We all do stupid things sometimes, but the following people really took "dumb" to the next level. Unfortunately for them, their moments of idiocy cannot be played off or excused for something else—they will simply have to live with the embarrassment and try to do better next time. Read on for some face-palm-worthy tales:
1. Time To Buzz Off
I know a middle-aged man named Aaron who is 100% a complete idiot. This man can hear anything on the news or on the radio, interpret it using his small brain, and take it as end-all, be-all fact. Don't even argue with him. This particular time a few years ago, it was extremely hot outside and he was trying to explain what he learned on the news.
Apparently, he was told the air isn't actually hot it's just "vibrating" (yes, at super basic level this is sort of true). He went on to say that wind was made by said vibrations, and when it was hot it vibrated so much it produced the “summer noise.” I think this brilliant gentleman thought the noise of CICADAS was produced by the heat itself. Yes, the bugs that make the loud chipper noise. The bugs.
At this point I was too dumbstruck to even have any sort of explanation or counter-argument.
2. Poisonous Gingerbread
Back in elementary school, when I was about seven years old, we would make gingerbread houses with icing and stuff. My teacher told us NOT to eat the gingerbread and the icing because it was poisonous, and we could get really sick. Being the teacher and someone you should listen to, I believed her. So, while I was growing up and for most of my life, I thought that gingerbread was poisonous.
I never ate a gingerbread house in my life nor any of the icing. At 29 years of age, my fiancée and I were making a gingerbread house, and she started eating hers. I freaked out. It was then that she informed me that the teacher probably said that so she wouldn’t have 30 kids hopped up on sugar in her class for the rest of the day. I couldn’t believe I was duped that hard and never realized it.
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3. Mother Knows Best Even in Death
When I was a preschooler, my mom told me that you weren't allowed to ride a motorcycle or get tattoos unless your mother was dead. One day, outside the grocery store I saw a big, tough looking dude covered in tats, straddling the loudest motorcycle ever. Little five-year-old me went up to him and asked the most inappropriate question: "Hey, is your mom dead?"
Dude looked at me and said, "yeah."
And I was shocked that my mom was right.
4. Show And Tell
When I was in high school, some of the jocks decided that Home Ec would be an easy A. One of the jocks was an absolute fool. So, the Home Ec class is learning how to use sewing machines. This guy is sewing merrily away, with his thumb sticking out perpendicular to his left hand, putting it on trajectory toward the needle. Not surprisingly, he runs his thumb through the feed and punctures it several times.
He calls out to the teacher for help. She comes over and asks him, “What did you do?” He replies, “I did this,” and proceeds to repeat his actions, including going through the feed and getting additional puncture wounds to his thumb.
5. This Lie Stunk
We used to make an annual trip to the mountains in North Carolina for about two weeks starting the day after Christmas. I went through a phase when I was younger where I wanted to know the etymology of every word. We were driving through Jacksonville just before rush hour. At the time, the area used to reek from the mills and the coffee plant.
The smell was so strong that even if you weren’t paying attention to the road, you knew you had reached the area, simply from the smell. So, while everyone in the car was commenting on the odor, I asked my dad how Jacksonville got its name. Not knowing, he did what every good dad does—he made something up. He said it was because everyone passed gas at the same time.
For years, I had this image in my head of business people all over Jacksonville, commuting to work in their business suits and skirts, holding briefcases throughout the entire city, all busting wind in unison throughout the day. It was one of those lies that you believe as a kid, and don't bother questioning it. You don’t even think about the answer until you're sitting in class and the real answer is explained in a book. I'm guessing I believed that one until I hit middle school.
6. The “Farm” Where Pets Eventually Go
I used to believe that the dog who bit me when I was 6 was actually sent to a farm. It wasn't until I was watching Friends years later when Ross and Monica are talking about an old dog that found a great place on a farm to grow old. It hit me right then. I hated that dog. I am fearful of dogs because of it. But never did I want it “to live the rest of its life at a farm!!!”
7. If At First You Don’t Succeed, Fail Again
I met this guy, Lewis, while interning at a non-profit organization. Lewis interned in the archives department, and once the summer was coming to an end he decided he would get a permanent job there no matter the cost. This led to several hare-brained schemes and unsuccessful attempts to show how good of an employee he could be. He tried to apply to a position in his department that had not existed for years because of budget cuts.
But Lewis was a member of the organization and thought he was superior to everyone else, so of course he thinks they'll just find the money so that he can continue working there. He meets with the main hiring director who again tells him there is no money or need for the position but that doesn't stop Lewis. Instead he comes up with an even worse plan.
Lewis decides to apply for another position in a completely different department that he has no qualifications for. His plan is to get the job....and then after a couple weeks move back into his old office at the archive department and pretend like he had been working there the whole time. Of course, his plan was ruined by the fact that he told co-workers about it, so some people already knew about his false intentions before he even had the interview.
Before this interview, Lewis tried to show how he can be a model employee. One day my soda got trapped in the vending machine. Lewis attempted to prove how macho he was in front of the hiring director by shaking and punching the machine until he was red in the face and ran out of breath. The best was yet to come. The hiring director then proceeds to pull out a key and unlock the machine in a couple seconds.
This make Lewis look like an absolute idiot while he's about to pass out from exhaustion. A few days later at lunch, one of the other interns mentions how she's getting some furniture delivered to her apartment. Lewis butts in and says, "I can come over to your place and help assemble it for you." She tells him thanks but I can do it on my own, but Lewis is unfazed.
"NO, I'm going to come over and help you, this is a man's job." What’s creepy is that Lewis was older than most of the interns by about five years. having already gotten a master’s degree while everyone else was undergrad students. A week later, Lewis receives a visitor in his office. The new CEO who was due to start in a month wanted to check in with everyone.
The CEO begins to explain how he wants to run things when Lewis tries correcting him. Despite having only worked there for two months and being due to leave in a week, Lewis starts to lose his patience. "THIS IS HOW WE"VE DONE THINGS IN THE PAST AND THIS IS HOW WE"RE GONNA KEEP DOING THEM." Somehow he still thought he had a good chance going into the interview despite screaming at the new CEO, who would have to approve new employees.
Well this ends exactly how you thought it would. He doesn't get the job and mopes back to his office to pack up his stuff, riding off into the sunset to scam his way into another job.
8. My Uncle Milked This One As Much As He Could
A college nearby has a cougar as its mascot, and they sell cougar cheese. It's delicious. My uncles told me that cougar cheese was made from the milk of cougars. It made sense to me. Then when I got older, I saw a can of that cougar gold and wondered how they milked the cougars. It hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that you couldn’t have a cougar milk farm with angry cougars hooked up to milking machines.
I got a chuckle out of the image and realized that I was a grown man who believed that they were milking cougars down at the college and turning it into cheese.
9. Thanksgiving Cancels Sesame Street
During Thanksgiving, my sister's ex-boyfriend told me that my mom was cooking Big Bird in the oven. I stomped into the kitchen with a mad face and crossed arms and with great disapproval I asked, "are you really cooking Big Bird??" I was like 3.
10. A Special Guest
I used to work at a motel. It was not the sort of motel chain that brings to mind images of chocolates placed on pillows or romantic evenings in the hot tub; indeed, its signature decor can be seen in the background of certain low-budget rap videos. However, Mr. and Mrs. Idiot made it their monthly romantic getaway. In fact, due to a generous corporate policy that directed managers to provide an extra night free of charge to soothe any complaining guests, for a period lasting a year or more, they succeeded in stretching their monthly getaway to two nights.
Among the complaints that won them an extra night: The room was full of bugs after they left the door open all evening. The toilet stopped flushing after they emptied their ashtray into it The manager eventually received permission from corporate to cap the number of free nights a guest could be eligible for. The couple were the only guests ever to reach this lifetime cap at our motel.
Their shock over no longer having one free night a month did not end their regular getaway, however. It had to get much grosser. That was achieved after an incident involving copious amounts of vomit. Mr. and Mrs. Idiot were informed that they were now on the no-rent list. Apparently, this monthly stay was important to their marriage, because a few months later the manager received a call from Mrs. Idiot's divorce attorney.
What vital information did he need? He wanted to confirm that Mr. Idiot was responsible for both of them being banned from the motel. Yes, this was apparently part of the divorce proceedings. The manager explained that he considered each of them equally responsible, which was not the answer the attorney expected or wanted. Not long after, Mrs. Idiot called the front desk.
"You have me banned under the name Jane Idiot," she announced. "But—" and here she could not hide her pleasure at her own cleverness, "that's not my name anymore. I got divorced, and now my name is Jane Kelly." We had the pitch-perfect response. The front desk employee, trying to hide their laughter, said, "Ok, we'll make sure to ban you under the name Jane Kelly, too." A gasp of dismay, and the line went silent.
11. This Story Was Bearly Believable
When I was ten and my brother was seven, we were on a lake trip. I was just wandering around the treeline and he wouldn’t stop following me, so I told him that I was looking for "bear eggs." Since he had recently learned about the platypus in school and wouldn't shut up about them, I also explained to him that the bears in our area were actually marsupials that, "fell off the back of a truck.”
Since the zookeepers couldn't catch them all, they were now an invasive species. I told him that if he found anything brown and oval that wasn't a pinecone it was probably a “bear egg.” We were exploring an area where people walked their dogs and stuff. He found a lot of brown oval things before we left and my mom slapped the daylights out of me when my uncle and I laughed.
To be fair, at the time, I still believed "fell off the back of a truck" was a real thing and not a euphemism for misappropriated goods.
12. Fake News College
In my freshman year of college, we convinced a girl that after private time, the guy’s part falls off and that is what becomes the baby. Of course, the guy's part grows back like a lizard’s tail. We didn't actually think she'd believe us and just did it to poke fun. (She was an incredibly sheltered girl, sweet, but very sheltered.) She believed it, unknown to any of us, for 3 months until she went home and asked her parents if it was true.
13. Stay Thirsty
My sister used to work with a lady who was a total airhead. Let’s call her Kelly. There were a ton of stories, but this one in particular really stuck with me. One day Kelly had to call out from work in the middle of a heatwave. She was in the hospital, on IV fluids, from dehydration and heat exhaustion. After returning to work, my sister asked her how she got so dehydrated. The answer was mind-blowing.
Apparently, poor Kelly had no idea why at first, although I'm certain they tried hard to explain it to her at the hospital. I wasn't there, but from my sister's story, the conversation went something like this: Sister: "What happened? How did you get so dehydrated?" Kelly: "I don't know! I was just swimming." Sister: "Were you drinking water?"
Kelly: "Not really. But I was swimming!" Sister: "Uh, ok? You weren't drinking anything though? Like all day? It was almost a hundred degrees!" Kelly: "Yeah but I was in the water so I wasn't hot. And you can't get dehydrated when you are in water." No amount of explanation could convince her that she could, and did, get dehydrated while swimming because she didn't drink any fluids for hours on an incredibly hot day.
Too bad my sister doesn't work with her anymore, the woman was a gold mine.
14. Time To Hit The Kentucky Tale
I’m from central Kentucky and growing up we would always see tons of Ohio license plates on the road. So I asked why that was. My father proceeded to tell me that Ohio had a state law that was basically a curfew. He told me that once Ohio residents leave the state for any reason, they have a limited amount of time to return.
Therefore, if they didn’t make it back, they couldn’t re-enter the state. So, the Ohio drivers on the road were vagabonds, forever driving the surrounding states until they could go home. He told it so well and with such conviction that I believed it until I repeated it to friends in high school and finally realized what an idiot I was.
15. Marshmallow Farms
My dad told me that marshmallow farms were real. Do you ever drive by hay fields during harvest and see those big, plastic covered rolls of hay? That’s the marshmallow farm. I grew up in a small farming community and believed it for years even getting in tearful arguments with kids at recess about (kids whose parents likely own the farms).
