“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”―(possibly) Albert Einstein
Human beings are often referred to as the “rational animal.” However, as much as I hate to say it, perhaps we don’t always live up to that title. Even the best of us have instances where "ridiculously stupid" might be a better word to describe our behavior and/or thought process. Whether we’re motivated by factors other than logic or whether we are just simply prone to having “brain freeze” moments, we all do things from time to time that make us pause and ask ourselves “What on earth was I thinking??” Here are a few explanation-defyingly stupid things that people have decided to do at some point in their lives, brought to us by the intrepid users of Reddit.
#1 A Little Too Literal
My brother and I used to work in a bar with this bloke who wasn't the finest grape spirits on the shelf.
One night, this bloke and my brother were washing glasses and stacking them away. He asked my brother where a particular type of glass got stacked. My brother jokingly said "Oh, whenever I don't know where to put a glass, I just smash it." Without hesitation, old mate smashed the glass he was holding on the edge of the nearest table.
I loved working with that bloke.
#2 Anti-Wind Mills
Co-worker was anti-wind mills. When I asked why she said, “there are way too many popping up and we’re going to use up all of the wind.”
I was speechless. And I’m never speechless.
#3 Try Again
Guy I went high school with was at a party and asked the homeowner if he could have her tattoo kit, she obviously said no. He left and came back an hour later with a ski mask on demanding for the tattoo kit. Was taken into custody the next day.
Can’t make up that kind of stupidity.
#4 Black Magic Moon
The foreman of a paint crew I once worked with had absolutely no concept of how the whole sun/earth/moon thing works. He would freak out when I was able to tell what time of day it was by looking at the sun, or when the moon would rise based on the time it rose the day before. It was all black magic to him.
#5 Tales From the Monkey Lab
I worked at a monkey lab with a guy who refused to wear seatbelts. He said, "I've been in three accidents and every time the only place I'm hurt is from the seat belt."
I also worked with another guy at the monkey lab who worked the graveyard shift. He'd take the work truck, drive 80 miles to pick up a streetwalker , drive the streetwalker to his trailer, do the deed, then drive the streetwalker back. He'd get inebriated at some point during this. I'm not sure when, but in the mornings he'd sometimes smell like booze and the truck would be on empty.
And for the "alleged" story. There are the two guys who took a monkey and realized they had no way of fencing said monkey. They said it crawled down a drain and the monkey lab stuck with that because they had no proof they took the monkey. I'm guessing it was buried in a nearby ditch or field.
#6 Time On Her Hands
The first odd thing my brother noticed about his girlfriend was that she never learned to read an analog clock. When my brother offered to teach her, she laughed at him and used a slur at him. She believes that credit cards are free money and the fact that she can't get another credit card (for not paying) was because "the Jews" were mad that she figured out how to get free money. She also can't do math. Like, at all. Single digit addition requires the use of fingers and she still only gets the right answer about half the time. Subtraction is right out.
Mes Envies
#7 That’s Kind of an Important Thing to Remember...
Someone managed to get fired from three different jobs (food service/cleaning) in four months because she kept "forgetting to go to work" and the people who ran the place were "total jerks" for firing her for "forgetting one thing."
#8 This is Why You Shouldn’t Be a Copycat
My brother and his girlfriend both got salmonella from eating food she cooked. After some questioning, she admitted that she cooked the chicken "Rare, because that's how the expensive places do it."
#9 Who Wants to Hear Animals Making Noise?
Back in my younger and crankier days I worked with a young woman who was hands down the dumbest person I've ever met.
Her highlights include:
Winning a basket auction that included a copy of The Beach Boys classic album Pet Sounds and complains because she "didn't want to hear a lot of mooing."
On a day she was driving me up a wall I convinced her to wait to open her bottle of Coke because the bottle said there was a winner every five minutes. She was disappointed she didn't win after waiting exactly five minutes. I, however, enjoyed her sulky silence for the rest of the day.
