the same thing would happen. She would march down to his car and scream and swear at him for the few minutes it took for the kids to gather their stuff together.
But he knew exactly how to respond. He would keep his window wound up, turn the radio up and ignore her every time. This just made her scream louder, of course, until her face was red and her veins were popping.
She would call him the worst husband in the world, tell him how everything was his fault, how if he had earned more money, none of this would have happened, and anything else she could think of to hurt him.
One day, she found his weak spot and picked a topic to scream at him about that really got to him. After everything she’d done, he couldn’t stand her hypocrisy, so he wound his window down and started to angrily answer her. He saw her blind, seething rage change instantly to a look of absolute delight. He stopped in his tracks and didn’t even finish what he was saying.
He smiled, said, “Not worth it”, wound his window back up, and went back to staring straight ahead and ignoring her. She eventually got tired of screaming insults at him when she was never able to get another rise out of him.
13. Stupid Tactics Defeat Stupid People
I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater. Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd. But one day, I had an idea: When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her. I met every point with a solid, "I don't think that's true" or "That doesn't make sense".
Eventually, she gave up and never tried it with me again. It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument. But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith.
14. Bonehead Boomers
Trying to get an old person to understand new technology when they have already decided against using it is futile. My grandmother refused to use the stacking washer/dryer in her retirement apartment because it was "too complicated." It had the same buttons as the one at her previous home, just in a slightly different place.
Freepik,rawpixel.com
15. A Generational Gap In Knowledge
My mom was complaining about how my generation wouldn’t know how to do anything if it wasn’t posted on the internet. I simply responded, “Well, what else is that generation supposed to do when the generation that raised them didn’t teach them how to do anything”? This was while I was moving files from her old Windows 8 laptop to her new Windows 10 for her via flash drive. She couldn’t figure it out because “Windows 10 is totally different”! Obviously, it’s not.
16. Call Me By My Name!
When I was a child, a teacher argued with me about how my name is pronounced. I wish I was joking. Some sports guy had a first name that was spelled the same way as my surname. I guess they felt that that was the only acceptable pronunciation, regardless of what little ten-year-old me tried to tell her.
17. Bounce Back To Reality, Please!
Way back in the day, I was a bill collector for travel trailers and mobile homes. This woman had promised to mail her check for the payment, and lo and behold, it didn’t appear. So I called her and referenced back to our prior conversation. I said, "You promised you'd mail this to me, and it never arrived". It wasn't particularly contentious but more along the lines of, "I thought we had an agreement, and now I'm disappointed".
So this woman, who was probably 30, really dumb and kind of country, said to me, "I did mail it. But the post office figured out that I didn't have enough money and sent it back to me so it wouldn't bounce". I sarcastically replied, "I don't understand how that could happen". She responded, completely sincerely, "I don't understand it either.” I was literally wordless after that one.
Freepik,nakaridore
18. A Linguistic Fool
When I was in high school, I was super into making constructed languages. I spent a lot of time working on them, though I never finished any. One day I went to school, and I showed a "friend" the writing system I had been working on, which used a system where every possible consonant-vowel pairing had its own symbol. Mind you, this is a fairly common way of writing that's used across the world, such as in Japanese, lots of languages in the Indian subcontinent, etc.
This guy said this kind of writing system was "too confusing" and that I should use something else. So, I told him that this style of writing was common across the world, and gave the India example. His reply was jaw-dropping: He told me that apparently, the writing systems used in the Indian subcontinent were the reason it's so "terrible" and why everyone there is "[pooping] in the streets".
I was baffled. I gave the Japan example, and he told me that apparently, the only reason Japan is where it is now was because of American occupants in the 20th century. I was honestly so baffled at his answer I couldn't even say anything else. So, I did the smartest thing and dropped the conversation.
19. Video Jerk
My brother-in-law loves to have "debates" where he just wants to hear himself talk to make himself feel smarter. His arguments include, "I haven't heard of that before, so it must not be true", and pulling argument points from YouTube videos on the topic because he doesn't read. “Why would I when I can get the info faster from a video"?