My world was shattered when I was fifteen and discovered my dad lied to me and my siblings as kids because it was funny.
I hope to be that parent someday.
16. A Hard Lesson To Learn
There is a ridiculous girl in my class this semester. Entry level course. Students are around 18 years old. First week. I teach physics. That day, I used an example based on the scan of a running body. I then let the student work on another example based on a javelin. The girl raises her hand to signal she has a question. It was the strangest thing I ever heard. I walk to her desk and she asks, “Can you tell me what my finger has ?”
I don't understand so I freeze, confused. She then puts her finger really close to my face and I see some reddish skin shedding. “My finger, it hurts and I don't know what it is.” I'm baffled and I say I'm not a doctor and that questions about physics would be more appropriate. “Well.. you talked about the body of a person running. I thought you were a doctor.”
A few days later, we are in the computer lab. They have to follow a few steps, written on a sheet of paper, to retrieve some files. She raises her hand. Apparently, the computer is broken. She says that when she follows the first step, the computer shuts down First step is to click on the "start menu." She repeatedly pushed the power button. The "start button."
She did a few other dumb things not worth mentioning, but she managed a 0 on her final exam. But that’s not even the weirdest part. The weird part is that her copy was not blank. In fact, it was filled with words and equations. Except nothing made sense. But it wasn’t like some students do when they don't know the answer. Usually those are copying formulas for the sake of putting something on the paper and you can see on paper that those students do not feel strongly about their performance.
Her exam was not like that. It was an actual "resolution" of the problem. Basic algebra logic was thrown out of the window, but her way of giving her answers was full of confidence. I have never seen someone so blind about their lack of skills. She failed way under the passing grade, then asked to see her exam in my office. She tried to argue about my grading being too harsh.
I explained calmly how everything was defying reality on her copy, but she was still arguing some of it was good. I'm simplifying here, but her arguments were like: Ok, you said I should have used the conservative principle of energy here and the answer was 256, but my answer is 28 and at least I have one correct digit, even without using the right approach.
I don't even know how she made it that far. I don't even know how she will be able to provide for herself as an adult.
17. I Couldn’t Handle The Truth
I was seven years old, and one of my teachers wanted us to write a letter to a family member, friend, or someone. I wrote the letter, got the envelope and the stamp. My mom worked at the county prison at the time, and she suggested I write to one of the inmates who never got mail, so I did. I wrote something along the lines of, "I'm sorry you're arrested, but I hope you get out." I even signed it with my seven-year-old signature. While I was writing the letter, my mom had left to go to the store.
I asked my older brother what our address was because I needed to put a return address. Unknowingly, he gave me the address to The White House. I wrote it on the letter and put it in with the mail that my mom was sending out. Years later, I went to pick my mom up from work, and one of the corrections officers called me Mr. President. When I asked why he said that, he mentioned the letter I wrote years prior and how it was a joke in the prison any time my mom mentioned me.
18. Our Camel Ancestors
When I was a kid, my teacher said humans were mammals. I wasn’t paying much attention that day, which was a big mistake. I thought she said that humans were actually camels. So, being the lover of fun facts that I am, I told everyone I knew that humans were actually camels. No one ever corrected me. This went on for years until one day I heard that humans were mammals again and it all clicked.
19. The Slow And The Dead
So this happened a few years back. I apply for a new job, which requires a drug test for all new employees. The company is relatively small and handles all of their testing in-house using dipsticks. There is little to no supervision or protocols when you take the test. They literally hand you a cup, ask you to go into one of the bathrooms stalls (it’s not even a single stall bathroom), have you pee in a cup, then hand them the cup.
They dip it right in front of you then you are done. Easy right? So this girl comes out and hands her cup of urine to the supervisor, who then proceeds to test it. Supervisor looks up at her and shows her the dipstick. Then this glorious conversation takes place. Supervisor: So you want to try again? Her (confused): No. You have my urine right there.
Supervisor: Oh, so you're dead then? Her: (more confused): Huh? Supervisor: Look, the urine you gave me was about 58 degrees Fahrenheit. Either you are lying or you are dead. And since you don't look or sound like a corpse, I'm going to assume that it is not your urine. Her: It is my urine! I am cold-blooded. That's all. Supervisor (chuckling): Are you trying to tell me that your natural body temperature is around 58 degrees?
Her: Well I've never checked it, but yeah when I am nervous it's something around there. Needless to say, she was sent home immediately and told not to come back.
20. The Seven Year Myth
On my fifth birthday, my older sister gave me a pack of gum. It was my first time trying gum, and I swallowed it. I told my sister, and she told me that because I swallowed the gum, I would pass in seven years. I was so sad. I never told my mom because I didn't want to make her sad. So I lived the next seven years of my life awaiting my death.
My mom couldn't understand what my problem was on my 12th birthday because I was so sad. Finally, before bed, I told her how much I loved her and that I hoped she would miss me. She said, "What are you talking about?" I told her that I wasn’t going to make it through the night. My sister got yelled at, and my mom assured me I would not be gone before the morning.
21. Hamster Transformation
When I was 7, a hamster bit me and my dad told me that I would turn in a hamster slowly. The hamster owner (a 10-year-old) got the joke and went with it. I was terrified for about 2 hours.
22. The Mother Of All Idiots
At one point, I believed my mother might have a severe learning disability, coupled with learned helplessness. No, she's just an idiot. When given directions to go to the end of the block to find parking, she shot back, "How am I supposed to know what a block is, I don’t remember that from school!?" After learning I have a gluten intolerance, she makes sure to buy me foods that don't contain gluten.
"I brought you gluten-free olives, gluten-free tomatoes, and gluten-free baby carrots." When I explain gluten comes from wheat, she shoots back, "Well I'm not wrong!" Speaking of baby carrots. I love them. My mom tells me how horrible they are because they are packaged in cancer. The water inside is cancer. She yells at me anytime I eat them. Unless they are the gluten-free type she brings over.
The first time she declared bankruptcy (the first of three) she claimed it was the furniture store's fault. She had purchased a new living room set. Yes, and it gets more bizarre. Despite having money for it, she mistook the "No payments for a year" deal as meaning "You are not allowed to pay for this for a year." By then the interest had made it far more expensive and the original money was spent.
The first time I brought my new boyfriend, now husband, over she giggled and told me she had something to show me. She walked me to her bathroom and said, "I've never pooped so big in my life! I saved it to show you!" It had been there for days. My husband still mentions this. I once bought her a laptop. This was an enormous mistake.
I spent the next year giving lesson after lesson. Simple things like how to make folders and organize pictures, how to use Google or Netflix. It was fruitless and caused a lot of fights between us. Eventually she said the computer stopped turning on and I viewed it as a blessing. After about six months of her complaining, I finally went to her house to see why it wouldn't turn on.
It was not plugged in. It. Was. Not. Plugged. In. I also bought her a cellphone. She can never remember how to find the pictures she's taken, how to access her email, and specifically how to connect it to her WIFI to save data. She told me she had the cable guy come out three times to see why it wouldn't connect, but it was simply broken.
I went over, looked at the password that comes printed on the router, typed it into her phone, and it connected. My mom swears I should go into tech support. Despite being technologically inept, though, she sadly knows how to use Facebook. I am not on Facebook. Daily she'd send me Facebook links to gluten-free recipes and warnings about cancer in every product I use.
I would respond daily, "I am not on Facebook and cannot view the link." Her solution was ridiculous. She would screenshot the articles, take her phone to Walgreens, have the photo center people get the pictures off her phone, print them, and she'd then physically mail them to me. I have received over one hundred 4x6 screenshots of spam since December.
Speaking of Facebook, she believes everything. It's sad and annoying, but occasionally hilarious. My favorite was when she excitedly told me that this Halloween is the first in 666 years to fall on Friday the 13th.
23. This Was A Bunch Of Blarney
When I was little, I thought that Leprechauns were real. I spent many hours and several iterations designing traps to try and catch one because if you caught one, you would get his pot of gold. A few times I tried, I got a piece of gold, and that's what kept the magic going. It turned out my dad was painting rocks with gold paint and sneaking them into my traps at night.
It is actually a really sweet memory as a kid, but it fell apart when I started asking other kids how their traps were going, and no one knew what I was talking about.
24. Operation Sonic
I slept over at a friend's house once and he told me his dad's security system was motion sensor machine gun turrets that would drop from the ceiling if it detected an intruder. I spent the entire night perfectly still trying to hold in my pee until I couldn't anymore and sprinted for the toilet. I'm still alive so I guess I was too fast for ‘em.
25. Catch Me If You Can
This server at the restaurant I work at apparently took a customer’s credit card info while checking them out. He then goes on shopping spree with it , pending close to $7,000 in a matter of a few days. He wasn’t just using it on online purchases but somehow even used it at places like jewelry stores where there are no shortage of surveillance cameras.
I don’t know how he thought he could get could away with any of that. What truly makes this a great story is how they busted him. Once the owner of the card notified authorities, officers went to one of the jewelry stores where he bought a $600 gold necklace and had them call they guy to come back him for some reason. Not sure how they convinced him to return but he did.
Sure enough, he walked right back into the store with officers just waiting for him. Last I checked, he’s being charged with around seven felonies, and he had priors. I doubt he will see the outside of cell for a long time.
26. This Lie Blew Up
We didn't have air conditioning or central air in my home growing up, so we used box fans a lot. They sat on the floor and weren’t all that sturdy, so sometimes they would fall or get knocked over. At one point, my mom told me not to leave them running when they fell over because they would "blow up." My child mind, of course, took that to mean the same as it does in movies.
I got spooked and imagined our whole house exploding into a massive fireball. I remember one time a fan fell over next to my dad, and he wasn't urgently picking it up. I went into a panic and was yelling at him while he gave me a confused "what is your problem?" look.
27. Explosive Hazard: Child May Explode
My mother always told horror stories to me as kid to get me to stop doing certain things. They always involved a student exploding in school when she was a little girl. So, things like one time a girl had to go to the bathroom but she didn’t and held it for so long that her bladder exploded during class or a girl swallowed her gum once and every time she took a breath it blew a bubble in her stomach until her stomach exploded in class one day. I believed them all.
28. Too Much Of A Good Thing
This was related to me by a co-worker. This is at a casino coffee shop that also serves soft-serve ice cream and makes ice cream sundaes. On the condiment bar, there's a large glass bottle with honey syrup in it for adding to your tea or whatever, along with cream, sugar, etc. It's in an old Torani syrup bottle with a stopper/pourer thing and clearly liquid.
It's a honey/water mixture, like a non-alcoholic mead. Family of idiots come in and order three sundaes, all different. They each grab the honey syrup container and just dump it on their ice cream sundaes. Like, all over the sundaes. And the counter. They each take a bite of the sundaes and come up the order counter and complain that they're too sweet.
They want a refund or new sundaes. This is about $16-$22 worth of ice cream depending on what they got. The refund or free sundaes are denied since they did this to their own ice cream. They buy all new sundaes, walk over to the condiment counter, and add honey syrup again, but this time not as much.
29. Wood You Believe This?
From when I was about five to twelve years old, I believed my father had a wooden plate in his head. Whenever anyone said, “Knock on wood,” he would knock on his head. He would say it was because he had a wooden plate from when he jumped into an empty pool as a kid. He kept the lie going by adding that whenever he went to the doctor, it was because his wooden plate was being replaced due to termites.
30. The Puppy/Baby Conspiracy
I believed I was born a puppy.
Now, before you think I'm just some gullible human let me fill you in. My parents took down every single baby picture of me and replaced them with beagle pictures to prove it to me. So, for the first like 8 years of my life I believed I was born a beagle puppy and I left suspicious puddles and smelled funny when I was wet, so mom had god’s cell phone number and asked him to turn me into a little girl when I turned 2.