The best/worst one involved her chatting with a manager who was African American (she's white). They were discussing their shared slightly uncommon name and then realized their families both came from South Carolina. She thought for a few minutes and then excitedly exclaimed, "I bet my family owned yours!" She was so proud of herself for figuring out that historic connection. The manager didn't say a word and just walked away.
#10 Wheels Turning in Your Mind
I put my finger into a handheld blender and turned it on to see if I could stop the blades from spinning.
I couldn't, and it chewed up my finger. I was 21.
#11 It’s Raining Meat!
I was really inebriated once, lying in my bed, trying to eat a hot dog wiener. No bun. Just the wiener. Wasn’t even cooked. I was apparently far too inebriated to handle eating it so I (for whatever reason) chucked it over my head, out of my top floor window and onto the lawn. My downstairs neighbor was apparently walking to the house when I did it. She complained to our landlord about me throwing a raw wiener at her at 2 am. Our landlord luckily found my explanation really funny.
#12 Let’s Hope the Purse Wasn’t White…
Went to a coffee shop and ordered a large cup of coffee. Barista hands it to me and I put it directly into my purse with no lid.
#13 Raw Eggs Are the Key to Immortality
Work with a guy who honestly believes he will not pass. Also believes that doctors are "part of the system" and that they lie to you for profit and personal gain. He does believe in Eastern traditional medicine, however. And if you're interested to know his secret to eternal life, it's six raw eggs a day and a keto diet.
#14 One Big Elaborate Conspiracy
As a kid, my parents would tell me to go brush my teeth and, being the stupid kid that I was, I would go to the bathroom, lock the door, run the water, wet my toothbrush, and rinse my mouth to make it look like I had brushed my teeth. I would also squeeze tiny blobs of toothpaste to make it look used, and would rub the toothbrush across my arm to make the brushing noises, while eating mints to make my breath seem legit. All in all, this process took more time and effort than actually brushing my teeth.
#15 Geography Master
I worked on a hay press for about a month. Most guys had a high school education. One particular guy was telling me about a girl he was talking to on Tinder (or some various dating/chat app) when he said that she was in New York and that he wanted to go visit her. I told him that that’s pretty cool and New York will be quite the change from our little town. He then asked me how close New York was...we were in Washington State...he had no idea New York was over 2,000 miles away.
#16 Now Here’s Million Dollar Idea If There Ever Was One...
I know a guy who smokes a lot of weed and is fairly overweight. He had been trying to find work but was having trouble finding a job since everything he was interested in drug tested. He told my boyfriend that he had a plan that might help him pass a drug test. Since weed supposedly gets stored in your fat cells, he proposed that he should just eat even more than he normally does so he can gain weight. That way, the fat that he gained would replace the “weed fat.” Boom. Problem solved.
#17 Apparently, They Don’t Teach History in Nursing School
She ashamedly told us, her coworkers, how she cuddled with her boyfriend and thought she was pregnant. They were wearing clothes. She wasn’t pregnant. She also thought the Great Depression was in the ‘60s and that so was the end of WWII. In the ‘60s. She’s a nurse now.
#18 Capital Numbers
The dumbest person I ever met was my friend's uncle Franky. Growing up, my buddy and I worked in his father's insurance office during the summers. One day Uncle Franky comes in to use a computer so he could compose an email. It was the first time; this was in 2009. As he was trying to add the @ symbol in the recipient's name, he asked where he could find it. I told him to hold down the shift button and press the number 2 key at the same time. He turned his head, and with a puzzled look his in eyes he asked me, "Wouldn't that be a capital 2?"
#19 Two is a Big Number
When I was a teenager my friend’s older brother was one of the dumbest people I'd ever encountered. We once witnessed him trying to see inside a motorcycle gas tank using a Bic lighter. He assured us a lighter flame isn't hot enough to ignite gasoline. On another occasion, we got into a debate concerning the power of an atomic explosive device. He was serious that it could only take out "like two houses max!"