He sprays paint as his career and has never been to college, but he took calculus in high school and that is his proof he is smarter than everyone else. When it is brought up, all he says is, "Oh yeah, I remember calculus; it is as [sic] easy". What is it about? "You know...Calculus. Easy stuff". I stopped engaging him in his debates when he just claimed everything was a government job, and everything was "Fake news. Didn't see it on YouTube".
20. Bullish Over Some Red Bull
I work at a club where the bouncer gives you a card when you enter. The card has multiple lines with squares on it, each one being a different drink, and the barmen just make an “X” on the drinks you order. All mixers are free except for Red Bull. At the top of the card, there's a line that reads "Red Bull mix". It's also the cheapest thing on the card. I had a customer order a "Red Bull mix" and literally argue with me for about 10 minutes, demanding that I serve it.
I calmly explained to them that line was only a mixer, and they actually had to order something else. They eventually asked for a manager who just told me to mark it and serve them a sip of Red Bull. The look on the customer’s face was priceless. They were just as pleased they "won" the argument as they were disappointed paying $3.00 for a sip of Red Bull.
21. For The Love Of Jesus
I grew up Jewish in Oklahoma and ran into this a lot. I had a classmate in middle school who kept trying to convince me that Christianity predates Judaism. I told him, "But Jesus was Jewish", and his response was, "Exactly"! There was no irony, just a totally genuine reply. The conversation was over.
22. Savior Breath
A driver fell asleep at the wheel for a brief moment. The passenger noticed the car drift into the oncoming lane and exclaimed, “Jesus Christ”, in fear. The driver woke up and turned the car back into their lane. It was impossible to have the passenger and their whole family admit this was not evidence that Jesus himself saved them. I was exhausted by the end of that conversation.
23. She Lost Sight Of The Bigger Picture
My mother used the term "photogenic memory" once, and I corrected her and told her the term was "photographic memory". What she did next was insane: This woman spent at least three or four hours combing the internet JUST so she could call me in the room, show me a single post on some random little forum where somebody else made the same switch-up she did, and proceeded to harp on me for trying to correct her when she was "technically right".
24. Lacking Basic Chemistry
My wife's stepfather was a chemist who currently has diabetes. One night, he went to the ER because his blood sugar was dangerously high. He claimed he was eating well, so there was no reason why his blood sugar was high. In his car was a two-liter bottle of ginger ale mixed in with grape juice. He said that the two canceled their sugars out, and we didn't know what we were talking about because he was a chemist and he knows how to combine things.
Freepik,prostooleh
25. Her Thinking Fell Flat
In a group chat, a friend told us that "her plans fell through". So, I and the two others in the chat were like, “OK, see you soon”. She messaged back, "No, I said my plans fell through, so I'll see you guys tomorrow". We were just like, OK, and the next day she was mad all three of us didn't understand her the day before. I told her we thought you said your plans were canceled, and she told me, like we were the jerks, "No, I said my plans fell through. That means that the plans fell into place".
Freepik ,garetsvisual
26. The Know-It-All Who Knew Nothing
I had a co-worker whose go-to argument was to point out you weren't a professional in the subject. An argument about the law? "Yeah, well, you're not a lawyer". About science? "You're not a scientist". Never mind that they weren't these things either because someone—by which he actually meant himself and no one else—doesn't have to do something professionally to know about it.
Even if you did have professional knowledge, then you simply didn't have enough. Your five years of experience working in a garage didn't mean you were knowledgeable about cars because it wasn't ten years of experience. However, his zero years didn't prevent him from knowing more than you.
27. A Case Of Denial
I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids. She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point. Then, she would say, “I never said that”, or “That’s not what I said”. It was absolutely infuriating. It's completely impossible to argue with someone who would just deny having said things that could hurt their argument or trying to change the course of an argument if they felt like they were “losing”.