Which in kid brain, is pretty logical. I mean, I didn't remember before I was 2, did you?? So yeah. Spent a while believing I was a beagle.
31. A Game Of Telephone
My sister turned 21 today so I have been mulling over some of her more extreme stupid moments while writing a speech for her party. This is one of my faves: About three years ago my brother was about to move to New York (we live in Western Australia). My sister came up to him with a grave look on her face and asked if he was going to “Gunpoint.”
He was confused and asked to her clarify. She said that she didn’t think he should go there. My brother asked her if she thought “Gunpoint” was an actual place and she responded that she thought it was a place in NYC and it didn’t sound very safe because people were always getting "held up at “Gunpoint.”
32. Mirror, Mirror
My dad always told me to be good because he said that he could see around corners. Sometimes, if I got told off for being naughty, I would walk out of the room and flip him the bird and he would always know. So, once, when I was around 12, the same thing happened. I had done something wrong and he shouted at me. I then walked out of the room and, clearly out of sight, flipped him a double bird.
He knew it and ran out after me. That's when I had the most jaw-dropping revelation. The door to walk out of the living room was next to the back door for the garden, which was glass. He could always see me in the reflection. I couldn’t believe I was so stupid for so long.
33. What Actually Happens After You Say “I Do”
I thought ladies became pregnant as soon as they got married. Like, right after the "I do." I was significantly disappointed when I announced that my cats got married and my cat didn't become pregnant, haha.
34. Getting Her Wires Crossed
The woman I work with is a lovely lady, but a bit clueless. In addition to that, she refuses to take hints. As an example, she became a huge fan of the show The Expanse and she tried every day to make me watch it. I told her over and over that my husband had watched it, and I'd glanced at a few episodes over his shoulder, but, while I could see that it was an amazing show, it just wasn't my cup of tea.
That didn't work. She still kept trying to make me watch it. Finally, in some desperation, I said "If you want to talk about the show with other people, have you tried Reddit?" She'd never heard of Reddit, so I explained, "There are discussion threads for every topic you can possibly name. I guarantee there will be some about The Expanse." She seemed interested and said she'd check it out.
Fast-forward a couple of months. She and I were discussing some random topic, and I said "I saw a post about it on Reddit." She got a very weird look on her face and said accusingly, "What were you doing on Reddit?" Puzzled, I said, "Why shouldn't I be?" She said angrily "Oh, gee, I don't know—because you're married?" Now I was even more puzzled and asked, "What's that got to do with it?".
She looked a little less certain and said "Well, it's a dating site, isn't it?" Turned out that she'd completely forgotten our previous conversation and had Reddit confused with Tinder.
35. Beam Me Up
When I was seven years old, my mother married my stepfather. He had a really great job, and as a result, had a BMW. One day, I got to ride in the front seat of his car for the first time. I had never in my life experienced anything so modern or so expensive before then. I was in awe of the dashboard, the interior, the seat warmers—everything just blew me away.
I think he must have noticed, because he was like, "Hey, watch this.” He raised his hand in the air, in front of the dash, and made a gesture like he was turning the volume dial for the music, without touching anything. What I didn't see, was his other hand on the steering wheel turning up the music from there. He then told me to try turning down the volume.
When it worked, I was just amazed. I actually believed his car could magically do that until I was 16 years old. I didn't ride in his car very often, so it kind of kept the illusion of it alive. My stepfather couldn't believe that I had kept on believing for so long. Then again, I also thought lacrosse was a big, secret joke that the whole world was in on.
36. Cleanliness Is Next To Pe---
When I was a little boy, my parents told me that my private part would fall off if I didn't wash it every day. I thought it was a lie until one fateful day. I saw my mom naked. Then I got scared.
Piqsels
37. Acronyms Are Hard, To Be Fair
This happened way back in high school. Senior year government class. I had grown up with this girl. She was your classic dumb blonde cheerleader type. We all expected dumb things to come from her. But usually they were good natured and an attempt was made. But I’ll never forget this one time. We're learning about the different government entities and we get to NASA.
The teacher asks "who knows what it stands for?" and most people get it wrong but are very close ("National Air and Space Association" is what I hear the most). But this girl, to the surprise of everyone, raises her hand so fiercely. And she's like "I know this!" This is a girl who thought the American Revolution happened in 1900…But we're all very interested to know what she's going to say.
The teacher is taken aback that she might know this too. But he's like "please, share with the class!" Because he really wants her to do well. So, with so much pride she sits up and goes "NASA stands for NATIONAL AUTO PARTS OF AMERICA!" To say the class laughed was an understatement. The teacher laughed so hard he had tears in his eyes.
He wasn't trying to be mean but was caught off guard. She rolled with it because her making dumb statements was the norm. This has stuck with me for almost 20 years and still makes me smile.
38. I Couldn’t Brush This One Off
When I was young, I once asked my older cousins if they also hated the burning after-taste when you swallowed toothpaste. They looked at me with matching expressions of horror. My cousin told me, “Don't swallow toothpaste. You only have like three chances. After that, you've had too much of the chemicals, and you'll be a goner by the time you turn 21."
I was horrified and said, "But I've accidentally swallowed toothpaste in heaps." They grimaced and said, "Oh gosh, I hope not." Several years later, it suddenly dawned on me that they were obviously making it up.
39. Let’s Go See the Man with Many Noses
My dad used to make this lame joke on New Year’s Eve: there's a man standing on the market place who has just as many noses on his face as there are days left in the year. I got that it was a joke because there was only one day left, but I still thought there was a man that you could go see. I imagined he would be like a street performer who is only in business one day each year. I always wanted to go see him, but we never did.
40. This One’s A Keeper
Last year I had the luck to live with an idiot roommate in a shared house at university. Here are a few of his adventures. He got hit by a train. Tipsy ad trying to get himself home, he realized he was on the wrong platform…so walked straight across and woke up in hospital with officers by his side telling him not to leave. That’s not what ended up happening.
He jumped out of a window onto his damaged legs and took a taxi home. He was later fined for trespassing on the railway. He also managed to score 109% plagiarism on an essay for his course. He claimed that ‘because he copied it from a book and not from the internet, he didn’t think they would be able to tell.” They could tell. He scored zero. We are still unsure of how 109% plagiarism is even possible.
He managed to lose three iPhone 7s in the space of five months and would just buy a new one every time one went missing. One time, still tipsy, he climbed a building and proceeded to fall two stories onto the pavement. He woke up with no memory of the night but couldn’t walk properly and was peeing blood. He decided not to go to the hospital because he doesn’t like queues and waiting, so he limped for two months and ignored his bloody urine.
He once showed up to work eight hours late. When asked where he was, he told his managers that he was still coming down off Ketamine from the night before. Somehow he was not fired for this. One time when we had a party, he got on our roof and proceeded to fall off, ripping the guttering off with him, which he proceeded to stab my other housemate with for a joke.
He once snorted cocoa powder as he was told it would get him high. He has failed his first year of university twice now, and is currently paying to retake it for the third time. He hasn’t told his parents. They expect him to graduate this year.
41. I Had My Bubble Burst
When I was young, we lived near a small private airfield. My mother told us that if we waved to the airplanes as they passed by, they would throw us bubblegum. We were the idiots waving like goons at all the small planes overhead for far too long. When we asked her later why she told us that she said, "When you have kids, look at the trust and belief in their eyes and see if you'll be able to resist messing with them."
42. Impulsively Polite
I felt the need to personally thank the driver of the subway train every time we took it. I thought it would be rude and impolite to not do so. It must have been so embarrassing for my mom. The driver cabin had tinted windows and I demanded the driver lowered them so I could thank him. I was like 5 or 6. Similarly, I was taught to give my seat to the elderly or pregnant women. One time, as soon as the door opened and an old looking man entered the wagon, I bolted from my seat and ran to him, grabbed him by the hand and brought him to the empty seat.
Thank god I didn't do that to a fat lady or my mom would have died from embarrassment.
43. One Cooked Turkey
I work at a grocery store that always get slammed during the day of a major holiday (or day before if we aren’t open on the holiday in question), because every other chain store would be sold out from last minute panic buying as well. I was just finishing up restocking what I could in the baking aisle (since that’s where most of the demand comes from) and I was about to start getting ready to close when a man came up and asked me, “Where are your frozen turkeys?”
“They’d be in the frozen foods section in the little bunker in the middle of the aisle,” I politely said, albeit questioning why anyone would buy a FROZEN turkey at 4 pm on Thanksgiving Day. They wouldn’t be able to cook it fully unless they deep fried it immediately once they came home, and that was still probably not going to happen.
“No no no,” the man said, “I don’t mean those frozen turkeys, I mean the other kind of frozen turkey.” Riiiiight... “Uhhh, I’m sorry sir,” I said, “those are the only frozen turkeys we have. If you wish we might have some hams in our meat department that are thawed and should be good by your Thanksgiving din-“ “I don’t want a stupid ham, I want a proper frozen turkey, your hams are properly frozen yet I see no turkeys.”
It was then I realized that he meant REFRIGERATED turkeys, not frozen ones. “Sir, we don’t SELL refrigerated turkeys, we only have the ones in our frozen section.” “Why wouldn’t you have a good and proper frozen turkey?” He asked, infuriated by the simple information given to him, “(Popular Chain superstore) sells them and they’re all sold out.”
“Because they’re a ginormous superstore while we’re a much smaller grocery store,” I explained, “now unless you have another question I need to get back to work.” He left in a huff, muttering something about how we lost a customer because we didn’t sell what he wanted. I let out a sigh of relief before hearing someone behind me ask, “Excuse me sir, where are your frozen turkeys?”
I nearly lost my head before recognizing the voice as my grandfather’s, who apparently was listening to the whole conversation while choosing a refrigerated HAM for Thanksgiving dinner.
We laughed for a while about it before I had to go get ready to close up the store and he had to go back to his house and get ready for Thanksgiving.
44. His Lie Left Me Sore
My dad told me that canker sores, or “ulcers” as we called them, came from telling lies. He said this to me a few times. In third grade, when the teacher asked if anyone knew why we get them, I raised my hand and proceed to spout out, “My daddy said they come from telling lies.” My teacher's awkward silence and lack of eye contact let me know it was my papa who sat on a throne of lies!
45. Real Virtual Reality
When I was perhaps 6, I thought that for every computer on the face of the earth, there was a person whose job was to do your mathematical calculations and play against you if you're playing "against the computer."
46. Safe AND Sorry
This took place over a decade ago, when I was 17. I was getting my A Levels from a high school in India (I’m Indian). There was this loveable fool, Dennis, who was a part of our group. Very funny guy. I can’t be sure if he was playing dumb for laughs or just really dumb at times. Anyway, most people in our group were couples and were getting sexually active.
We had one popular couple who would be intimate without protection and then the girl would take a birth control pill (emergency contraceptive) after. She would take at least 4-5 each month, I really hope she’s doing okay now. The rest of us played safe and very rarely had to go for the pill. At that time, the pill that was easily available cost like $2.50 and was called something like “Pill 72” and it had two pills in it.
The first pill had to be taken within 72 hours and the second had to be taken 12 hours after the first. We all knew that because it was mentioned in the little booklet that came in the box. Well one day, Dennis and his girl lost their virginities to each other. Of course they used no protection at all and decided to listen to the popular couple instead of everyone else.
Dennis and his girl were at my boyfriend’s house and we were all chilling. The guy from the popular couple bought the pills for Dennis’ girl and handed them over for her to take. Dennis, like the gentleman he was, opened the packaging for her, poured her a glass of water, and gave her a pill in her hand. Then he did something that made me gasp.
