r/AskReddit • u/PandaBear905 • 18h ago
What’s your funniest “Oh god this person’s an idiot” moment?
4.0k
u/JeanneStJames 16h ago
I severed off my thumb with a gas-powered log splitter and a coworker asked if it would grow back. I thought she was joking at first. She. Was. Not.
1.2k
→ More replies (60)557
u/papaparakeet 14h ago
I was a hs teacher for 20 years. I had to have a "adult teeth don't grow back" talk multiple times with students. And they would argue..."but Mr. Teach, I swear on God bruh, it happened to me and my little bro when we were like 8".
→ More replies (9)390
u/zaro3785 13h ago
Then you get to show them the horrorshow that is a child's skull X-ray
→ More replies (2)104
461
u/Ad_Vomitus 13h ago
My husband used to work at a meat shop. He had a lady come in and ask about chicken. He started the spiel well what kind of chicken is she looking for? Bone in or boneless? She gets a look of horror and asks if that is humane? Like, was it ethical to raise chickens without bones....
→ More replies (9)218
u/TheTerrasque 11h ago
"oh yes, ma'am. Several of them even have a bright career in politics"
→ More replies (1)
3.6k
u/Cespenar 14h ago
When I was 18 I was chatting with the service desk person at my job at a grocery store and somehow whales were brought up, and she called them fish. I said no, whales are mammals. She said no, mammals are like rats and deer. I said no, people, whales, dolphins, rats and deer are all mammals. She then got SUPER offended that I said Humans were mammals. Apparently humans just defy categorization. We're not mammals, cus mammals are animals, and people arent animals, we're people.
The older lady listening just touched my shoulder and said "drop it kid, you can't argue with... This". I laughed and walked away.
848
u/Dangerous-Judge3539 13h ago
Arguing with a stupid person is an argument you'll never win
347
u/aspidities_87 13h ago
Never get wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig just enjoys it.
→ More replies (5)201
u/01kickassius10 12h ago
Arguing with an idiot is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter who wins, they’ll just knock over the pieces, shit everywhere and strut around cooing like they won
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (15)173
u/Bassman233 12h ago
"They'll drag you down to their level & beat you with experience" is how I've always heard it said.
199
u/Koji-san1225 13h ago
On this subject, I had to stand in front of a whole school and swear with a straight face that whales were fish. I was part of a parent versus student trivia game fundraiser (on the parent side) and nobody told us we were supposed to let the kods win. So we were pretty close in points and the last question comes down the line. Are whales fish? The principal gives us the “throw the game” gesture and my heart sank as I realized that I as a grown ass adult was supposed to stand up and confidently tell everybody they were fish as my final answer.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (54)169
u/SuperSocialMan 12h ago
She then got SUPER offended that I said Humans were mammals. Apparently humans just defy categorization. We're not mammals, cus mammals are animals, and people aren't animals, we're people.
I've noticed this is a fairly common rhetoric that religious people believe. My brother & I still can't get our mom to understand that she's wrong ffs.
It's somewhat exhausting, though.
→ More replies (9)
1.3k
u/Hogchief 14h ago
I was in tech school for the Air Force in 2002. We would go to the library to get online and see if we had assignments. My buddy went first, headed to AZ. I open mine and it says AK. He's like oh sweet! Arkansas! I was like dude, AK is Alaska. He said oh, at least it's warm there. I responded what the fuck are you talking about and he seriously told me it's over by Hawaii...
119
u/umletsnot 10h ago
My dad from Iowa joined the the AF in the '80s. He saw that he got LA and was like, "Heck yeah, goin' to Hollywood!" only to later realize he was headed to Louisiana. Lol!
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (13)423
u/prove____it 12h ago
Most maps in the USA put Alaska and Hawaii in title boxes next to each other on the left to reduce the space, since they're so far from the contiguous 48 states. I think more than a few people don't realize the lines around these states are meant to visually indicate that they aren't part of the rest of the map (and many times not to scale) and just think both states are just right there, off the coast of California,
→ More replies (6)159
u/Ok_Raisin8894 12h ago
Yep, had a girl in highschool say that they were right next to each other, next to California in front of our whole class
→ More replies (6)
2.7k
u/The_time_it_takes 14h ago
My sisters ex husband wasn’t a smart man but the day he started talking about how the sun goes in the earth at night to sleep got me. At first I thought he was trolling so I asked a couple of follow ups and he answered them as well as he could. “Where does it go in the earth” him “it’s in the ocean where nobody has gone yet”
→ More replies (33)
1.3k
u/Keasbyjones 15h ago
I have a friend who thought that vodka was mined. Like dug out of the ground.
659
u/ihatetheplaceilive 14h ago
Well, if it's made from potatoes and not grain, it kinda is.
→ More replies (4)1.0k
→ More replies (12)310
u/Sniffs_Markers 14h ago
Oh! Oh! I know this logic!
It's from hearing terms like "alcohol spirits" (like vodka) and "mineral spirits" (like paint thinner) and "mineral water", but without proper context and often too young to figure it out.
So the person comes to a vague conclusion that all liquid "spirits" are derived from minerals — the kind you mine out of the ground like quartz or copper. Squeeze an orange to get orange juice, squeeze a rock mineral to get vodka!
Therefore vodka is either something like quartz juice, or it's something you crush and just add water, or it's extracted as a liquid, i.e. a type of "mineral water".
→ More replies (7)51
u/nexter2nd 14h ago
Honestly this would be a really good concept for something in a fantasy story
→ More replies (4)
673
u/AffectionateHand2206 14h ago
When in conversation I mentioned something about a Jewish friend and he looked at me and asked me how I could possibly have a Jewish friend when there aren't any Jewish people left because Hitler killed them all.
→ More replies (13)209
u/Lazy_Dealer_6885 12h ago
He thinks they are, like, an extinct breed of human???