28. Time Was Of The Essence
When my brother gets caught being a hypocrite in an argument—because his only attitude is that he shouldn't have to be responsible—and I point it out, his favorite move is to ask precisely when he said or did the thing he is now contradicting himself on. Or, he'll “remember” that I've done exactly what he was doing, always two years ago, for some reason.
I have a steel trap memory for what people have said and done, but I don't keep track of exact dates because that's stupid and pointless. But now I know how to beat him. When I caught on after the first few times and started asking questions like, "What exactly happened when I allegedly did that"? or, "Can you tell me this exact date you remember so well"? He just drops the pretense.
He then admits he's pulling everything out of his rear in the hopes that I'll get so frustrated I'll forget that I'm holding him to account. It has never worked, but he gets off on frustrating people who remind him he's a "person" in a "society" who owes it to others not to be a jerk.
29. She Had A Cheating Disorder
I knew a girl in high school. She was honestly dumb and crazy, so this comment wasn't a big surprise. I remember she had a boyfriend at the time, who she had been dating for a few months. We were sitting in class doing nothing as the teacher was pretty chill, and all our work was done. This girl called me over to talk to me; we did not sit in the same row of desks.
So, I got up to talk to her, and she dropped this mind-blowing question on me: “Would doing it with another person be cheating on my boyfriend”? I was slack-jawed. I told her that I believed it is cheating, and I think most people would agree with me. She then said this gem, “Sooo, should I tell him or not? And does it really count if it only happened once”? I just told her yes and walked away. She still tried to argue that she was right.
30. The IT Nitwit
I had a co-worker who was computer deficient. If anything computer-related whatsoever happened, her motto was, "Call IT". All of the systems I've ever worked with were browser/URL based, and there was a new system I needed access to. I asked her for the link, and she said she couldn't give me the link because I didn’t have the same access as her.
I accidentally laughed because I thought she was joking, then calmly explained that her roles would be tied to her account, not a link to the website. Turns out, it was a system that you needed to be installed on your computer. She just didn't understand the basic concept because she called IT for everything that happened. She also liked to spray compressed air into the printer to cool it off.
31. She Was One Sandwich Shy Of A Picnic
My mother-in-law wanted a cheese sandwich. I told her we were out of cheese and asked her if she wanted a ham sandwich. She said, “We've got ham? Can I have a cheese and ham toastie”? I replied, “No. We are out of cheese. Ham sandwich or no sandwich”. She then asked, “Can I have a cheese sandwich”? After about 15 minutes, we finally got through the “out of cheese” fiasco. She decided a ham sandwich was better than no sandwich, and then she didn't eat the sandwich. My mother-in-law is infuriating.
32. God Almighty, Get Me Out Of Here!
In one rehab I went to, they really forced me to accept that God is the only one who could save me. I'm an atheist. And, I mean, they FORCED me, like they punished me by taking away any other activities until I admitted that. I'd been to other rehabs, and they were not like this place. This place felt very extremist, and they even withheld my medications at one point and intentionally cut us off from anyone outside.
It would just go in circles, and I'd try to bring my logic into it that I couldn’t really accept that I couldn't help myself and only God could save me. I told them so many times that it went against all of my values to just accept this narrative just because I was desperate to get clean. What they told me made me sick, "You have the gift of desperation. It's a blessing you're desperate to try believing in God".
Every single argument they gave me was an argument about how you can't disprove God exists. Therefore you must try, and if God is real, you get an amazing life/afterlife. But if he isn't real, you don't lose anything by believing in him. It's just typical Pascal’s wager stuff. It's hard to even put into words how draining these forced discussions—while I was at rock bottom, mind you—were without writing a book.
33. Their Logic Didn’t Compute
I got into an argument once over math. Their assertion was that multiplying a negative number by another negative number couldn’t equal a positive number. When I showed that multiple calculators agreed with me, her reply was so crazy, I did a double take: I was told that’s because the calculator companies were immoral. The justification for this is two wrongs don’t make a right; thus, two negative numbers couldn’t multiply to create a positive. This was one of my parents, so I actually got in trouble for this.