He then takes the second pill, pops it into his own mouth, and then proclaims “done.” It took us the next half hour to explain that he wasn’t supposed to take it, it was meant only for her. He still couldn’t understand. We made him read the booklet and we tried to find a video for him to watch. He was still unconvinced. It got to the point where someone ran down to get his girl another pill for her to take 12 hours later.
I heard he took the second pill AGAIN, “just to be safe.” In fact, the next time they used the pill, they bought two, and he took one set and she took the other. We tried to talk sense into the girl and she said “just go with it.”
47. The Apple Fell Far From The Tree
When I was very little, every time I went to visit my grandpa, he would take me out to the garden to pick an apple from his apple tree. Four years after he had passed, when I was 16, we were sitting around sharing stories about him, and I said, “Hey, whatever happened to that apple tree?” My family laughed and finally exposed the truth.
It was just a regular tree, and he would go tie a few apples to it with string before we went over. Looking back, it was a skinny little tree, with big perfect red apples in it.
48. Just Add Salt
My dad told me that I could have a pet chipmunk or squirrel if I caught one. He told me the key to catching one, and his words were utterly insane. He said to shake salt on their tail, they would always stop to lick the salt off and then I'd be able to catch it. Not hard to figure out why he told us that, because my brother and I would spend hours a day running around the yard with a bucket and a salt shaker.
I think the last time I tried was when I was like 9. I never really thought about it again until I was like 15 and it was mind blowing to realize it was all just to keep us busy outside.
49. A Menace To Society
This guy, Rob, worked with a small rotating group of people. Slowly but surely, he annoyed each of them by being dumb and angry. Rob’s 35, the first co-worker is barely 17, sweet girl and a very hard worker. Everyone is protective over her, even though she's pretty tough and probably doesn't need it. Rob repeatedly asked her out to eat, making it a point it wasn't a date, yet also saying it would just be the two of them.
Creepy guy. He didn't take her polite rejections, didn't take her flatly saying no, then finally got mad and confused when she went off on him. The manager had a long talk with him, and he lost hours since he refused to work with her and not be a creep. Second co-worker is an older guy, 60 or so. Deaf as a post and needs some serious hearing aids to function. Really cool guy.
Rob first complained the older guy was allowed to wear headphones...manager explained the difference but we're not sure he understood. Then, Rob kept turning down the volume on the monitors (which are vital for older guy’s job and nothing to do with Rob’s) because "he should be able to hear fine with robot ears." Older guy requested not to work with Rob.
After a sit down with HR and Rob not budging on robot ears, he lost even more hours. We're convinced they didn't fire him then because they thought he was so dumb he must be disabled. Nope, and they lived to regret it. Third co-worker is a young woman, who took exactly 0% of Rob’s antics from day one. He continually talked bad about co-worker one, and co-worker three continually defended her.
Story goes that Rob grabbed her butt, so she decked him in the face, and his defense was that there was a spider on her and he was trying to save her. HR suspended him, investigated, but apparently co-worker three dropped it saying the hit to his face and ego should be enough. They reluctantly let him back but yet again, with less hours.
During this time we had a boss leave, so many people got to move up a position or two. This manager had been there for years and was the obvious choice for the manager position. Rob complained, saying she wasn't a "people person" like he was. He spent his time trying to sabotage her, in the weirdest ways possible. Moved stuff and blamed it on her. There was just one thing he forgot. He did it right in front of the cameras.
She was the only person he could work with due to past issues, and he continually complained about having to work with her. Made her explain basic aspects of the job to him, stuff he’s been doing the whole time he’s been there, then would mess it up, blaming her for not training him right. Ate others’ lunches, left the containers in her office.
One lunch included something the manager is allergic too, not deadly allergic but still not something to mess with. At the sight of that container in her trash she went directly to HR, who had been keeping an eye on him, then filed a complaint about the lunch thefts. This was enough to fire him, but before the investigation was done he PUT THE ALLERGEN IN HER FOOD, watched her eat it, then congratulated himself on catching her in a lie when she "only broke out in hives.”
Fired, charges pressed, and was escorted off the property within a half an hour. He was mad, saying they had no evidence, because he had made sure to stay off the cameras. The escort responded, "No you didn't, but thank you for the confession."
50. She's A Rich Girl
When I was around eight years old, my family went to Disneyworld and shared a hotel. On the floor was a vending machine. At the time, I had a habit of looking through the coin slot of vending machines to see if people had left behind their change. On this trip, I hit the jackpot. Every time I passed the machine, there would be a few coins waiting for me—every single time.
I ended up with almost $6.00 during that trip. I thought the machine was broken. Many years later, I was telling this story to a friend of mine, and my dad started laughing. He then revealed the truth, which was that my grandmother would put the coins into the slot before I had the chance to look.
51. Alien Purple Potatoes
My mother bought purple potatoes once and I was 5 or 6 and asked her where she got them. She told me that those are potatoes from Mars. Guess who believed it and talked about it all day at class?
52. Man On The Run
A few years ago, I was a Driver Trainer for a large trucking company. Basically, my job was to take newly-minted truck drivers and teach them how to handle themselves in the real world. Sometimes, it was easy; other times it was like teaching a fish to play tennis. One of my students, Dale, was so dense he made a lead brick seem like a feather pillow.
Not because of his driving, but because he almost got himself (and me) arrested. Here’s the story. Dale was on my truck for about three weeks. He wasn’t the worst student I had, but he was far from the best. At week two, we end up stuck in Salt Lake City, Utah after delivering a load. It was a slow time of year and SLC had always been a sparse area for outgoing loads, so I expected to have to wait to leave out.
Not a big deal; I needed the downtime. Dale, from out of nowhere, started to seem anxious about something. When I ask him why he’s so tense, he tells me he needs to get his license changed to his home state. He lived in Louisiana, but his license was from Iowa. The company used a loophole in Iowa state law by granting temporary residency to students to get them a license.
After the license was issued, they had 30 days to get it switched to their home state. Not a major issue since management knew the drill and would get us to the student’s home state in plenty of time. “Dude,” Dale asked, “When can we go to Louisiana? I need to get my license changed.” He asked this every day for a week, but it wasn’t until we were stuck in SLC that is really seemed to bug him.
“Look, I’ve told dispatch you need to get home. They’ll work it out. Just relax.” He didn’t. After three days, we finally get to leave SLC bound for Chicago. It takes a few days and the entire trip, I can tell he’s getting more and more nervous. Eventually, he can’t talk about anything else except how he NEEDS to get home. He was getting pretty annoying.
We make our delivery in Chicago and get another going to Laredo, Texas. Normally, we would have gone through Houston, Texas, but this happened during the massive floods and I knew going that way would be a bad idea. Fortunately, I found a way that would avoid the flooding AND get Dale to his hometown. Better still, we would have enough time for him to get a ride to the DMV, get his license changed and still make delivery in plenty of time.
Win-win-win. And Dale finally seemed relieved. We get to Dale’s hometown on a Sunday afternoon. As he gets ready to leave, I tell him “First thing in the morning, get your butt to the DMV, get your license taken care of and get back here pronto so we can get going.” He says “OK” and leaves with his girlfriend while I enjoy some time to myself.
The next morning, I give Dale until 10AM before I start getting impatient. I texted him, asking where he was, and got no reply. I text again; again, no answer. I call...no answer. I tell dispatch, who’s asking me when we’ll get moving, that Dale has disappeared; he was supposed to get his license changed over but I haven’t heard from him all day.
Dispatch tries to call him and they don’t have any better luck. Apparently, Dale has disappeared. By late afternoon, I start getting the feeling this little jerk has bailed on me and wasted my time (this was a common occurrence for new drivers). I tell dispatch that I’ll give him until the morning to reach out; if he doesn’t, I’ll continue on to Laredo on my own.
There was still plenty of time and dispatch agreed. Morning came, Dale was still AWOL and I was out of patience. I send him one more text telling him I’m leaving without him and head out. I drive for several hours before taking a mandatory break and check my messages. I check my texts and see a huge surprise. Dale had actually reached out to me.
“Hey, man. My PO found out I took a job driving and was angry that I left Louisiana. She told me to get back as soon as possible or she would have me listed as a fugitive. I called her yesterday (Monday) but she’s out of town and told me to wait till she gets back on Wednesday.” I’m completely shocked. PO?…as in PAROLE OFFICER?!?!
“Dale, are you telling me you’re on parole and leaving the state without permission?!” “Yeah, I got parole for two years. I didn’t think it be a big deal since I was working.” “Dude, you violated your parole! You’ll be lucky if you don’t end up back behind bars. “Well, my PO said she wants to talk about it Wednesday.” “Yeah, I imagine so. You better get in touch with dispatch and let them know so they can work something out.”
I end the conversation and continue on to Laredo. I deliver the load and pick up another headed to Atlanta, GA. Thursday, I call Dale to find out what the deal was. He tells me that his PO gave him the OK to keep working. “I assume you have some kind of official document that says that.” I tell him. “Uh…no. She didn’t give me one.” “Then you better GET one because there is no way I’m leaving the state with you unless I have something from the state saying it’s OK.”
“Uh…why?” “Because if I carry you across state lines KNOWING you’re violating parole, that makes me an accessory.” “Oh, ok. I’ll ask her.” I tell Dale when and where to meet me. I tell him that if he disappears again, I’m not coming back to get him. He says he understands. I get to the location when I said I would….and he’s nowhere to be seen.
I text…no answer. By this point, my patience for this clown is completely gone. I tell dispatch I don’t trust this guy’s word and I’m not taking a chance on him lying to me. I leave out again and head for Atlanta. Dale does reach out…six hours later…and wants to know if I’ll come back for him. I tell him that he has lied three times and acted so shady that I can’t trust him to do the right thing.
If he wants to finish his training, he can sort something out with management but he won’t see me again. Months later, I found out the whole story. Dispatch told me later that Dale’s PO had NOT given him permission to leave the state again. Apparently, I made the right call by leaving him there. Fortunately, they weren’t interested in prosecuting me. I have no idea what happened to Dale, but I imagine he did something else that was stupid and landed back in the slammer.
53. The Parent Trap
When I was little, I was just TERRIFIED of burglars. My mind was just wrought with fear over someone breaking into our house. My parents would always try to ease my worry but to no avail. Until one day they came up with this lie to make me feel safe. By our front door, there was an outlet with three switches. Two of them controlled outside and inside lights but the third didn’t seem to connect to anything.
I always asked them, “What does the third switch control?” My parents decided to tell me that it detonates devices buried in our front yard. My dad decided to build upon the story and said that one night he buried a ton of devices under the ground in the front yard and if a burglar stepped in the yard, a signal would go off. He would then flip the switch making the devices detonate and destroy the burglar.
It was definitely a really weird and intense lie to tell a six-year-old, but I never worried about burglars at that house again.
54. The National Honeymoon Foundation Subsidy
My dad told me I could only push the crosswalk button once because each additional push would take $1.00 off of my college fund. He also told me that when you get married, the National Honeymoon Foundation paid for your honeymoon. My dad likes to mess with people.
55. When One Door Closes…
A couple of years ago, I worked at a cafe, and met my fair share of...interesting people, but this couple takes the cake when it comes to sheer stupidity. For some quick context, the main entrance to the cafe is a door you just have to pull in order to open. I was cleaning up the coffee machine after I had made a cup for a customer when I looked out the glass wall to see a man and a woman approach the cafe.
The woman tries to push open the door. It doesn't work. I figure she just did that classic thing where you're not sure which way the door opens and just tried pushing first, since it requires less effort than pulling, so I don't think much of it, and just get ready for when they enter. She pushes the door again. Okay. Maybe she figured the door was just stuck.