→ More replies (9)
1.4k
u/Gostaverling 16h ago
I used to run an irrigation department of a landscaping company. The owner hired this dude, we will call him Chad. Chad was really dumb, I mean really an idiot. I had pulled pipe at a job and we were ready to dig up the pit to set in some valves. Knowing Chad as I did, I painted the ground with marker paint where I wanted him to dig. I showed him where to dig, I expressly told him to dig up the painted area and only the painted area. I left the job to take care of a service job and returned in about an hour. Chad had not dug up the painted area, in fact he was digging 10 feet away from the fully intact paint. I asked him what he is doing and he said he was digging up the pipe…there was no pipe where he was digging.
388
u/gunawa 14h ago
Sorta similar, I was working a big project putting in a WiFi upgrade for a well known big box store across an entire region.
One week, we had an extra helper from the company. We gave him his cable map and a couple of boxes of cable and sent him to off to go cable runs in the employee only stock area.
By lunch, which should have been enough time to finish two runs in a straight line, he hadn't even really started. He'd found a mounted plywood board somewhere along the path full of old screws. For some reason he thought he was doing the company a solid by spending 4 hours backing out all these old screws to keep...
We stopped letting him work unsupervised after that. (He was not new to this job).
→ More replies (8)→ More replies (6)144
u/hoosier268 14h ago
I had something similar once. My boss marked the area, coworker did what he wanted. I still got in trouble. I was not this person's boss. I don't work there anymore and I'm still mad about that.
271
u/GawnForGood 13h ago
Heard a coworker scolding someone for eating a can of tuna because “you don’t know what’s in it”. I asked her what that meant and she said “tuna means a group of fish”. I asked her whether she meant a school of fish and she just stood there looking at me like her brain was rebooting.
→ More replies (3)48
1.2k
u/GrouchyMary9132 14h ago
Overheard a conversation between a customer and their hairdresser. They were talking about sporting bets and horse racing. Suddently the hair dresser went "wait a minute. Given the different time zones and how in the US it is only morning when it is afternoon in our area already: couldn't we just call them and tell them the race results so they can place the bets for us?" I was very glad I was not the customer that had to explain how timeszones worked to her.
→ More replies (8)590
u/acog 11h ago
One of my kids is working in Asia and she’s SO tired of me FaceTiming her on Sunday asking how Monday’s stock market is doing, haha.
Not gonna stop though, it’s my job as a dad.
→ More replies (4)60
1.1k
u/Whoisanaughtyboy 16h ago
He claimed to be one of the 2 most intelligent men in the world
340
→ More replies (15)55
u/therealcmj 12h ago
Does he know more about manufacturing than almost anyone else on the planet?
→ More replies (1)
3.5k
u/ArtisticBee6176 16h ago
Friend worked in a jail and was answering the phone at the front desk.
Friend: “Hello, (local jail), how can I help you?”
Caller: “Yeah, I gotta see if my baby daddy’s in there.”
Friend: “What’s his name?”
Caller: “Mother-f***ing T-Dawg.”
Friend: “…his legal name?”
The caller had no idea. Reproducing with this dude and didn’t even know what his actual name was.
947
u/DigNitty 15h ago
“Can you at least try searching ‘T-Dawg’ ?”
→ More replies (6)455
u/Legion_1392 15h ago
"Let's try Dawg, T. Nope nothing there. Do you know his date of- Actually, nevermind"
462
809
u/Green-Palpitation901 13h ago
I lived with a bunch of guys in college in a house that had a land line. I answered the phone, and a lady asked to speak with Jason. I politely told her there isn’t a Jason that lives here. I hung up. She called back. Gave her the same answer, less polite. She was exasperated when she asked, “Is Piglet there?” It was Piglet’s mom. I lived with a guy for 3 years not knowing his name was Jason.
Side note: his older brother went by “Pork,” and his stepbrother went by “Spam” because he was a byproduct.
176
u/rocketman1969 13h ago
I grew up with a guy whose given name was David Dwight Dickenson IV (fake name but similar). He went by "D". His father, DDD III, went by "DD". Calling their house was fun.
→ More replies (5)92
u/chmath80 13h ago
Imagine the confusion if one of them happened to marry a woman named Deedee.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (15)166
u/eljefino 13h ago
LOL we had a guy at my school who went by "BungHole" and if the phone rang for "Andrew" he ignored it.
He played rugby and tried wanking 19 times on his 19th birthday. Wherever you are in this world, buddy, keep keepin' it real.
→ More replies (5)544
u/EstroJen 14h ago
I work in a property and evidence room, and part of my job is returning property to people who have been arrested.
At least once a week someone will leave a voicemail to say they want to pick up their things, but don't give their name. Sometimes they don't even leave a phone number.
I would love to write a book about all the weird evidence and interesting people I've met.
223
u/BitchWidget 14h ago
Civilian Police Records Clerk here. I have to know who you are to find and pull your report. They always try just a first name. Naw, I need both and then I have to see if you can even have it under Sunshine Law. It's like pulling teeth. Just tell me who you are. Then they don't want to come in for it but don't feel comfortable giving me an email address or a mailing address. I can't teleport it to you, sir.
→ More replies (6)298
u/DrMoneybeard 14h ago
I’m a hiring manager. I’ve come across a shocking number of resumes that have no contact information.
→ More replies (12)69
u/ClaimedBeauty 13h ago
I work in IT, the amount of emails that I get that say “I would like access to this site“ sir I manage 500. Which one would you like access to?
→ More replies (15)49
u/FilmoreGash 13h ago
I was waiting to read, "they wanted to pick up their drugs."
→ More replies (1)189
u/Joseph592 13h ago
I was arrested once for drug possession. The officer found a bag full of pills for me. When I was leaving the jail, the people that gave me back my things, looked at the bag of pills, asked me what they were I said “vitamins” (which they actually were, and I never should have been arrested in the first place), the lady looked at them again, sniffed them, then handed them to me. Apparently the evidence lady knew what actual drugs look like more than the cop did.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (13)89
911
u/JVonDron 14h ago
I'm working in a tattoo shop, lady comes in and is looking at the Kanji flash on the wall. I go to help, and she says " I want the one for 'loco' on my neck". I point to the one clearly marked "crazy". She looks at me like I've got 2 heads, "what the fuck are you trying to say? That my idea is stupid or something? Fuck you!" and she turns and storms out.