34. Engaging My Enemy Was A Bird-Brained Idea
When I was still in school, we'd have debates regularly in most classes. In one of those debates, we were asked to place a wind park. We were split into teams, and since I was the most comfortable with public speaking out of my group, we chose me to actually present and debate our points. The debate went on fine until only two teams were left to debate most of their points, ours and my enemy’s.
She was smart but seemed to direct her arguments only to points I had made in the planning phase. Their plan was good but wouldn't produce much energy, while our main flaw was the birds. While we were safe by regulation, there was some risk involved. This hadn't been one of my points, but something we couldn't fix as all the locations had major flaws, and we chose the lesser evil, in our opinion.
She proceeded to call out every point I made as wrong, even if it wasn't, and worded them so it was clear they were personal strikes. She wasn't called out on the snide comments because the teacher didn't know who had what idea in the groups. Later, I was told I overreacted because, at some point, I started angrily berating her for coming at me. She won because in striking back at her, I deconstructed our whole plan from the bird standpoint.
35. Ignorance Is This
The day before Biden’s inauguration, a coworker told me the military would execute him live on stage and Trump would walk out to be named as president again. When I laughed and said there was literally no chance of it, he said, "Dude what do you know? You work in a warehouse in nowhere, you don't know [anything]”, ignoring the fact that he's my co-worker in the same warehouse.
36. Her Mind Was Not Up To Speed
A woman I knew proclaimed that the car ahead of her was going 56 mph, and she had to be at 55 mph, or she would "catch him". I said you would only slowly catch him if you were at 57 mph. She would not accept that both cars could travel at 56 mph in a line on the highway and stay the same distance apart. So, I went further, asking how fast the car behind her was going since she was going 55 mph.
She thought a bit and said, "54 mph". I asked how fast would the last car be in a line of 55 cars traveling along a long stretch of highway. She replied, "55 mph". I never rode in a vehicle with her ever again. In fact, I can't recall the last time I talked to her.
Freepik, freepik
37. She Was Less Than Bright
I used to work building water gates. We had to test them after building to measure how much leakage was present. It allowed for so much water per minute at whatever psi. If it passed, we would write down '<' (less than) whatever the allowable leakage was. The quality inspector would constantly argue with us that what we were writing meant “greater than”. Once we showed her that we were right, she just threw up her hands and said, "Well, let's just agree to disagree". We decided just to write out “less than” from that point on.
Freepik,freepik
38. The Die Was Cast
I'm an engineer, and one of my hobbies is math/statistics. I met a bunch of online friends at a convention, and one of them was an extremely cocky know-it-all who would argue to no end that he was right about something. We were playing Mario Party, and there were special dice that, instead of just going 1-6, might be 0, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, or something.
Doing the math, the dice with five fours and one zero is slightly worse than a standard dice for total distance, but he disagreed. His way of proving me wrong was to open a simulator and roll a hundred dice to see the odds that all dice end up being greater than or equal to four. And, since the number was so small (.5100), obviously, he was right.
I was so frustrated because I'd just proven to him—with a mathematical proof—and he still disagreed. So, there was literally no way to show him he was wrong at that point.
39. Pass On The Ketchup, Please
My ex-boyfriend's mother was a linguistics professor and knew over ten languages. She was also one of the dumbest people I've ever met. She believed that in case of emergency, stewardesses catapult out of the plane. She was also convinced donating blood causes some blood disease, and it can be fatal. But my favorite one was when she said her son's orthopedic problems were not a result of a serious injury he had. She said his knee hurt because he eats too much ketchup.
40. Cool It, Colin!
I was in a science class as a kid. The teacher asked if anyone knew what hard water was. This one guy, Colin, raised his hand and smugly answered, “When water temperature drops below a certain threshold, it will begin to solidify and form ice”. The teacher was like, “Good guess, but actually, that’s not quite what hard water is”.