I mean, that happens every now and then, right? I'm about to go help when I see the man walk past her with that "I got this" look on his face. He confidently places his hand on the handle and...he pushes. Then it just escalates He looks genuinely surprised, and tries again. And again. And again. Each time, he gets more forceful, at one point slamming his shoulder against the glass door.
The two are so preoccupied with this door that they don't even notice me staring dumbfounded at them the whole time, other than being, you know, helpful. Eventually, I figure that if I don't help, they'll either leave or break the door, so I push myself from the counter to go there and help them. That's when they spot an open sliding door on the other side of the cafe, leading to the outside tables, which are very popular at that time of the year, and decide to go around and squeeze past all the guests sitting there and enjoying their meals.
When they finally made it through, it's as if the stars and planets aligned perfectly. They look toward the main entrance to see an old man approach, place a hand on the handle, and...pull the door open with no effort. It had been an absolutely uneventful day up until that point, so I had to ask a co-worker who didn't witness this to handle them, and I just walked into the back to laugh.
56. I Should Have Ditched This Concept
There were these ditches dug along the roads so that plowed snow had somewhere to go in the winter. So, naturally, they collect water and are really marshy and grow reeds. I used to think you could sink into them as one would sink into an actual marsh. My sister, who was three years older than me, decided to mess with me—and boy, she did not hold back.
She told me that kids have been lost by sinking into the marshy ditches and that there were trolls who live underneath who ate them. She said that after a girl had been lost, they lowered a bag of chips into it, and they could hear the trolls crunching and munching on them.
57. Exclusive Tattoo Book for Suvivors
When my dad was young, he got into a really bad accident where he fell off of a cliff when he was riding his motorcycle (true story). He also has a giant tribal tattoo on his arm. He made me believe that you needed to go off a cliff to get that tattoo and that there was a whole secret book filled with tattoos that you could only get if you did cool stunts or almost died.
58. Very Conditional Love
Long ago, in his unwise youth, my husband dated a girl, let’s call her Jane. Jane had a job that had required a certain level of education. She had stable employment, a modest but nice apartment, and a decent car. It was time to reward herself for her success. What she wanted, no, DESERVED, was a brand new car. Granted, it was the 1970s, when car prices were lower, but it was early in her career and she had no savings for a down payment, not to mention she already had a perfectly serviceable car.
Several people, including my husband, gave her an explanation of depreciation and how new cars lose value very quickly, but Jane wasn't having it. She wanted a new car and that was that. Somehow she got someone (we'll say it was a bank, but it may have been a finance company) to give her a loan. Due to the lack of a reasonable down payment and probably her own inept negotiating skills, the monthly payment was rather high and just barely doable, provided she scrimped on things like groceries and heat.
She struggled along stubbornly for a few months, but then was hit with a rent increase. It wasn't much of an increase, but she had absolutely no cushion. Moving wasn't a good option because that would bring other expenses. She asked her dad to give her a loan to make her car payment. He agreed but made it clear it was a one-time thing.
"You've got to talk to the bank and get out of that deal," he told her. "You're going to lose money"—because she was now upside down on the loan due to depreciation—"but you're just digging yourself in deeper." Jane thought it over, and she came up with a plan. It was, to her, the most brilliant plan ever thought of. In fact, she couldn't understand why no one had ever come up with it.
She would sell the car. She did not discuss this plan with anyone, perhaps out of fear of blinding them with her brilliance. She was in a hurry to be rid of it, so she advertised it at far below book value. Her ad was answered by someone who was even stupider than her, and this person did not question why there was no title. Jane brushed her hands together in a "that's done" motion, used the money from the sale of the car to buy a much more modest replacement, and proceeded to move on with life.
Pretty soon the bank called, reminding her she hadn't made her car payment. "I don't have the car anymore," she told them with what can only be imagined as great satisfaction, "so I don't have to make the payment." What had she done with the car, they asked. "I sold it." I see, they said. And exactly where is the car right now? Needless to say, the car was quickly repossessed by the bank from the person who thought they had bought it.
Jane was quite shocked to learn she did indeed have to pay back the loan, which as mentioned earlier was currently more than the value of the car. She was also shocked to learn that if you sell someone a car you don't actually own and it gets repossessed, the person you sold it to will demand their money back. My husband, hearing all this, decided that just maybe he'd look for a girlfriend who was a little bit brighter.
59. This Idea Shouldn’t Have Taken Flight
I was pretty smart and could deduce some pretty complex things. Well, I figured that in order to turn, there were weights inside the long wings of airplanes that could move from one end to the other. When going straight, the weights are in the middle, and to turn left, the weights shift to the left, into the wingtips, and so on. It was so dumb to think that, but I would like to believe that such a design could actually work in practice.
60. My Dad, The Rain Man
I believed my parents could stop the rain. Whenever it was raining and we were in the car my dad used to say, "I'm going to stop the rain in a sec but I can only do it for a second because it hurts." We'd drive a little further and then the rain would stop! It took forever for me to figure out how he did it. He'd just drive under a bridge and then close his eyes and pretend to concentrate. I believed him for years.
61. Sick And Tired
There is no other way to describe this woman I work with than stupid. She has called in sick multiple times since September 16th. In this time she has: driven herself to the hospital with a 40° temperature. Let us remember that basal body temp is 37°, 39° is classed as a fever, and at 41 or 42 your organs shut down. She blacked out on the Autobahn—you know, that place where CARS DRIVE AT WHATEVER SPEED THEY SEE FIT and crashed.
Last night, she choked, couldn't breathe, and turned blue. Her mother had to come into her room to try and save her. She only decided to seek medical attention this morning. I live in Germany, but am a native English speaker. On our first day, we were talking about languages. I asked if she could speak anything other than German, she said no.
Odd, as lots of Germans our age (she's two years younger than me, I'm in my late 20s) have at least school level English, but whatever. She then had a phone conversation with her mother in perfect Arabic. She couldn't discern that German and Arabic are different languages. She asked me what working visa I had to get to live in Germany and if it was hard to get it.
I am an Irish citizen—we have freedom of movement with the EU, of which Germany is also a member. She was entirely unaware of this. This woman is harmless, but one day is going to unintentionally cause her own end.
62. Her Lie Left Me Cold
My sister once dramatically exclaimed, "My hand froze off!" She said this while running her hand under warm water after a ski trip where she had lost a glove. I was terrified and hid in my room for an hour. Later, I came out, and her hand was back to normal. I asked her how she got her hand back. She said, "Your hand just grows back if it's frozen off. You only really lose it if you cut it off."
I distinctly remember telling my teachers and schoolmates that my sister grew back her frozen hand. I was only seven years old, but even when they tried to tell me she was messing with me, I just assumed my teacher was dumb and didn't know what I did.
63. Limited Clearance: Employees Only
I didn't really understand how jobs worked. Everywhere I went there were employees, but I had never in my life noticed an employee entering or leaving their workplace. I assumed that every business had a secret entrance that employees always used, and was so convinced in the obviousness of this that I never asked anyone whether or not it was true.
I was very, very confused by where to go when I got my first job.
Public Domain Pictures
64. Getting A Second Opinion
I work as a healthcare provider at a doctor’s office and occasionally will work the front desk. The following exchange happened Friday. Patient: (filling out paperwork) “Are kidney stones the same as a bladder infection?” Me: “No...stones are hardened deposits that form in your kidney” P: “Are you sure??” M: “Yes…they are two different organs.” I wish I had just given up then.
Five minutes later: P: “Are bladder problems the same as kidney stones??” M: “No…still different organs and in different parts of the body.” P: “That can't be right, I have stones and it always hurts when I go to the bathroom, therefore they must be related to the bladder!” M: “I promise they aren't.” P: “Well, how do YOU really know? It's not like you’re a doctor” (insert eye-rolling). “I'll just ask Google!!”
M: “Ok…” P: (a couple of minutes later) “OH MY GOSH! Even Google is agreeing with you! Ugh, I'll just ask the doctor when I get in the room!” M: “That's perfectly fine.”
65. This Story Was All Fluff
I was picky about food. One day, I proclaimed loudly that I didn't like marshmallows. Then, someone told me that marshmallows were used to make Rice Krispie squares, so I informed my mother I would not be eating Rice Krispie squares because I didn't want to eat marshmallows. Until I was an adult, she made sure to warn everyone I would come into contact with—whether it was other parents, my teachers at school, basically, every person who she could get to—that her Rice Krispie squares were made with sugar glue.
I was 18 before I learned that was a lie.
66. Long-Necked Animal Island
I believed that giraffes are long necked deer and because of that, there's a secret island somewhere where there is a long-necked version of everything and the long-necked deer is the only one that we know about.
67. Money For Nothing
My part-time co-worker Andrea came running up to me, bursting with good news. "They did it again! They messed up and paid me an extra hour again this week!" "Huh?" I said, "What do you mean?" "I work from midday to quarter past five every day, but the last few weeks, I've checked my payslips, and they've been paying me 5.25 hours each day! I'm getting an extra ten minutes each day, which is fifty minutes a week, almost a whole extra hour! For nothing!"
"Um" says I, ever eloquent, " You realize that decimal is part of an hour, right? Not minutes?" With an amazingly condescending and pitying look, she says "Yes, I know it's a decimal. Five point two Five. Point two five of an hour is twenty five minutes, but I've only been working fifteen!"
She then throws in, as you might to preschooler, "Twenty-five is ten more than fifteen!" What else could I do? I said, "Wow, that's pretty lucky, don't worry, the secret's safe with me, but you can buy me a couple of beers sometime with your lucky windfall bonus money." I watched as she ran off, happy as a pig in proverbial, utterly convinced she's getting money for nothing.
68. Switched At Birth Sham
I had always had an inkling that I was adopted, and my older brother played into that a lot by making fun of me and telling me that I was. I also was the only member of my family to look Mexican, and people always thought I was, while my family was half white and half Indian. When I was young, we moved to a new city a few hours away.
The people who owned the house before us had a maid service and that company gave us one month free to see if we liked it. The maid that worked for us was a young Mexican woman named Juanita. My brother very cleverly came up with the lie that Juanita was my birth mother and that she had an affair with a very famous person.
Since this person couldn't have the public image of cheating on his wife, he paid her a lot of money to put me up for adoption. He continued, saying that my parents had found out about Juanita being in this city, and we moved there so I could be closer to my birth mother. I believed this story for two years!
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69. Paralympic Lawyer
I grew up with a grandmother who was in a diving accident as a young girl. As such, she was relegated to a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Long story short, I had a paralyzed grandmother.
When I was old enough to ask what she did for work, I was told she was a paralegal. This being around the time I was learning how prefixes worked in words I heard para, and legal. Thus, my young brain made the brilliant connection and all the way until I was 14 years old, I lived believing that a paralegal was a lawyer in a wheelchair.
Pexels
70. Snack Time Gone Wrong
My idiot “friend” wanted a grilled cheese sandwich. Simple enough, right? Hahahaha…no. After deciding to use his mom's steel pan to make the sandwich, he went about prepping. Mistakes were made. He used fresh butter to coat the bread. Fresh as in just opened and still hard. He just cut off big chunks and basically ripped the bread up trying to spread it.
He cut the cheddar into large chunks as well instead of a series of thin slices. The sandwich was overloaded and lopsided with giant holes in the bread. He turned the heat on the burner to high, and didn't put any oil or butter in the pan, figuring that the butter on the sandwich would be enough. He didn't turn on the fan above the stove and walked out for a minute after setting the sandwich on the pan.
Now, I don't condone using the fire alarm as a cooking timer, but that's what happened. He just decided to flip the sandwich and keep going. The chunks of burned cheese, bread, and butter coating the pan nearly ruined it and there were some pretty bad permanent stains on it even after steel wool was used. Here’s my confession: That idiot was me.