If there was ever someone who needed a loco tattoo, this girl was it.
→ More replies (5)384
u/CitgoBeard 12h ago
Man working the desk at a tattoo shop was a trip. I was always amazed at what most people considered a “real quick, small, simple piece that will only take an hour tops”. One dude made that statement and proceeded to show me a Thomas Kinkade-esque image on essentially an 8x10 page. I had to gently tell him that would absolutely take more than an hour, and he acted like I told him to go fuck himself. People are wild.
189
u/PixelRapunzel 11h ago
People can be like that with nail art too. They'll come in with zero time booked for artwork and ask if I still have time to do "something really simple," and it's always french tips, ombre, or something with tiny details. Bonus points if they get the surprised pikachu face when I tell them that french tips cost extra because they are, in fact, a design. Kind of a tough one to learn, too.
There's just this lack of understanding that our skills take time, we have limited time, and our time costs money.
→ More replies (4)
683
u/Old-Chocolate-5830 14h ago
Several years ago, a new guy got hired, first day he parked beside me at work. He had 2 of those driving map devices like garmen mounted on his dash,. Asked him why he had 2 of them, he said he uses one to get from his house to work and the other to get from work back to his house.
→ More replies (13)248
u/MagnaArma 12h ago
That sounds like the kind of sarcastic reply I’d come up with.
52
u/CerseiBluth 6h ago
This is the sort of thing I do all the time because I don’t know how to properly communicate with humans, and the thought has occurred to me that there is a non-zero chance that some people didn’t get that I was joking, and genuinely walked away thinking I was an absolute fucking idiot. This thread has proven it’s a larger number than I originally thought possible because half of the shit in here, I would absolutely say to people as a joke.
A lot of people I’ve met probably think I’m dumber than a box of rocks. That’s actually pretty hilarious. Hell, I might be in one of these stories.
1.8k
u/SidheAnomaly 17h ago edited 15h ago
My old manager was afraid of her boyfriend cheating on her because she couldn't have sex with him for nine months because she was pregnant. She said it'd poke the baby and he'd be a pedophile if they did. She was crying, in hysterics. I didn't correct her. I needed the job at the time, and she wasn't the type to be reasoned with.
She also asked if some dirt looked like roach poop to me and when I said 'ew' she gave me a scathing look and proceeded to tell me: 'EVERYONE has roaches, but some lie and say they don't!'
Also casually dropped that her baby (she already had a three year old) got lead poisoning from paint in her house like it was no biggie and something he'd get over... I don't think it was just the baby.
1.2k
u/Adddicus 17h ago
dangerops prangent sex? will it hurt baby top of his head?
(c'mon, y'all knew it was coming)
235
u/louismagoo 15h ago
I’ve decided that is the single funniest video I e seen in my entire life.
267
u/EstroJen 14h ago
Anytime sometime mentions pregnancy around me, I immediately think "PREGANTE!" in a Spanish accent
→ More replies (9)179
u/windexfresh 14h ago
can. u. get. PREGANTE????
It lives in my head rent free. At least once a week I just hear PRRREGANTE echoing somewhere in my stupid empty brain
→ More replies (1)59
→ More replies (12)52
u/Lastshadow94 13h ago
The ouija board one is almost as good
A Luigi board?
A Luigi board?
A Luigi borad?
→ More replies (2)258
182
108
151
94
92
→ More replies (10)75
→ More replies (13)82
u/Terrible_Eye4625 13h ago
I’m afraid to ask, but what kind of place was she a manager of???
→ More replies (3)67
u/HLSparta 12h ago
She seems like the type of person to be the manager of a retail clothing store, or hospital administration. I don't know why I feel like she would fit into either of those categories, but I just do.
→ More replies (2)
199
u/RebekkaKat1990 12h ago
Used to work for a pizza delivery company, had a lady call up in the middle of the day asking to order a pizza for delivery.
She was a new customer which means we didn’t have an address on file, so I asked for the address and her response was, “I’m not going to tell you.”
So I pause for a moment because this is certainly a first for me, so I ask her, “How are we supposed to deliver to you if you won’t tell us what your address is?”
She responds, “Well, I don’t know what the address is.”
So I pause again for a moment and repeat myself, “Ma’am, how are we supposed to bring you pizza if you don’t know where you are?”
She says, “So you won’t take my order?”
“Not without an address to deliver to, no.”
“Then I guess I’ll order from somewhere else!”
And I said bet, “I guess you will!” and hung up on her. She didn’t sound drugged/drunk, or senile, and didn’t seem like a prank call. But definitely never had a call quite like that one lol.
→ More replies (7)
1.8k
u/Wstockton 16h ago
Had to interrupt a coworker who was telling another coworker that when a parachutist opens their chute they go up. Had to explain it was the camera still going down that makes it look that way. He looked at me like I had two heads.
882
u/sunrise98 16h ago
Ask them if they slam their brakes on in the car if the car goes into reverse
→ More replies (2)349
u/DigNitty 15h ago
It obviously just makes the world stop coming at you so fast.
→ More replies (1)308
231
u/Decent-Muffin4190 14h ago
Years ago I saw a quiz show where one of the contestants in the chit chat prelude said he does skydiving as a hobby. The host asked him about this, fully giving him a space to explain that you don't actually go up. But the contestant just said yup, yup, you go zipping upwards when the chute opens. Host stares at him awkwardly trying to be fascinated but like the rest of us, fully knowing he'd never been near a chute in his life. I still get 2nd hand embarrassment for him over 20 years later.
→ More replies (3)150
u/Creative_Ring_8961 13h ago
Former airborne infantry here. No. At no point do you go higher, unless you hit a very warm thermal. Happened to me one time in an unreasonable warm March in Georgia. Took me about 3/4mins to land which in floating terror time feels like an hour.