Colin interrupted, “No, you see the ice then becomes harder and harder and”. I swear they went back and forth until finally, the teacher gave up and just told us it has to do with minerals. Colin kept trying to ask if it was minerals in ice, and the teacher just ignored him and kept talking to the class. That’s how he always was.
He was CONVINCED he knew the right answer and would smugly and confidently say the wrong things all the time. You couldn’t break him because he’d have some excuse for why he was right all along and it was actually you who was wrong somehow.
41. My Brain Was About To Erupt
I was working retail when a large fire broke out in the nearby area, creating a bunch of smoke. The customer at the register was commenting on it and talking about all sorts of disaster scenarios. Then asks, "How many volcanoes you think would it take to explode the whole world"? It was quite a question. I said I wasn't sure, but more than there were on the planet.
They asked, "Five", "No". "Ten"? "More than that", I said. "Twenty"? It was clear from how animated and unintelligible he was getting that he seriously wasn't all there in the head. He started going on about how volcanoes could threaten or outright destroy various important cities in the continental US. I was already done with this conversation and just said, "I wouldn't know anything about that".
They replied, "No? Oh. You haven't studied much science, have you"? What a jerk. They were the ones failing grade school geology. I just told him the total for his purchase and got him out of my store. It was one of the weirdest conversations I've had.
42. This Idiot Was Driving Me Insane
I was on a bus going to high school, and another kid on it was literally the dumbest human being I have ever met in my life. He had been held back a grade. I had a learner's permit, and he had his full driver’s license. I don’t remember what set off the conversation but for some reason, he asked me how old I was. I said 16. He said he didn’t believe me.
I showed him my learner’s permit, and he said, “It’s fake” because having a fake LEARNER’S PERMIT makes perfect sense. He then started going on and on about how good he was at driving. I told him, “At least I’m taking a class. You just got it because you were born earlier”. Then he said the stupidest sentence I have ever heard in my entire life. “If you’re so much better at driving than me, why don’t we race”? I had to deal with him for another seven months.
43. There Is No Fixing Stupid
One Christmas in the early 2000s, I bought my first laptop as a gift to myself. I didn't get around to testing out the CD RW drive until January. It was defective, which wasn't too unusual. I called the company to see if I could get a refund or replacement. The customer service agent told me I couldn't because I bought the computer in December, and now it was January, and it only came with a one-year warranty. Too bad. This is a different year.
I tried every way I could think of to explain that the warranty was for 12 months, not one calendar year, but no dice. There was no manager available for me to talk to, so furious, I eventually hung up. I hope that guy stepped on a Lego.
44. You Can’t Make This Stuff Up
I worked for state parks. My co-worker and I were just cruising in the little truck. We worked at the beaches. It was my first day, and she was showing me around. A person stopped her and pointed to this lot that was marked off because the pavement there was clearly cracking and caving in all over; there was caution tape and signs telling people.
They stopped my co-worker and said, “WHY IS THAT LOT CLOSED?! Where am I supposed to park? I can’t park up that hill; it's too far”! My co-worker looked at them, then looked at the signs on the pavement, pointed at them, and said, “There’s a sign. It says ‘CAUTION/UNEVEN PAVEMENT NO PARKING/ DANGER SINKHOLE'”. The person just looked at her and said, “You’re making that up”! People are stupid.
45. Pixel Perfect
I work in technical support at a telecommunications company. We install TV decoders only on the first point. From then on, the customer might want a second decoder. For that, they have to branch the coaxial cable to the second point. One day, a customer called and reported pixelation on both points. I spent 20 minutes explaining to this idiot that he cut our incoming cable and put his own splitter.
Because he would not accept that we would not come to fix it because the issue was on the splitter he put in himself, he then proceeded to say, "So if I put the coaxial cable directly to your device and not through my branching, will it work? I don't think so, and you will see". He then connected it directly without passing through his branching, and the pixelation was resolved.
I could see it from the diagnostic tool. He stopped for a second and replied, "I told you it won't work. You guys don't know [anything] there, hahaha". Eventually, I got tired and sent our electrician to explain the issue to him.