I swear I'm a better cook now, but my mom banned me from the kitchen for a few months after that, and I am still only allowed to use her cast iron when cooking at her house. That specific pan is still in use 10+ years later, though.
71. They Told Me A Historic Lie
When I was a kid, my dad got these little arrowheads from some gift shop and put them out in our backyard. He told me that Indigenous people used to inhabit where our yard was and that if I looked around I could find different things that were left behind. When I found those arrowheads, I almost squealed with delight. I thought I had discovered artifacts from Indigenous civilizations in my backyard.
I told people about it every now and again and was pretty proud of it. I bragged about it to friends, teachers, and even people at the local historical society. I really felt stupid for believing it for as long as I did. I should have realized sooner that it clearly wasn’t true based on the fact that the explanations about them were too far-fetched, the placement of them was obviously in places where a kid would be able to find them, and that the concept wasn’t told to me before or after that one afternoon.
72. (Lack Of) Knowledge is Power
We lived in my great aunt's house for a while when I was a kid and my parents were getting back onto their feet and there was this heater in the living room. It had a little window where you could see the pilot light in there and I was fascinated by it. I thought that because the flame was blue that it would be cold to the touch. It kind of made sense, but it was incredibly stupid considering this flame was keeping a heater going. One day I decided to stick my fingers through this little chip in the glass to test my dumb idea. The flame was not cold. It was very hot like regular fire and burned me. Luckily, it wasn't too bad.
When I found out that the little thing at the end when you pluck out a hair is called a root, I thought that maybe I would be able to plant it anywhere on my body. For a long time, I tried very hard to grow hairs on my fingertips. I don't know why exactly. It just seemed like a cool place at that age and I could use freak people out. Although I eventually found out in theory that method does work and is used, the way I was doing it by letting it sit there on my fingertips does not.
Do you remember the commercial where they planted Skittles in the ground and a rainbow grew? Well, when I was a kid my parents convinced me it was true, but took longer than the commercial showed. For about a month or two I tried very hard to grow a rainbow in my backyard, watering it when I would get home from school. Eventually they told me the truth and now as an adult I feel like I would find that petty to do to my kid too.
73. A Real Brown Thumb
This guy Harvey has been one of my closest friends since college. Absolute genius—top of his undergrad and business school courses, high-flying consultant, etc. It would all be truly nauseating, if he weren’t such an amazing guy. We were roommates for a while in London. Literally, the perfect person to live with—tidy, fun, but also understood boundaries. Except he had one fatal flaw.
At one point when we were living together, I went for a three-week adventure holiday, so was pretty much out of contact. Anyway, I asked Harvey to take care of my plants while I was gone. Seemed a simple ask. Gave him instructions to water them every couple of days and rough amounts of water needed. Came back and the dear boy seemed very guilty.
“Sorry, but I think I may have destroyed some of your plants...I watered them as you said, but something may have gone wrong...” I walk in and look around at my plants, figuring he might have forgotten to water them a couple of days or something…Well, nope, he really did destroy them. Fair enough, things happen right? But then I started smelling this godawful smell in a couple of places.
Couldn’t figure it out. He was Mr. Tidy, remember? Turns out Harvey had watered all of my dried plants—think bundles of sculptural sticks, etc. A bit of fake ivy where I was trying to make an ugly window ledge look pretty. He’d watered them diligently every two days for three weeks. Pools of vile water in the bottom of their containers, like some kind of semi-sentient primordial ooze that absolutely reeked.
Black mold crept up the sides of the containers and on the bases of the plants that yielded clouds of spores when I pulled them out. Black mold is toxic of course, so was a bit scary. I had to trash plants, containers, etc. in case they very likely would make us sick. Turns out my dear, sweet, genius Harvey had noticed the dank smell, but thought that was “probably normal for plants at some point in their lives” and didn’t want to let me down by not watering.
So he lived in our veritable plague farm of a flat for all three weeks suffering in silence. I really had to struggle not to weep while laughing. He was so earnest and had tried so hard. But good lord, sometimes even geniuses can be complete idiots.
74. It Was A Twisted Deception
When I was about four or five years old, I was a really anxious kid. Even though we lived in an area where tornados were rare, but not unheard of, I was really fixated on the possibility of a tornado coming to destroy our house. So, to alleviate my anxiety, my dad told me that those spinning attic vents you see on houses were "tornado stoppers.”
He said that they spin the opposite way to a tornado and cancel it out, with an effective range that went to the end of our street. I accepted this at face value and didn't question it until many years later when I looked at our roof and noticed we didn't actually have a spinning-style attic vent. My dad had just assumed we had one and neither of us had bothered to check.
Pixabay
75. All the Same on the “Down Inside”
I believed that planets all had a “down inside.” Like, they had their regular surfaces that you see in photographs, but if you land there, you could go down inside the planet and see the real thing - like the people who lived there and cities and stuff. Earth looks green and blue in pictures but here we all are! So obviously we exist “down inside” the planet. And if you go land on Saturn or something, the surface will look like the pictures until you go down inside and you can see what the world of Saturn is really like. When people talked about space travel, I used to say that I’d never want to unless you got to go down inside the planets you visited.
The whole “we’re the only planet with intelligent life” thing didn’t really register with me right away.
76. Good Old Fashioned Fun
Ok so this story takes place when my friend Jules and I were around 13 years old. Jules calls me one day asking if I want to come over and hang out. I say sure and head over. When I get there, to my delight, I find out Jules’s mom had got Jules a ton of fireworks from her out-of-state trip. This included waterproof firecrackers. We set a bunch off. Had a blast.
Then we found some puddles to throw the waterproof ones in. Good fun as well. After a while we went inside for lunch, then his mom went outside to work in the garden. This is when Jules says to me: "Hey! You know what would be awesome? Putting a waterproof firecracker in the toilet!" Now at this point in my friendship with Jules I started to notice...well...that he was a little dim and needed someone to look out for him at times.
So instead of doing the childish thing and encouraging this blatant error in thought, I tried to dissuade him. I told him, "I learned that shockwaves are stronger in water and might blow your toilet up." Jules said no way. I then told him, "You know those old high school movies where kids talk about blowing up the school toilets? Well, I'm pretty sure that's what these firecrackers are like."
He again says no way. But this time he decided to tack on that he was at a mutual friends’ house the day before and they did it with no issue. Now I was pretty mad after he said that because, I was at the mutual friend's house the day before. I knew he was lying to me and I wasn't happy about it. So I decided to get revenge. I said, “Screw it! Let’s do it.”
Jules lit the fuse and dropped it in. The toilet cracked in half. Water went everywhere. All of the blood in his face drained away and he had the look of a man who knew he was about to die. My face, on the other hand, was beet red from crying laughter. I must have laughed for at least 10 minutes straight with an occasional "I told you so!!" in between.
After I calmed down, we went to tell his mom what had happened. Jules begged her to take the blame. He had recently got in trouble with his dad and didn't want to make it worse. To my disbelief, she agreed. Now at this point, I'm waiting for my ride because I'm trying to get the heck out before his dad gets home. No luck. Jules and I quietly hide in his room waiting to hear what happens.
His dad spots the toilet. We hear a loud "what the HECK.” Jules’s mom comes over and tells him she did it. He asks how. She tells him that she sat down too hard. Then silence. About two seconds go by without any noise, which to us felt like forever, as we waited to see if he bought it. Then in the style of the dad from Alvin and the Chipmunks we hear his dad yell, “JULLLLLLLESSS.”
77. A True Fairy Tale?
When I was a kid, about seven or eight, I asked my mother if Santa was real. She decided to tell me that he was not. I wasn’t too bothered and apparently felt that this made sense. I then asked if the tooth fairy was real, and my mother, overestimating my grasp of sarcasm, told me that the tooth fairy was, in fact, real. I figured that there was no reason she would lie to me given that she had just admitted to Santa being fake.
Later, my mother caught me explaining to other kids that Santa was fake, but that the tooth fairy wasn’t. Unfortunately, I believed in the tooth fairy for much longer than I care to admit.
78. Shopping for a Sibling
When my sister and I were younger, my parents told us that we had an older brother named Zachary that was in college that we had never met. When my observant, younger self asked why we didn't have any pictures of him my parents said he was a Sears catalog model so that's why we never threw any of them out.
My sister the next day went and told all of her friends about her new older brother while our parents were having a laugh.
79. This Man Is An Island
This guy I work with, Paul, seems a little…off in general, but he's friendly and an absolute workhorse. Paul didn't take a single day off work in 2018, and maybe even 2017. Sick days? He'll work through it. Vacation? He doesn't like to travel, so nope. Just want to relax for a day? "Relax" is something lazy moochers do. Paul finally took a single day off this year for his daughter's wedding.
Everyone was happy for him. He's shown up for work sick as a dog before and refused to leave, so he finally had an excuse not to come in at least once. But Paul wasn't happy. He apparently tried to get his daughter to schedule her wedding around his work schedule so he didn't have to take the day off. That’s when the unbelievable truth came out. He came back the day after and complained non-stop about how he lost a day's pay.
Um, what? People were confused and asked Paul why he didn't use one of his vacation days. Apparently, the government pays for your vacation and sick leave, not the company. The reason he never takes time off is that he doesn't want to be a lazy moocher who takes money from people's taxes. Everyone tried to explain that's not how vacation and sick leave work, in fact, the company pays for it out of their pocket.
He can take 14 days off and get full pay all at the company's expense. He's literally earned it by working there so long. Nothing worked, and he kept hammering on about how people who take vacation are lazy welfare queens who take his tax money.
80. The Meaning Of "Gullible"
My dad convinced me that the word "gullible" was not in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. I was probably six when he first told me. My mom and sister agreed with him at the dinner table. We had a dictionary on the bookshelf next to the table. I would look it up and find it. Then, I would forget and he would re-convince me of it at random intervals—sometimes a year later, sometimes six months later.
It was probably the fifth time that I looked it up when I finally stopped believing him.
81. I Believe I Can Snow
In Denmark a "snowsuit" is basically called a "flying suit." So, 5-year-old me was like, "haha, no way this will actually make me fly. If it worked like that, I'd already have done it by now." That's not the stupid part though. The stupid part was right after thinking that, I thought, "but I bet it could make me float through the air though."
So, I climbed a small tower on the playground (I was probably only 1 meter off the ground, but it felt high enough for a test run) and jumped off looking like the worlds stupidest flying squirrel in a snow suit. I belly flopped right on top of a bunch of frozen sand and got the air knocked out of me.
82. Nearest, Dearest, And Dumbest
Now this girl, Alice, was gorgeous. Slim, tallish for a girl, blonde, stacked, duuuuuuumb. She was incredibly book smart though. Maths, chemistry, biology absolutely spot on, straight As. She struggled with physics and English and it puzzled her teachers as the skills she needed to pass, she could obviously utilize given her grades in other subjects.
And a lot of them covered the same material. She did pass everything eventually and attended university, but I digress. The highlights from our time were: She put tinfoil in the microwave and it caught fire. She put the microwave in the kitchen sink and turned on the tap to put the fire out. While it was still plugged in. She was having trouble with geography and the teacher was trying to explain and failed.
Eventually, the teacher resorted to basics and asked her to point north. Alice pointed to the ceiling. She did a weird dance thing with her feet while we both were shoeless. I tried it and failed and said I think I've broken my heel because I'd slammed them together. She told me to not be so stupid as I couldn't break a heel with no shoes on.
I proceeded to explain to her what the different parts of your foot were called. She was mesmerized. She would argue vehemently with me that it was perfectly safe for her to fish toast out of the toaster with a metal knife as "I've done it loads of times and I've never been electrocuted," YET my dear friend. If you asked Alice directions, she'd have to hold her hands up to "look for the L for left." Fair enough, a lot of people struggle with that and use that trick. But Alice would do it with her palms facing her.