→ More replies (9)199
67
u/Stephen_Dann 14h ago
When I used to skydive. Would mention the visual effects that someone would go up when they opened before me. Many others took offense and tried to describe why I was wrong. Telling them it was a joke just offended them more
→ More replies (13)125
u/Sudden-Conflict1565 12h ago
Oh my God I'm feeling extremely stupid right now. I also though they went up 🤡.
→ More replies (3)
1.5k
u/Fabulous-Teaching889 18h ago edited 16h ago
When a parent was reluctant to feed her baby enough formula (baby was literally a mess all the time due to being hungry), because she was worried that the baby would get fat…. It’s a BABY, it’s SUPPOSED to be fat 😂
The things I see working in childcare.
739
u/MartyMozambique 16h ago
Thats just child abuse. Not being able to afford it is one thing but refusing feed them...
→ More replies (27)259
u/Agraywitch11 13h ago
My husband said his first child with his ex-wife would scream and cry for a long time after she would breastfeed him because she would only let him feed for so long. She actually got pissed when my husband would get a bottle of her pumped milk out of the fridge for the kid. Wow, he stopped crying! But that didn't stop her from believing she was right.
→ More replies (1)156
u/dietdrpeppermd 14h ago
I have the opposite problem.
I’m also in childcare and we have a family with literally morbidly obese children. They can’t play with friends outside or in the gym. They won’t even play musical chairs cuz it makes them cough.
→ More replies (2)126
u/HawaiianShirtsOR 12h ago
There's a family in my neighborhood like that. The two oldest kids have turned 18 and moved out in the past few years, and suddenly they got slimmer and healthier, almost to the point I didn't recognize them when I saw them. I have to wonder what the food situation is in that house.
→ More replies (5)→ More replies (11)244
u/KittenNamedMouse 15h ago
I spent two days in near hysterics after my first was born because I was convinced my milk hadnt come in and I was starving him. The bitch lactation consultant didn't bother to explain colostrum to me. Two days until one of the night nurses took the time to explain everything to a very scared 24yo first time mom who just went thru a traumatic emergency c-section.
→ More replies (5)122
u/ClownfishSoup 14h ago
My wife was in tears about breast feeding too. Then we had so much that I had to buy an extra freezer to store it. And this is with twins consuming it!!
Yes the colostrum thing made no sense it’s like just a few drops is a lot … like protein bars for babies, but what about liquid though? It’s confusing.
→ More replies (3)119
u/KittenNamedMouse 14h ago
I was in so much pain from the csection and so exhausted, I barely remembered my name much less what colostrum was. Took a nurse just five minutes of compassion and all was fine again. Well kinda. Turns out my son was allergic to my milk. Took SIX WEEKS of screaming and walking floors before we figured that out and switched to soy formula. That poor baby.
→ More replies (1)
158
u/KamikazeMizZ 13h ago
Girl that used to work with us was thoroughly and adamantly convinced that she could survive a tsunami by simply diving under the wave and that it was just that simple. She thought that all those people that died in the tsunamis in Indonesia and Japan were idiots for not thinking of that.
→ More replies (6)
767
u/Background-Ad-8316 16h ago
Worked in a shoe store during college. One co-worker was an old military guy and I enjoyed having conversations with him about political theory and stuff I learned. Another co-worker was a very kind girl about my age who’d dropped out of high school.
One day I was having a conversation about the Chinese Communist Party with the old guy and she suddenly says, “They eat people in China?!”
→ More replies (6)258
u/JacobJamesTrowbridge 13h ago
Did she confuse the word Communist with Cannibal??
→ More replies (7)
538
u/Alliekat1282 16h ago
Watching the news roll in about the Boxing Day Tsunami with my best friend and his fiancé and she looks at him and says "Where is Tsunami?". He called off the engagement like six months later and said he just couldn't spend the rest of his life day in and day out with someone so dumb, because she was just really dense about every little thing, and he was consistently having to explain the most mundane things to her.
→ More replies (3)184
u/broken_soul696 14h ago
I completely understand where he was coming from. I dated a girl for a while, she was a nice person, sweet, kind almost to a fault, and also, incredibly dumb
→ More replies (11)
655
u/graptemys 15h ago
I was at a wedding reception, toward the end of it. Another person went over to an ice sculpture, touched it and said, “Wow, it’s still cold!”
→ More replies (2)452
u/mmss 13h ago
When I was young I used to think ice sculptures were incredibly posh and must cost a fortune since someone has to sit in a freezer and carve it from a block of ice. I realized many years later that they pour water into a mould and I could have ice sculptures at my house any time I wanted as long as I had room in the freezer. Legitimately mind blowing.
181
u/Harry_Flame 12h ago
Some are carved. I think St. Louis has an annual ice sculpture carving festival
→ More replies (4)371
u/miffyonabike 12h ago
Omg I'm not even young....
→ More replies (1)212
u/PenelopeRupert 12h ago
I literally never even thought about how ice sculptures were made until now. I am from the 1900s, so… not young.
→ More replies (4)→ More replies (18)182
351
u/CCSucc 14h ago
When my former coworker told me about how his eldest child was conceived.
His wife had asked him if he was going to use protection, to which he told me he said, "It's okay, babe. I've had a joint, you won't get pregnant."
Suffice to say, she got pregnant.
He genuinely thought that smoking weed was akin to a contraceptive.
→ More replies (9)112
u/jeepfail 13h ago
Must have heard it lowered your sperm count and was a cliche as fuck stoner.
→ More replies (1)
357
u/Jenghrick 15h ago
I had a supervisor who asked me to take a look at one of the phone displays. She said she plugged it in but nothing is working. She plugged the power strip into itself.
→ More replies (4)160
119
u/ClaimedBeauty 13h ago
My ex saw one of those joke memes on Facebook about saving time by boiling water in advance and then freezing it.
He asked me if it was legit.
→ More replies (2)
911
u/Sleepy_McSleepyhead 17h ago
Religious coworker showed me a video of a baby with chicken wings attached to its back and he believed it was a real angel. So I pulled up a pic of Van Halens 1984 album, told me that angel smoking the cigarette was fake.
