Have you ever come across someone who questioned something so simple and well-known, you thought that they were kidding? Maybe they asked what part of Europe Canada was in, thought that Mars and the Moon were the same thing, or didn't know that you had to boil water to make pasta. You laugh, but after a few blank stares and wide-eyed looks, you realize that they weren't kidding at all. From simple questions about the world's geography to insane statements about what a vegetarian is, these people reveal the most ridiculous things they had to explain to another adult.
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#1 Not Mexico
That New Mexico is a state. You have no idea the number of people that believe that the state of New Mexico is a part of Mexico.
#2 That's Not How It Works
Years ago, I was working retail and a coworker asked if I could cover for them the next day. I agreed. After a few weeks, they started yelling at me for "stealing their money." Eventually, it escalated to HR. I had no idea what they were on about. Turns out, they thought that because I was covering for them, they would still get paid rather than me. They kept insisting that it was their shift and they made sure it was covered so they should get paid for it, and apparently I stole their pay for the shift that I had worked. HR excused me from that meeting, and I don't know what happened from there, but I never saw them on the schedule again.
#3 Yes, That's Right
That power tools need to be turned on in order to work.
#4 Um, No
I work with this guy who thinks that the world rains the same amount every season. Like there's some sort of quota that nature is obliged to meet. For example, if it's a particularly dry summer, he thinks it will just rain a lot in the last few days before summer ends.
#5 They Do Exist
There’s a girl I used to work with who didn’t know that submarines actually existed.
#6 Eat Eggs
I had a coworker who said she didn't eat eggs because she thought they were chicks that had been aborted. She refused to accept that unfertilized eggs don't hatch and she didn't have to worry. After this conversation carried on for far too long, she proceeded to eat a bowl of pasta that I'm 97% sure was made with eggs.
#7 This Is Dangerous
That you shouldn't iron your clothes while you're wearing them. One guess as to how this came up.
#8 Brush Up on Your Vegetarianism
That food isn't vegetarian just because it has vegetables in it, and a lack of vegetables doesn't automatically mean it isn't vegetarian. I went to a restaurant and was looking over the menu, which had vegetarian-friendly options marked. Pretzels with cheese weren't marked, so I asked the waitress if she knew why. If it was just something in the cheese, I still wanted to split the pretzels with others at the table and skip the cheese dip. Her answer? "Well, it's like, um, so pretzels don't have any vegetables like broccoli in them, they're just bread, so they aren't vegetarian. But if you wanted something that is, then you could maybe get the chicken and broccoli because it has a vegetable with it. But like the mac and cheese wouldn't be because it doesn't have vegetables." I'll note that the mac and cheese was clearly marked vegetarian-friendly.
#9 Woops
That dinosaurs existed, and that The King And I is not the story of Moses.
#10 I Quit!
A coworker of mine recently quit without notice. A few weeks later, she wasn't liking her new job much and said she wanted to come back to the store. She could not comprehend the concept of being ineligible for rehire. If you quit without notice, they're not going to take you back!
#11 Common Knowledge
To make pasta you have to boil the water.
#12 How Did You Not Know?
I’m a vet. Someone brought in a kitten that they had rescued off the street a few days prior because it had fleas. During the exam, the kitten was very abnormally anxious and constantly crying, fighting me, and nipping. The owner said she had been doing it at home as well. I asked what they had been feeding her. They said, “Oh, we weren’t sure what to feed her so we didn’t.” What?!
Three grown, independent adults collectively decided that the solution to their situation was to not feed a sick, young animal for three days. Instead, they locked her in a closet when she started crying and offered her a small plastic bottle cap of water a day. I fed her immediately and she ate like she was possessed.
#13 Press Up or Down
That you have to press up when you want to go up in the elevator and down if you want to go down. She thought you had to guess where the elevator was and if it was under you lets say, you had to press up.
#14 Can You Read?
How to use a new type of electric hand-drying machine (mounted on the wall) in a public men's room. The guy tried everything to make it work, other than following the simple instructions on the hand-dryer (it even had arrows pointing the way where his hands should be inserted to activate it).
#15 Mars and the Moon
She's an educator. It was one of those days where Mars was super bright. She was absolutely sure that the moon was Mars, and suddenly, it was super visible and close to Earth. She thought that it would come very close and then back off overnight.
#16 Simple Math
That six inches is not 0.6 of a foot. She had been slowly and unknowingly overcharging our company for materials for years.
#17 Hot Chocolate is Not Diet
That drinks have caloric content. A coworker was complaining about how she was having trouble losing weight. She didn't realize that drinking four hot chocolates a day was not really conducive to weight loss.
#18 There's Interest on That
The concept of interest on a loan. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth and her parents lost everything when she was in her 20s. She was talking about trying to get a loan for a car and was totally confused because the cost of the car didn't equal the total monthly payments...
#19 Chicken and Steak Aren't the Same
As a server, there are so many times where I have to explain to guests that chicken can’t be cooked medium-rare.
#20 Isn't That a Cheeseburger?
I work as a server. A lady wanted a hamburger with cheese on it, so I said, "Oh, so you want a cheeseburger." She responded, "No, I said a hamburger with cheese on it," to which I said back, "That's called a cheeseburger." She absolutely lost it and yelled, "No! I want a darn hamburger!!! With cheese on it!!!"
#21 Simple
I had to explain to someone that islands don't tip over if you put too much weight on the edge.