We watched a movie together once and about halfway through, I realized she shared her name with the main actress and pointed it out. Her reply "Really?! What's her name?!"
83. There Was Not A Crumb Of Truth To It
My parents told me that eating the crust of bread for sandwiches or toast was important as it contained all the healthy nutrients I needed to grow healthy. I believed that garbage until I was 26, and I saw my wife cut away her crusts. I told her how she was throwing away the healthiest parts of the bread. I'll never forget the look on her face.
She looked at me dumbfounded and thought I was stupid. Of course, she corrected me.
84. Don’t Be So Sag About It
When I was 5 or so, I accidentally stabbed my balls (via jumping) with a sharpened pencil. Luckily, it didn't break any skin and all I had to do was put ointment on them for a period of time. One day, I was rowdy and wouldn't let my mom put the ointment on, so she said, "if you keep jumping up and down like this with that ointment on, your balls will drop and sag."
When puberty came along and my body began changing, I felt so ashamed of my body because I thought I had done this to myself by being such a bad kid and not listening to my mom. I literally believed I was a freak of nature. It wasn't until I was around 16 when I fully realized that she only said that to me to get me to stop being so rambunctious.
85. Too Little, Too Late
This guy I know told his (stupid) wife about an article he read about people in Siberia digging up frozen mammoth tusks and selling them. Her: "That's terrible!". Him: "Why is it terrible?" Her: "They'll sell all the frozen ones and then people will start hunting mammoths for their tusks, and pretty soon they'll all be extinct!"
86. A Haunting Tale
We were on our way to a volleyball game when my dad told us that there used to be a cemetery where the school now stood. They had tried to contact the families to move the bodies, but any that weren't claimed were still under the school, so the place was probably haunted. As fifth graders are chatty, especially with something as juicy as "the school is built on deceased bodies," his story made it around our school and the competing school pretty quick.
My dad got in a bit of trouble for that one.
87. Too Much of a Good Syrup
When I was little my family used to make chocolate milk with milk and Hershey syrup. To avoid us kids putting in too much chocolate syrup, she told me something both ingenious and cruel. She said that if you put TOO much syrup in, it will start to get less chocolatey - like there was a limit to the chocolate strength and then it would start to turn into white milk again.
Fast forward, I'm 18 and making chocolate milk with my 12-year-old sister and I tell her this little tip. Then it just hits me, WHY would adding more chocolate make it less chocolatey!?! I guess when you're little you just take everything mom says as a fact.
88. The Theory Of Everything
I may have married an idiot. He initially doesn't strike you as one, because he had a very successful career working for a government alphabet agency. However, some of the things he believes…Once this man gets a notion in his head you cannot remove it with dynamite. If his mother or his teacher Sister Mary Godzilla told him something 50+ years ago, then that was Revealed Truth and could not be changed.
Sister MG told him men have one less rib than women. It has to be that way because God took Adam's Rib to make Eve. I had to show him side-by-side images of male and female skeletons in a medical encyclopedia and make him count the ribs before he believed that Sister may have been mistaken. Sister also told him that plate tectonics was "only a theory, and since theory means guess there wasn't any truth to it."
You know how South America and Africa look like they would fit together like puzzle pieces? Sister told him that was just a coincidence. God made the world the way it was and the bits didn't go floating around like ducks on a pond. "Theory equals guess" also shot down the theory of evolution, the theory of relativity, and a bunch of other science things that didn't agree with the Bible.
However, he seems to have come up with a whole bunch of stuff all on his own: There can't be a volcano under Yellowstone Park because they wouldn't be dumb enough to put a national park on top of a volcano. When you burn a candle only the wick burns. The wax just runs down the side of the candle holder. He had no explanation as to what happens to the wax in a jar candle.
Meat is not the muscle tissue of animals, but something else called the flesh. He did not explain where the muscles go if meat is this mysterious "flesh." Meat also only comes from mammals. Beef is meat and pork is meat, but chicken and turkey are not meat. Nor is fish. Cows just spontaneously start giving milk when they reach adulthood.
Having a calf every year to start the process has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, hens must lay with roosters before they can lay eggs. That the "clear" button on the oven stops the timer. It does not—it turns off the oven and that is all it does. I have made him start the timer and then punch the clear button. See? The timer is still going.
He still tries to use the clear button to turn it off. We've only had this oven for 20 years. The microwave and the toaster oven are basically the same appliance. And since you can put plastic things in the microwave, you can use them in the toaster oven as well. He only did this twice though, since I really yelled at him the second time.
He does seem to have grasped "no metal in the microwave" though, so I guess this is a plus. Sometimes he has to figure things out for himself. My dad would say "You can tell 'em and tell 'em, but some folks have just gotta pee on the electric fence for themselves." Take the top rack of the dishwasher, for instance. The section on the right-hand side is about half an inch wider than all of the other sections.
That makes this the ideal section for cups because they just fit. I told him this. I had him put a cup in the right-hand section and see that it just fits. I then had him put a cup in another section where it did plainly did not fit. About a week later, he came to me and said "I figured out that the right-hand section is wider than the others so that's where we should put the cups."
And this evening's idiocy: Chopped is the same as sliced. He was going to a church picnic and had volunteered to bring sliced tomatoes and lettuce and onions for the hamburgers. He asked me to chop all of these things for him. Not slice—chop. I had to explain the difference. That the volume of a medium-sized bowl is exactly the same as that of a smaller bowl.
This is a long-standing confusion, actually. I cannot tell you how many times I explained that to save cabinet space, you put small bowls inside medium bowls which go inside large bowls. You do not try to stack a medium-sized bowl on top of a small bowl. This man who can pack a moving truck tighter than Marilyn Monroe's girdle simply cannot grasp this simple concept. Or maybe instead of a concept, it's just a theory.
89. What A Croc!
Growing up, I had some family that lived a town over. We would visit them often since they'd host all the family events because they had a big home. Going to their house involved driving over an area with a large pond that had a road built over it. One day, we drove over the pond, and I noticed a log sticking out of the water.
I asked my dad what it was, and since we had watched some Crocodile Dundee, he said, "It's a crocimagator." Even though we lived in Canada, where there aren’t any crocodiles, I believed him. Every time we drove past, that log was in the same place for years. At first, I doubted it, but I watched a documentary that said crocs or alligators could lay dormant for months on end and not move.
Hence, I believed it for years. Eventually, the log vanished. It probably sunk into the pond and I didn't think much of it. I just thought the crocimagator moved somewhere new. Then it hit me that I was an idiot.
90. Need an Extra Pair of Stomach Hands?
I thought that there were these hands in your stomach (I pictured classic white gloved cartoonish hands) holding a poop colored garbage bag and all the food you ate went into the bag and would get dropped down for you to poop out. Diarrhea happened when the hands dropped the bag and it exploded at the bottom. I also thought there was a small man digging for boogers in your nose with a pick axe and nose bleeds happened when he dug too far.
91. The Tank Destroyer
So just over a year ago I switched jobs and went to work for a guy (Bob) who is running a new/used aquarium shop. The shop was built onto his house, so as a result I've become pretty close with his family, including his 15-year-old stepson, who is the stupidest person I've ever met. For the first couple of months, I thought he was just a bit quirky and clumsy, but as I've come to know him more, I've discovered that he is an idiot of the highest order.
Now, I've known some dumb teenagers in my time. Heck, I used to be one. But this kid is just on another level. Just in the year that I've known him: He licked a lit match because he thought fire would taste like a Flamin' Hot Cheeto. He cannot climb a flight of stairs without tripping up them. This is a multiple-times-a-day occurrence. And it gets worse.
He once dropped a bowl of cereal and milk, and rather than clean the mess with a towel, he soaked up the spill with his sock. A sock that was still on his foot. He then put on his shoes, went out to catch the bus, and went to school with a soaking wet milk-sock. He went to the school nurse that day because he was convinced that his foot was bleeding and soaking through his sock.
He's failing gym class. I have no idea how one fails gym class. He has broken more than 20 aquariums in the last year. When we buy used tanks, they need to be washed and leak-tested before we resell them. The boy sometimes does this to help out, but his method is mind-blowingly stupid. He can't understand that when you wrap the hose around an aquarium, you can't just yank it free.
Once, Bob was selling an older fairly-good-condition Cadillac that had been sitting in his driveway for a while. The day before the buyer came to pick it up, the stepson was mowing the yard and scraped the handle of the mower along the entire length of one side of the car. Oh, and he likes to use "Jew" as an insult. When I called him out on it, his reply made my blood run cold.
I discovered that he thought that Jewish people didn't actually exist. He thought that they were an imaginary race of people that everyone pretended to hate. He played lacrosse on his school's team this summer, and got benched all season because he told the coach that he didn't need to run laps or go to practice. This is probably why he's failing gym class.
One day, he left in the morning like normal to go catch the bus. Three hours later, he came back saying that he missed the bus, and he needed to be driven to school. The problem? It was Labor Day. There was no school. He stood at the bus stop for three hours on a day when there was no school. He also eats absolutely everything in sight.
If you leave food unattended for more than 10 seconds, it's gone. Bob went to Taco Bell and got food for the four of us. The stepson was left alone with it and ate his, mine, Bob's, and half of his mom's food before he realized that it probably wasn't all for him. When he found out that I'm a chile-head, he bragged for a week about how he loved super spicy food too.
He then tried a glob of my Exhorresco hot sauce(after I warned him repeatedly not to) and spent the next two hours crying and blaming me. It keeps getting worse. We've been gradually remodeling the house when we're not working in the store. His bedroom was the first room we finished. He managed to put a hole in the wall on the first day he moved in.
Bob told him to wash the truck one day earlier this year. He thought he'd be helpful and wash out the fuel tank as well. With water. His parents signed him up for tutoring to help with his grades. Turns out, all the tutoring in the world won't help your grades if you never turn in your homework. He was under the impression that homework was optional. Also, he routinely falls asleep in class.
He thought that fish were just very active plants. Yes, really. He managed to tip over and dump the contents of the trash can he was taking out to the roadside to be picked up. Rather than pick up the mess, he just kicked it around and spread it out across the yard, in hopes that it would be less noticeable if the mess was less concentrated.
92. His Story Didn’t Ring A Bell
When I was five years old, my dad told me and my nine-year-old sister that telephone poles were actually trees that had been genetically engineered by the power companies to grow straight up into a perfect pole with two little arms on each side to hold the lines. It was just one of the many “dadisms” that he preached when Mom wasn't around.
One day, he brought my sister home earlier than usual from school. He explained to my mom that the principal had called him to come and pick her up. When she asked why he told her that a local power company worker had come to her class that day to talk about power line safety. The power company worker had asked the class, "Who knows how telephone poles are made?"
My sister raised her hand and proudly shared what my dad had told her. The worker laughed and said, "I think your dad lied to you." My sister's response completely threw him. She said, "I think you're a liar." We still quote her at family gatherings whenever we think someone is pulling our leg.
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93. The Eye of Tony the Tiger
At one of those drive-through safari parks, my brother told me to not, under any circumstances, look a tiger in its eye because it will take it as a threat and attack you. I, being a curious child, didn't want to miss out on seeing any of the animals and whilst looking around, I accidentally caught the gaze of a tiger. I freaked out and proceeded to cry, thinking I had sealed my family's fate.
I find it funny now but Frosted Flakes will never taste the same.
94. Hunk Of Burning Love
This is the story about my good friend Skip, who is a loveable idiot through and through. Skip had a major crush on a girl who I will call Sally. Sally was that girl who had all the right things. Great hair, amazing personality, and she loved it when guys were super creative when they would ask her out on dates. The more creative, the more you had her attention.