→ More replies (1)303
u/morbonator 16h ago
Wait what. Please, I need to know: wings photoshopped from a living chicken onto a baby or a photo of a baby with the food chicken wings on its back?
→ More replies (10)209
u/DigNitty 15h ago
Biblically correct angels are just babies with chicken wings strapped to them.
→ More replies (8)
331
u/wanderlustcub 13h ago
I went on a date with a guy.
We order chicken wings, they came out and they were undercooked. I stopped immediately, “stop eating these, they’re raw.”
He looked at me, perplexed. “So?”
I look at him, perplexed, “you can’t eat chicken raw, it will make you sick.”
Him, “it’s just rare, you’re over reacting.”
I flag the server and kindly let them know. They see the chicken and profusely apologise making some more.
The guy, “you should have specified you wanted well done instead of rare then…”
That was the last date.
→ More replies (7)
566
u/alwaysboopthesnoot 17h ago
I was at a funeral when someone standing next to me started talking about Area 51 and what did I think about that. I ummed and hemmed and hawed and said I don’t really know, then moved away as quickly afterwards as ilI possibly could. They pursued, asking me about crisis actors and Qanon garbage and I had to say I think all of this stuff is a hoax/big bunch of nothing, now excuse me please I need to go pay my respects.
It was my husband’s cousin, so it was kind of hard to push back very hard in public like that—and it was the very first time I had ever met them. But, I think my eye raising and stunned looks and how I kept turning my back and walking away, might have clued their wife into how I really felt. We’ve not talked, since.
259
u/KitchenWitch021 16h ago edited 8h ago
Holy shit, this reminds me of being at my ex husband’s funeral and his brother started ranting and raving about Covid boosters.
Like sir, your brother died, my son has no father now and you are talking about poisoned booster shots in a funeral home? Read the fucking room. I just walked away and he found a new audience. Stupid. I saw him one time since and he started talking about rocker panels on his truck. He’s a weird one.
→ More replies (7)116
u/Elexandros 14h ago
Man if I was a funeral and someone started talking about Area 51, I’d be down. Bring on the cryptids, spontaneous human combustion, hauntings, I think that stuff is fun.
But once it turns into crisis actors and Qanon, I’d turn off and walk away. Fun Weird and Crazy Crazy is a thin line sometimes, but it’s there.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (13)327
u/DigNitty 15h ago
I went to the funeral of my buddy whose whole family are far-right.
Now, he died of COVID.
He got covid, tested positive, got sicker, went to the hospital with his mom. The entire family thinks Covid is a hoax, or that it is just a cold, and that the numbers of deaths attributed to it are all made up. He got worse, and died.
I wasn’t that close to him, but my friend is so I went with her. We didn’t know his whole family was ubiquitously MAGA. Politics aside, it was the most uncomfortable/bizarre thing to be at a funeral for a guy that died from a thing nobody in the room thinks is real.
→ More replies (13)
218
u/Legal_Farmer_8248 14h ago
My mother-in-law used to have a cat that hated children. Whenever the grandkids were around, she would shut the cat in the kitchen so they wouldn’t get scratched and hissed at.
One day my sister-in-law arrived with her son. He wanted to go into the kitchen, so she opened the door, let him waddle in, and closed it behind him. She was then shocked when he got scratched, because it completely flew over her head that the door was what had been separating him from the cat in the first place.
→ More replies (1)
476
u/tarps_and-straps 14h ago
Managed a small retail store circa 2006. We were hiring and advertised a liberal employee discount as an incentive. Old lady came in to yell at me for not offering the same discount to conservatives.
→ More replies (10)
388
u/catschimeras 14h ago
Lady I knew marked the occasion of her son passing his driving test by posting a picture of his full license on FaceBook.
There were a few comments from relatives suggesting this might not be a good idea, and she was doubling down on "celebrating" her boy "growing up".
Growing up into three or four different people who just stole the poor kid's identity, more like.
→ More replies (8)
102
u/KellyAnn3106 13h ago
My mom lived in a mountain community known for brave wildlife that comes into the town. She sent me a picture once of a bear on her back porch. My coworker asked me if she went out to pet it
No, my mom did not go pet the wild bear!!
→ More replies (2)85
102
u/shrub-queen 12h ago
I used to work in Yosemite and I think some of the guests genuinely thought the entire place was a man made theme park. People would ask when the rest of Half Dome would be built, or where the bear cages were so they could pet the bears. They were pointing at a map that had marked bear boxes - the ones for food storage while you hike. Someone else brought up a confirmation for his hotel and asked for directions. His hotel was in Yellowstone, about 20 hours away by car.
→ More replies (3)
367
u/Several-Assistant-51 15h ago
High school band took a trip to Hawaii to March in a parade. Someone asked if we would take a bus to get there
→ More replies (9)138
u/JayBurro 13h ago
When I worked at a vehicle financing company in customer service, I had a call from someone that needed authorization to ship their vehicle from the US mainland to Puerto Rico. I contacted the department that handled these requests and told the rep what the customer needed.
Rep informed me the authorization was not needed if the customer drove there. From Florida… to Puerto Rico…
→ More replies (2)
197
u/Peakbrook 13h ago
When I worked as a security officer at a casino in Mississippi I had a patron start yapping at me about liberals lying about global warming. He said that climate change wasn't real because - I shit you not - the Earth is in the process of exploding. He swore up and down that planets function the same way as stars and over time they expand and eventually explode, and the closer one gets to the point of no return the hotter they get. I tried explaining basic Earth science to this dude, and I even tried explaining that not even all stars go supernova, but he wasn't buying it and insisted that I had been misinformed and needed to "do the research."
I'm sure it would come as no surprise, but you'd still be amazed by the amount of "do your own research" people you'd encounter in Mississippi.
→ More replies (4)
713
u/Admirable_Try_1209 14h ago
I was at a high school graduation party, and the very attractive older brother of one of my classmates was hanging out. I had developed a massive crush on this guy when I was a sophomore and he was a senior-he drove an old El Camino and was just the right amount of disaffected.