50. Loud = Right
School debate. The opponent won with terrible arguments and shouting. I even called it from the beginning. I said to a friend just before the debate started "one of them is going to start shouting and win the debate". But don't worry, I got my revenge. Their entire team showed up in formal wear to a casual practice debate. We didn't let them leave without pointing that out. They may have won, but they still got laughed out of the building.
25. Playing Politics
We had a 19-year-old kid working for us that seemed pretty decent at first. He was a little quiet and seemed grumpy, but within a week or two, he had become quite the antagonist. I had to constantly tell myself, “Do not engage. Do not engage. Do not engage”, in my mind because I could see what he was up to, and I knew he was just being a polemic because he liked to push people’s buttons.
Our business was mostly made up of left-wing or at least center-left individuals. This guy was hard right-wing, which I assumed was him emulating his parents, who were very conservative immigrants who came from a lot of money. He had an absolutely infuriating tactic: He would say something extremely inflammatory or controversial in the presence of people he knew would get upset, and then he’d begin gaslighting them.
The fewer people engaged with him, the more outrageous claims he’d begin spouting like he was flipping through a Rolodex of ultra-right talking points. He specifically did this because he knew half the people who worked with him were all fairly left-wing, and some of us had attained pretty high levels of education. Many of us had experience debating or discussing politics, and he knew intellectual debate is really tasty bait for a lot of folks.
As soon as you said, “What did you just say?” or “You’ve got to be kidding”, or even just rolling your eyes, he’d throw his hands up in the air and say something like, “Why are you ALWAYS putting me down? What? You want a world where nobody is allowed to have an opinion? You think everyone should think just like you”? You would just shake your head and try to say, “I’m not saying that. I’m just saying _____”.
This was very frustrating to be around. It was like an older sibling who stands in your doorway antagonizing you and won’t leave because they’re “not in your room”. After a few months, morale was so low that we transferred him to another location. Within a few weeks, two people had quit because of him, and the owners put out a moratorium on discussing politics in the workplace. But he got what was coming in the end.
A couple of weeks later, he was let go because he finally crossed the line. The saddest part for me was that folks like him lack any self-awareness. Even after getting fired/transferred twice and burning all his bridges, he still thought it was everyone else's fault.
30. Excuse Me, I’m Walking Here!
At my son’s elementary school parking lot, we were walking back to our car, not even running or messing around or anything, simply walking like normal people. All of a sudden, a typical SUV backed up right when we passed. I screamed for her to stop at the last second. She rolled down the windows, yelling back, saying I was the worst parent ever, and went on about how I put my son in harm's way by not noticing a car backing up and still letting my son walk behind it.
I had nothing to argue back with that kind of logic. I was right next to my son the whole time, even though I am short. If you can’t see a 5’10” rock slowly rolling behind your car, there’s a bigger problem. I had also noticed the SUV was on and had already told my son to beware of cars that might come out, and bam, that SUV backed right into us.
39. She Was Not Quite Plugged Into Reality
My first call at my first IT job was in a medical laboratory. There was a doctor who had been in the job for years, and she called saying her computer would not power on. I walked her through some troubleshooting, and nothing worked. "Is the computer plugged in? OK. Is the monitor on? OK. When did the problem start" type of questions were asked, and she answered them all.
I went up to her office, and indeed the computer was plugged into a power strip. That's not the part that made me burst out laughing: The power strip was plugged into...itself. The cleaning crew had deep-cleaned her office and never plugged anything back in. The doctor plugged the power strip into itself, thinking that as long as it was plugged in, that was all she needed.
Freepik,benzoix
48. Moronic Middle Schoolers
I teach middle school. Arguing with them will result in you being the only one mad. They have all the energy and lack of sense to argue. I took a picture of a kid playing on a laptop because I knew he would argue that he wasn’t on the laptop. I showed him the photo, and he said, “That’s not me”. His parents took HIS side. I guess I’m an idiot and blind.
Freepik,gpointstudio
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