It was getting close to Valentines’ day, and time for the dance we called the Sweethearts’ Ball. Skip desperately wanting to ask Sally to the dance, but couldn’t come up with a creative enough way to ask her. Myself and our friend were popping off suggestions while at lunch. Me: Dude, you could always send her some roses. Friend 1: No dude, send her a bag of M&Ms and say, it would be so sweet if you would go to the Sweethearts’ with me.
Friend 2: Dude NO, you should toilet paper her car and say, It would wipe me out if you went to the Sweethearts with me. This is where the problem starts. Friend 3: Dude, that’s stupid, why not just pour a heart shape on her lawn with gasoline and light it on fire and say my heart would go up in flames if you went to the Sweethearts’ dance with me. Skip, listening to all of this, had his mind clamp around one thing that was mentioned.
I’m sure at this point some of you have already figured out the one he chose to do. This was all on a Friday. None of us were present when Skip asked her. However, we did see the horrific aftermath. Here are the events that followed. Monday: Sally avoided Skip. Like, He’s a capital-P Psycho avoided him. Tuesday: Skip is now starting to behave strangely. He’s very nervous and looking over his shoulder.
Wednesday: Skip’s name is called over the intercom system before classes start. About 10 minutes later, the principal’s office calls in me and a couple of friends. We are told to sit outside the office, and we hear a loud conversation inside. Me: Dude, what the heck did Skip do? Friend 1: Don’t know. I’m not sure how we are involved here. Friend 2: He did something stupid I’m sure. Only we had no idea how bad it was.
Me: Dude, do you think he did the toilet paper thing? Friend 2: No, this is something bigger. Friend 1: Our names had to be dropped some time dude. Me: It's kind of freaking me out. About this time Sally walks into the office with a smirk on her face. She says, “Have they told him yet?” All of us are totally confused, Friend 1: Told him what?
That’s when the door opens. My blood ran cold at the sight. Skip comes out, handcuffed. Crying his eyes out, repeating over and over again, “Sorry, sorry, I am so sorry!!” It was then that Sally walks up to him…and gives him a huge hug. Sally: Oh by the way, YES!!! I will go to the Sweethearts’ Ball with you. Our jaws just drop. We are all thinking, what just happened?
They uncuff him, and he has the same look as us. The fire marshal then walks out laughing. Fire Marshal: It was all her idea, I couldn’t refuse my little girl. However, if you ever set fire to my lawn again, I’ll kick your butt. You will come and fix it. And you three (he looks at us), stop putting ideas into his head. He will clearly do anything you guys tell him to.
That was the day we found out that Sally’s father was the fire marshal in our county. He and the sheriff gave him a tongue lashing for setting fire to his front yard, with a heart shape burning in the grass and a sign by the front door saying, MY HEART WILL GO UP IN FLAMES IF YOU WENT TO THE SWEETHEARTS’ WITH ME! It was a really good dance, we all had a ton of fun.
Skip and Sally have been happily married for 23 years now.
95. I Was Sunk By A Titanic Tale
My mom and I were watching Titanic when I was around four. She obviously didn't want me to see the love scene, so she covered my eyes as she forwarded through it. Her reasoning was wild. She told me that vampires come onto the ship and chase Rose and Jack away. I was terrified of vampires and dumb-little-me believed her.
Not only that, but I continued to believe her for the next three or four years, and was always scared of that movie because of those supposed vampires. In my mind, it had become a horror movie. It was only when I was at my best friend's house and her siblings had that movie on, that I found out my mother had lied to me. I felt so betrayed and as I grew older I was just confused.
When I asked my mother why she said vampires of all things, she said she panicked and couldn't think of anything else. To this day we joke about all of the vampires in Titanic.
96. Be Proud of Your Love Pits
I'm not sure if this is some sort of common cute little story kids are told in other parts of the world, but I always had a ton of freckles as a kid and was told that freckles were angel kisses. This is innocent enough until one day while exploring my body I noticed I had one freckle on my private parts. I became horrified as a young boy wondering why angels were kissing me down there.
97. Lost In Translation
My family, including my idiot sister, were out to eat at a Chinese restaurant. The waitress, who was Asian, came up to us and asked us what we would like to order, in English. My sister looks shocked and doesn’t even wait for the waitress to leave as she loudly proclaims, “I understood everything she said!” My family looks on at her in utter disbelief as my mom explains to her that’s because she spoke in English.
98. Soda Jerk
One time I was at my dad's house, and he and a friend were hanging outside chilling while I was playing with my plastic ninja sword. My dad never let me have soda. His friend left, and he went inside to do the dishes. I saw a 7 Up can on the deck table and sprinted towards it. I took a huge swig. It turned out they had been putting their cig butts in there.
It was horrible. I ran inside and threw up. My dad asked, “What happened, what happened?!” I lied and said nothing, but he figured it out. So, he came up with the most genius lie: He told me all the soda he buys tastes like that, even if they are unopened. I believed him for a few years until I was about nine.
99. Just Shy of a Quarter Foot
When I was a kid, I thought that little people (like Peter Dinklage) were small because of a truly dumb reason. I figured they all must be born on February 29th. Since their birthdays only came around once every four years, then it only made sense that they would grow to be a quarter of the size of a regular human, right? Wrong. So, so wrong.
100. The Gullible Virgin
I had a high school friend, Sam, who wasn't…the brightest crayon in the box. Last I saw him, he was living with his addict girlfriend, who's pregnant with his child. Or, so that's what I thought. I haven't spoken much to him since he had gotten expelled from school, and our relationship faded into only Facebook updates on each other's lives.
The other day, I was speaking to a friend, who we'll call Sara, that still keeps in contact with Sam. He got brought up in conversation, mostly laughing about the ridiculous things he did in school, and then I asked about what he was up to. Now, back in high school, Sam vowed himself to celibacy. He didn't want to be intimate before marriage. Also, despite how strung out his current girlfriend is, the only drug he ever used was pot.
Sara: “You know the baby's not even his.” Me: “Wait, seriously?” Sara: “Yeah, he's a virgin.” Me: (confused because he posts on Facebook all the time of how happy he is about becoming a father) “Does…does he know?” Sara: (shaking her head) “Nope. He legitimately thinks he got her pregnant.” Sara let me have a moment, just to see the astonishment on my face.
She went on to tell me that when Sam first told her his girlfriend was pregnant, she asked him when did he start being intimate. Sam said he never did, however, they do perform oral. Sam believes that when his girlfriend…swallowed…it impregnated her with his child. Sara and a few others tried to explain to him that's not how it works, but he's either just lovestruck or just plain stupid.
There has been speculation that the true father is a guy who graduated a few years before us. He is Black. Sam is white. His girlfriend is white. She's about four months pregnant.
101. It Wasn’t Me
My cousin is a complete idiot. I just got a call from my mom that he was arrested tonight for disturbing the peace after pooping in a urinal at the airport. Doesn't sound like something to be put in the slammer for...except that he ran out screaming for security, in an airport. Apparently ten airport officers come running thinking they have heroics to perform, instead a dude screaming “HEY SOMEBODY POOPED IN THE URINAL!"
Apparently, he yelled this because he REALLY BELIEVED it was a felony and wanted to "keep them from knowing it was him." I love him but he is the dumbest person I have ever met in my life.
102. The Most Powerful Fart of All
When I was small, I lived in a small town by an oil refinery. My parents convinced me that if you fart on site, it would explode. I was in kindergarten.
We went on a class field trip there once (not much else to do in the middle of nowhere), and I felt the gas building in my gut. I didn't want to harm everyone, so I grew quite stressed. I realized that I would need to take extraordinary measures to prevent catastrophe. So, I spent an embarrassingly long amount of time with my hand down my pants, blocking my fart.
103. Hot Dog!
My grandpa was a country guy, who liked to fish, hunt, and ride ATV four-wheelers. He also liked to lie to kids, and just let you think whatever nonsense he put in your head. When I was young, we traveled to our weekend property in the sticks. I saw a cattail reed out near the lake and asked what it was. He said, “What’s it look like? Those are hot dog trees!”
We usually grilled for dinner. My mom and I went to get stuff, and she asked if we had hotdogs. I answered there were plenty of hot dogs back home. We showed up and started unloading all the groceries. My grandpa was filling up the grill as my mom prepped the food. She asked where the hot dogs were. I went to get a pair of scissors and got my shoes on.
She was very confused and upset after I told her I had to go cut them down and that Grandpa showed me where they were.
104. Starstruck
Once I was in line for a Neil Gaiman book signing. As soon as it was my turn to get my book signed, I was so starstruck I blurted out the most backward thing ever: "You are my biggest fan!" I immediately realized my mistake and apologized profusely, and Neil just laughed it off and signed the book. I was so flustered I didn't pay attention to what he scribbled in.
Only after I left the area and opened up my copy of the book to realize he'd signed it with, "From your biggest fan, Neil Gaiman".
105. A Tickle Under The Rib
I saw this one patient with a really odd condition. While she was asking me why she gets rib pain so often, she literally reached under her own rib and jiggled it with her fingers. Turns out, there were a lot of other things she could do that she shouldn’t ever be able to. I attributed it to a variant of Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which causes connective tissue abnormalities.
I was so distracted by the popping in and out of her rib that initially, I didn’t even notice how horrifying it was that she could get her hand under there.
106. Missing Persons Report
For background, I usually make the bed in the mornings, but I didn't yesterday morning because I was running late. I went to see my dad yesterday, but my wife wasn't feeling well so she stayed home. I got back at around 8:30 and couldn't find her anywhere. I checked the bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, the bathroom, everywhere, and I just couldn't find her.
Her wallet was there so I figured she just went out for a walk, which is normal since we live in a big city that's active into the night. I started getting worried at around 9:30 because she also wasn't answering her phone. I called a few of her friends and asked if they'd seen her, but none had. I called her parents and asked them if they knew where she was, which led to them freaking out because no one could find her.
My father-in-law told me to track her phone, so I went into her Apple account and it told me that her phone was in our apartment. I turn on the find my iPhone sound and start running through the apartment thinking I should call the authorities. I hear the sound coming from our bedroom, so I go in and start tearing the room up…when suddenly my wife pops up from the bed and asks me what the heck I'm doing.
Turns out the small lump that I thought was just a pile of blankets since I didn't make the bed that morning was actually my wife, who went to sleep early because she didn't feel well. She sleeps with earplugs in so she didn't hear me in the apartment. I had to sheepishly call her entire family, own up to my stupidity, and apologize for terrifying them.
107. Biology Tutor Needed
I demolished my right foot in a motorcycle crash and had to have the top of my foot removed. A guy I worked with asked me when it would grow back. I explained that the skin and stuff was going to have to be grafted, but that the tendons and bones that had been removed were gone forever. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, "Why don't they just cut the whole thing off and let it grow back?"
108. Mom’s Misstep
I got a bad grade in geography in high school. My teacher kept trying to push me to do better, and suggested I talk to my parents about it. I very reluctantly told my mom that I was failing geography. I’ll never forget her response: "How irresponsible can you really be Justin? How do you fail geography? It's just shapes!"
109. Bad Idea
There was a troubled kid I went to high school with. He struggled with school but had friends. Nevertheless, he was starting to do drugs and go down a bad way. He decided to photocopy the front and backside of a $20 bill, cut it out of normal paper, and glue the two halves with Elmer’s glue.
What is even sadder is that to test his new money he went to the gas station and bought some gum and it ACTUALLY WORKED?!? So in his mind, it must have meant that it was foolproof. So he then tried to go and deposit the glued-up money at an actual bank. He was obviously found out and arrested. I don’t know where he is now but I’m assuming he is making similar life choices.
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