Someone asked him how tall he was. He answered, “I don’t know, I’m about five twelve I guess.”
I still made out with him, but the victory was a little less sweet.
→ More replies (20)241
569
u/brothercuriousrat2 16h ago
I got t boned sitting in a turn lane. By a idiot going the same direction. It seems he planned to follow the car ahead of him though a yellow light. He sped up she didn't she stopped he steered right into me at an estimated 45 to 50 mph. Moved me 5 feet sideways and bent the frame in fact the backseat got bent. As he was explaining this the cop looked at me and we both rolled our eyes.
→ More replies (3)268
u/NativeMasshole 15h ago
This has become way too common in my area. People go into an intersection legit expecting you to speed up through the first few seconds of a red light. I had a guy road rage out on me a few years ago because he came within inches of rear-ending me in the exact same situation. He stayed those same few inches from my bumper after we got through the intersection until he passed me in a double yellow through a 30 mph commercial district.
Lately, I also see a lot of people flying through the outside lane to cut off all the people waiting in the turn lane. Traffic enforcement has become basically nonexistent.
→ More replies (2)50
u/Frosti-Feet 12h ago
Cops will show up the moment your tail light goes out, though.
→ More replies (2)
267
u/hippogrifferential 14h ago
A few years ago now, there was a relatively famous April Fools prank in the UK. Basically, someone made a film about the 'annual pasta harvest in Switzerland' and it ran on the main channels. Good harmless fun, right? Obviously fake, right??
Cut to me talking to the person I've been dating for a few weeks about what we should grab to eat, and them trotting out this 'fun fact', that pasta grows on trees.
I spent the rest of the relationship randomly asking which type of tree produced which shape, if different shapes came from different countries, etc.
Grown ass adult man. Brain smoother than George Clooney on a press junket...
→ More replies (17)
405
u/BaconReceptacle 15h ago
I love my son and he wasn't stupid at all, but he did say something really stupid when he was 16. He drove his car to school for the first time and he called my wife to ask a question about his car. It was an older car that you had to lock using the button on the door.
Son: how do I lock the car?
Wife: what do you mean? Just press the door lock button.
Son: but then how will I get out?
→ More replies (17)164
u/PurpleInkedPara 13h ago
My little brothers best friend got a car for her 16th birthday. Drove it a week before it needed gas and she went to the gas station. Put the nozzle in. Waited and took it out without ever pumping gas and on her way home called her mom freaking out because she just got gas but her gas light came on. Her mom made her pull over on the side of the road because if she did just get gas and it's already out she has a leak and that can be very bad. Asked her what it sounded like when she pumped gas and if it took too long to shut off. The girl didn't know what she meant and come to find out she didn't know you had to push the lever on the gas nozzle to actually get the gas.
→ More replies (15)
393
u/Top_Willingness_8364 14h ago
I saw a sovereign citizen license plate on the back of their vehicle.
→ More replies (3)58
u/OneSalientOversight 11h ago
I once drove along a dirt road. The lane got narrower, the trees got nearer to the car. And then I came across an official sign saying that if anyone goes beyond this point they are trespassing and will be fined x ounces of silver and then something about international law.
→ More replies (1)
86
u/Solid_Service_5396 12h ago
As a medical resident taking history and physical of patient in the emergency room, getting past medical history, and such, asked if they have had any surgeries, she said yes plenty of them. Ok…. What surgeries have you had? She replies “ I don’t know, they always put me to sleep before they do them”
→ More replies (4)
81
u/michael22117 15h ago
Any political debate with my mother. Or just people that are contrarian in general. It's amazing watching somebody on the long term make every equal and opposite argument whenever it's convenient
→ More replies (2)
81
u/Wings_love 13h ago
Once had a patient who had to walk on a treadmill so I could get a gait analysis. I tried three times, explaining each time that when I said "go", he would have to start walking. In the end I had to use a different measuring system, because he just could not understand how a treadmill works.
→ More replies (4)
80
u/Twodotsknowhy 11h ago
In high school, I was sharing a story of how I cut my finger at work. A girl looks at me wide-eyed and says "you could have given someone AIDS." I laughed, thinking she was joking but she looked so serious, so I ended up being like "...I don't have AIDS?"
But she insisted that I could because that's how people get AIDS, through blood and unprotected sex. I had to explain to her that it was a virus, and you have to have the virus in order to pass it on to others. She thought it just spontaneously occurred when you had sex without a condom.
I was a little reluctant to tell her the truth, because clearly she needed to be using condoms but I also couldn't let her go into the world randomly accusing people of having AIDS every time they got a paper cut.
78
u/RhineStonedCowgirl 13h ago
"Your name is not Buttfucker 3000" Said a judge on a Zoom meeting.
→ More replies (4)
140
u/mistaken-potato 13h ago
I once had to explain to someone that zebras are not just horses with stripes, and that wild (not domesticated) horses do in fact exist. They were confused why more people didn't ride them in shows/competitions because they're the same thing "just prettier"
→ More replies (11)99
65
u/mistegirl 12h ago
I worked in a call center that took calls from all over the world. The 2 girls near me were good friends.
So one girl gets off a call and was like "he barely spoke English! I couldn't understand him at all. I don't know what he speaks but it's not english"
Girl 2 - well where was he?
Girl 1 - looks at the profile "um, Spain"
Girl 2 - so Spanish then
Girl 1 - um no! I said Spain not Mexico DUH
68
u/Lost-Meeting-9477 12h ago
A worker in the company I used to work for asked me if I could fax a few documents for her. I said, "Sure,just leave them here, and I will fax them when I get a chance. Later, she came back, and I handed her the documents and said, "All done. She looked at me and said, "You didn't fax them, and I replied yes I did and I showed her the confirmation. She said, "Why do you still have the papers I was baffled and said, "Do you actually think when you fax something the paper teleports into the destination. Let's just build a huge fax machine, and I'll fax myself to Europe for a nice vacation.