#22 ER Rules
I have to explain nearly every triage shift that patients in the emergency department are seen in the order of how sick they are, not their order of arrival. Usually, the people who don’t understand are young adults, but not always. At this point, it’s just a reflex. Oh, and an unbelievable number of people need to be told that no, they can’t have a bed when there are 80 people in the department for 20 beds. It just boggles the mind.
#23 How Did You Not Know This?
That Canada is part of North America.
#24 This is a Parking Brake
Last weekend, I had to explain that a parking brake existed and what it was for to a friend. Please bear in mind, we're both 34. She's from the prairies. We were parking a car on a steep hill, and I said, "It's fine. Just throw on the parking brake." She gave me a blank stare. I then reached over and applied the brake. Cue a wide-eyed look from her. I understand not needing a parking brake, but wouldn't you wonder about that big lever in the center of your car? She'd been driving for 18 years.
#25 There's 206
That there are more than six bones in the human body. She thought it was: head, back, arms and legs.
#26 That's Not Necessary
I had to explain to someone in college that "three seconds of dish soap" was not necessary for each plate you wash. As in, he would turn the dish soap upside down and squeeze for "1...2...3". For. Each. Plate.
#27 Counterfeit Much?
My friend worked at Office Depot and had to explain to a customer why he couldn’t make him photocopies of a 20 dollar bill.
#28 You Can't Do That
I was flying back home from overseas with a friend, and I said something about how it was a bummer that we couldn't bring fresh produce back. She asked why we couldn't and I explained that you weren't allowed to bring plants when flying or crossing borders. She thought it was absurd that I would consider a piece of produce (like an avocado or a mango) to be a plant. It became a pretty heated argument.
#29 Safety First
That you have to turn off the high beams for cars travelling in the opposite direction.
#30 High Heat Is Okay
I told my roommate that if he cooked food on less than the highest level of heat, he wouldn't burn as much food, and would generally have more success. A week later, I explained to him that when he was just boiling water, high heat was okay.
#31 This Is Ridiculous
That oil isn't easier to get in the Middle East because "you only have to drill through sand".
#32 That's Not How It Works
That you can't get AIDS if you don't already have the HIV virus inside your body or your partner is carrying it. A guy I talked to once thought that the disease just spontaneously appeared. I don't even think that he understood the concept of a virus.
#33 She Was Confused
That Halloween has never and will never fall on Friday the 13th. It was my mom.
#34 We're All Poor
My mother told me nobody can live on $40,000 a year, and I was unable to get her to understand that it is pretty normal to make $40,000 or less and that people do fine with that salary.
#35 Pickles Are What?
I had to explain to my wife that pickles were made of cucumbers She didn’t believe me and I'm still not sure she does.
#36 Um, Not Okay
That you don’t bring your dog to work and let her use the carpet as her bathroom. Tiny feces and little puddles are not okay just because they’re tiny. She weighs four pounds. He said that she’s so little that it doesn’t matter. He said he never even notices at home and if I had a dog, I’d feel differently.
#37 It's Way Older
I had to explain to my friend that the earth wasn't 2019 years old.
#38 No Such Thing as Camo Paint
That no matter how much you might want to put a camo pattern on your walls, you have to determine what that pattern looks like and you will also have to purchase multiple cans of paint tinted differently because "camo" doesn't come out of a can that way.
#39 Santa, Are You There?
That the North Pole is an actual place on the planet and not just a mythical place where Santa and his Elves live. Also, I had to explain that the South Pole is real. Granted, they did not think Santa was real, but they also didn't believe me about the poles. They argued, saying I was crazy and then they Googled it.
#40 That's My Dog
My wife and I had to explain to the neighbor that our dog is part of our family, and no, they can't just have him. Their kids wanted our dog, which was cute, until the mother also decided that she wanted our dog and it was only fair that they got to have him on the weekends because we get to have him all week long.
#41 Penguins are Birds
I had to explain to a teacher, in front of her class, that a penguin was a bird. I didn’t want to be like that but she was adamant that if it didn’t fly, it wasn’t a bird.
#42 Human's Aren't Food
I had to explain to my mother that muscles are meat. I told her that a piece of meat I was eating was tough, and so I must have said something to her about what part of the cow the muscle came from. No, we weren't eating muscles, she said, we were eating "meat". She was sickened by the concept that anyone would eat muscles. Somehow, this got to the point of her claiming that humans didn't have any meat on them because they aren't food. I didn't win that argument: "Humans have no meat, meat is not muscles. Period." Oh, it turns out people are not part of the animal kingdom, either. It was a dismal childhood.
#43 That Would Be Dangerous
Why a room below sea level on a cruise ship would not have a balcony.
#44 Was She Serious?
I was tipped a twenty-dollar bill to be split between myself and a coworker. I handed her $10 that I had in my pocket and took the $20. She said it wasn’t fair that I had $20 and she only had $10. I tried to explain to her that I already had the $10, so another $10 equalled $20. She couldn’t wrap her head around it, insisting I was trying to rip her off. She gave me back the ten bucks, took the twenty to a register and made change of two 10 dollar bills. As she hands me mine, I showed her that I still had $20 and she had $10, but somehow she was satisfied that she’d thwarted my attempts to short change her. Needless to say, I didn’t stay friends with her after that.
#45 They're Both Cold
That neither the North or the South Pole is the one that's "always hot".
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