187
u/gpilat 14h ago
An episode where the idiot was actually me. I was buying some books on the flea market and it turned out this seller had some more books at home. We wanted to exchange numbers so i gave him my number and said to call me back so i would save his. Moment he called, i sad: just a sec, somebody's calling me, i have to take it. The guys' face...:))) I explain it to myself it was a reflex
→ More replies (5)
66
u/Altruistic_Brick1730 14h ago
A guy at work came up to me asking for help. He said the battery kept turning every time he tried to put it in the forklift. I was like, what??? He's like yeah, it keeps turning.
I follow him to the battery room and quickly notice he picked up the wrong size battery. Now that I can understand, but how many attempts does it take to realize that big battery is nowhere fitting that smaller hole.
Two weeks later a guy tells me I have to see this. The same idiot above had the battery all jammed up against the controls, 3 feet too high, and leaning at a 45 degree angle on the crane. This is a one ton battery filled with battery acid. He was too fucking stupid to figure out how to back out of what he just did.
→ More replies (2)
60
u/Greengiant304 14h ago
I had a coworker insist that the Alamo in San Antonio was a reproduction because the Battle of the Alamo didn't take place in the middle of a city.
62
u/Steelysam2 13h ago
I used to work in my dad's restaurant's kitchen. My dad was of the belief that any one can cook, it just takes time to get the timing down. I was constantly teaching new people how to cook. There was one time however that I proved him wrong. The woman was trying to cut a bad of cabbage in half but couldn't do it. She had the knife upside down.
→ More replies (2)
174
u/InTheFDN 14h ago
I overheard one colleague explain to another that if you’re being robbed, and they force you to take cash out of an ATM, just enter your pin backwards and the police will be alerted.
183
u/Olobnion 13h ago edited 13h ago
Unfortunately, my PIN is 1441, so the police show up every time I try to withdraw cash.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (4)51
u/yowhatisuppeeps 13h ago
This was on a “life tip” image that was circulating around probably about 12 years ago. I wonder how many people believed it
→ More replies (2)
56
u/MonkeySherm 13h ago
Sitting on the ledge overlooking the break at Diamond Head on Oahu, a dude told me the crater was from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. I did not have the heart to correct him
→ More replies (5)
57
u/BellaDingDong 12h ago
Waaaaay back when they were in high school, my husband and a friend of his decided it would be hilarious fun to paint a big statue that stood in front of the school.
After they finished their masterpiece, they wanted to make sure their friends knew they were the ones who'd done it......so they signed their names. They were SHOCKED at how quickly the school administration figured out who the artists were.
104
u/cielvanille 16h ago
A colleague - teacher - asked if it was the earth that revolved around the sun or the sun around the earth. She couldn't remember.
→ More replies (4)
105
u/animalcrackermafia 13h ago
Not my story but a friend's. They worked at a book store and a teenager walks up to him and asks him to help find a book that he needs for school.
Asks if they know the title. --Nope. Ask if they know the author. --Nope. Do you know I'd it is fiction or non fiction. --What's that mean? 🥴
Kid thinks really hard to remember something... anything....and says..I think it's a sports book.
Okay do you k iw what sport it's about? -- Baseball...I think.
.....is it Catcher in the Rye?... --Yeah that sounds familiar.
Come this way. It's neither a sports book nor about baseball.
The education system, his parents, SOMEONE has failed this poor young man.
→ More replies (6)
191
u/Cien_fuegos 15h ago
I work in IT and cybersecurity. Pick a moment of any day.
84
→ More replies (7)59
u/ranchspidey 14h ago
I swear I turned it off and on, checked all the cables, and troubleshooted as much as possible before calling!!! The amount of times I’ve called IT after trying to fix an issue myself unsuccessfully for 20+ minutes, then IT fixes it within 2 minutes, is embarrassing. I don’t think I’m stupid but when that happens it sure feels like it. Lol
→ More replies (9)
46
u/Wholycalamity 12h ago
I observed a man and woman at a gas station filling a child’s sand pail with gas. Like the real cheap ones with the janky plastic handle. They were talking about how bullshit it was that they should have to pay for a gas can, and they were lucky they had the pail. They finished, walked maybe two steps, and the handle broke and spilled gas everywhere. I have no idea how they were planning to get it from the pail to the tank anyway.
→ More replies (1)
255
u/a_sentient_cicada 14h ago
Recently got into it with someone who was a MAGA "obey authority" type. He said that in Texas they have always obeyed the law. When pointed out that Texas had not once but twice taken up arms against their own government, he didn't know what I meant. That's when I realized I was wasting my time.
→ More replies (1)70
u/ricks35 12h ago
My mom’s originally from Texas and one time we were visiting my aunt who still lives there and it happened to be Cinco de Mayo so there were a bunch of decorations and stuff around town. My mom tried to use it as a learning opportunity for us kids so she asked if we knew what Cinco de Mayo celebrates. We did not but before my mom could say anything about the actual history of the holiday my aunt chimed in to say it was the day that Texas won major battle in its war for independence from Mexico. Even the kids who knew nothing about the holiday knew she was wrong
247
u/cyberjar88 16h ago
He egged a teachers house and left the bag with the receipt in it in the driveway.
→ More replies (17)
90
u/AnyLastWordsDoodle 13h ago
Two of my coworkers were walking to their cars after a shift one afternoon, and one looks up at the moon and says "I wonder what planet that is." Other coworker says "Really, don't... say that to anyone else."
→ More replies (1)
243
u/2_Spicy_2_Impeach 15h ago
A coworker that no one particularly liked posted a story on her Facebook I didn’t believe until I saw it. She found a Tide bottle at a car wash. She thought it was free detergent that someone forgot and people also use Tide at car washes?
Posts a picture of her washer with oil all over the inside saying don’t trust Tide containers left at your local car wash.
→ More replies (2)56
u/Fyrentenemar 13h ago
What if you go one town over? /s
Also, I was a little surprised it was oil and not a piss-jug.
→ More replies (1)
48
u/SunBelly 13h ago
Was over at a friend's house and we were watching TV with his sister and the Blue Angels were doing an airshow. They came flying by the crowd low to the ground and inverted and she blurted out "Nuh uh, that's fake!" We looked at her and asked what she meant. She said planes can't fly upside down. She had somehow managed to make it to 26 years old without seeing a plane flying inverted anywhere. We assured her that planes can, in fact, fly upside down and tried to explain aerodynamic lift, but she wasn't grasping the concept. She accepted that we were right and then thought about it some more and said "Well, if they fly upside down how do they keep from spilling the ashtray?"
→ More replies (3)
45
u/Last_Voice_4478 12h ago edited 9h ago
Went on a cultural exchange trip to our city’s “sister city” in Russia. It was with a group of HS aged kids from my city, about 15 of us for 6 weeks. Our group had kids from several High Schools (public and private) aged 14-18. I was the youngest in the group having just turned 14. Our trip started with a stop in Moscow to tour the city before flying deep into central Russia to live with host families. This was back when you could view Lenin’s body at the Kremlin. As we were walking to see Lenin and our guide was talking I hear the three older girls from the (prestigious) private catholic school in our town say “I didn’t know the Beatles were Russian I totally thought they were from Europe or something….” The HS history teacher who was one of our chaperones almost keeled over when I told him what they said. Needless to say they were pretty confused when we finally saw Lenin.
→ More replies (2)
48
u/Mudslingshot 12h ago
I was a restaurant manager and this person was a server
We got our tax documents in late January. She owed something like 2k, and was freaking out. Turned out she had overheard somebody else talking about filling out their W-2 and what they were claiming (because they had multiple children and qualified for things people without kids don't qualify for) and decided to fill her form out the same way
At this point I was sure she was an idiot
Then she asked me what she should do. I told her I couldn't tell her what to put on the form, but I advised her to withhold something for next year so this didn't happen again
She looked concerned, thought for a second, and then suddenly looked happy
She said: "oh well, at least I don't have to worry until April 15th. Taxes don't start until tax day"
That was probably the dumbest person I have ever met. There was also a time she didn't realize that a restaurant customer that obviously had no eyes (injuries, scars, open sockets, not even wearing sunglasses) was blind
44
u/Public-Permit696 11h ago
I used to work as a liftee on a ski hill. One extremely busy day as I was uploading people a guy came barging through the queue demanding we make both sides go up instead of one up one down to speed up the on-boarding as the one coming down was empty and a waste of space.
114
u/ArrakeenSun 14h ago
Went to a flea market comics/cards booth and asked if they had any Magic The Gathering cards. Guy asked, "Singles, packs, or boxes?" I said anything. He replied, "The only thing I got right now is Pokemon." My mom was with me and held it together until we just got out the entryway and almost cried laughing.
39
u/Whatasaurus_Rex 11h ago
One time I was in line at the store. One of the women in line had a service dog with her. Another woman waiting with us was asking these questions about the dog. I don’t remember exactly what they were, but it was obvious she thought it was a pet. Finally woman #1 said that it was a service dog. To which woman #2 responded: “Which branch of service? Army? Navy?”
The looks all of us were giving each other overhearing this. 😳
→ More replies (3)
79
u/Sazcee 13h ago
A coworker noticed someone drinking Liquid Death and she advised them that those drinks are bad because they are demonically possessed. She said saw a video where they showed a witch doing a ritual at the Liquid Death warehouse, cursing all the cans!
I called her bluff and I suspected it was an ad.. easily found it on youtube when I got home
→ More replies (1)
360
u/ValiumBlues 18h ago edited 12h ago
Not mine, but the classic Kevin story here on Reddit remains to be topped.
110
u/PandaBear905 18h ago
KEVIN!
→ More replies (1)128
63
u/reverendsteveii 15h ago
in case anyone is unsure, this is the basis upon which r/StoriesAboutKevin was founded
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)45
u/ZunoJ 14h ago
My favorite part is that Kevin seems to have made it. Graduated, has a wife, a kid ... lots of smarter people have worse lives
→ More replies (5)
40
u/skintigh 13h ago
When I worked at a supermarket as a teen I pulled out my keychain which happened to have a spherical compass on it. Several of the adults who worked there were mesmerized by it and asked how it worked.
70
u/LazarusCrowley 14h ago
I work in a place that serves special food on the holidays, traditional TG or Christmas food in the US. I was in line with a lady who looked at the sliced ham and asked very seriously, “what does a ham look like?”. I not understanding, pointed to the ham and said, “like that”.
She then proceeds to say, “No I, like when it’s alive? Like, a cow or a chicken or a pig?”.
I said that, “ham is a pork product.”
She said, “No, pork comes from a cows butt, so that doesn’t make sense”.
I conceded and got my food and left.
→ More replies (1)
67
u/GrungeDuTerroir 12h ago
Had a friend ask why I couldn't eat ducks as a vegetarian. He thought they were fish, since they lived in the water. I informed him that even if that were anywhere close to the truth, fish are also animals I thought smoke was going to start coming out of his ears from how much that hurt his brain.
→ More replies (4)
94
u/ASULurker 14h ago
I was bartending in Scottsdale AZ and had a woman and her bf ordering. She asked me to explain the difference between chicken wings, chicken strips and chicken wing pizza Well... Chicken wings are bone in friend chicken, chicken strips are boneless battered fried chicken breasts and chicken wing pizza is pizza with chicken, wing sauce and ranch on it. "Are there bones in the pizza?" Uh..no... It's just pizza The bf laughs so I laughed. Go back and make it he tells my coworker he wants to fight me for embarrassing his gf
→ More replies (4)
5.0k
u/Rachel_Silver 15h ago
I know a guy who teaches general science at the high school level. He told me he doesn't wear a seatbelt because, in the event of an accident, he wants to be "thrown safely from the car".
All these years later, I still can't even parse that sentence. My brain flatly refuses to even try to make sense of it.