This man went on to have multiple arrests before I moved away, also fathered three children by two women. We all lived in a trailer court as well—not saying it's a prerequisite for idiocy, but some of us get out and some do not.
#20 How to Get Fired
An old co-worker named James. We worked at McDonald's and were both 16. One time, while mopping the lobby, he for some unknown reason decided to chase a number of customers around with the mop yelling "I'm gonna getcha." He was fired on the spot.
#21 Delicious Cheesecake
Once, at a company party, he grabbed a wedge of Brie cheese and took a bite out of it. I later asked and pointed it out to him and he said, "This cheesecake tastes really weird."
#22 The Price of Gas
My mom's coworker claims she doesn't care about the price of gas. She says, "It doesn't matter how much it costs because no matter what I only put in 20 bucks."
#23 Believing the Internet
So, there's this woman who works with me. Eva. She's the stupidest person I've ever met. One day I overheard her saying that the oldest man alive is 600 years old, and when confronted she said in a very defensive yell-y way "I SAW IT ON THE INTERNET! THEY HAD PICTURES!!!" Then she got really angry because people wouldn't believe her.
#24 Sucking out the Vaccination
This French-Italian guy I used to work with. I could seriously write a book about how ignorant, idiotic, and illogical this man was, but this story sums it up pretty well:
He's against vaccinations because he thinks everything in the world is a government conspiracy and he's also a nature freak who believes in homeopathy. He believes clay has a lot of almost supernatural healing qualities. When he lived in Denmark, he and his wife couldn't enroll their son in kindergarten unless he had some basic vaccinations because that's the law.
So they went to get the boy vaccinated, but as soon as he's gotten the needle and they've walked out of the doctor's office, he took the bandage off and slapped a lump of clay on the boy's arm right where he got the needle. This, he believed, would suck the liquid that was in the syringe out of the boy's veins and get absorbed into the clay to be disposed of safely. So, in his mind he had basically "un-vaccinated" the boy and the silly reptilian surgeon general had no idea! Haha, in your face NWO!
It's kind of a happy ending though, stupidity saved the day and the boy now has the vaccinations he should despite his insane father.
Health
#25 The Ants Go Marching
I have an amazing ability to pick up almost any bug carefully and efficiently without hurting them. When I first discovered this talent when I was about five or six, I went and collected 44 ants, got some dirt, and made my own ant colony—in my room, under my bed. Parents were not amused…
#26 Race to the Finish
One time I was eating a lemon poppyseed muffin. The phone rang, so I reacted by shoving the entire muffin in my mouth and eating it as fast as I could, nearly choking to end, and I didn't even make it to the phone before it stopped ringing.
Why did I do that?
#27 Anybody Home?
I was in my office with the door closed. Got up from my desk to walk out, and knocked on the door before opening it and walking into the hallway.
#28 Coca-Cola Premonitions
I used to work with a kid at a movie theater. He claimed he could see the future and said he had a premonition that we would bring back the old Coke machines. The old Coke machines don't even work anymore because they were scrapped for parts. He loved to cosplay and was blown away by the amount of cosplayers he saw when Justice League came out. We had maybe six customers that were dressed up. He thought he started a trend.
He showed up to work on his first day of orientation and training at 10 pm. He was scheduled for 5 pm. He lived on the other side of town and walked. When asked why he didn't leave earlier if he was walking, his reply was, "I didn't think of that." That same week he took a 15-minute break and vanished for 2 hours. When my coworker found him, he said the line at Subway was really long.
He said the first Jumanji movie was supposed to be about a video game but video games weren't invented yet so they scrapped the idea.
He probably thought the world didn't exist until he was born.
YouTube
#29 Dinosaur Conspiracy
A kid I worked with, Freddy the Man Child, actually believed that dinosaur fossils were fakes planted by atheists to test the Christians' faith.
#30 Starting to Sweat
Getting up from the bleachers to play dodgeball in gym class, I tried to impress a girl by pulling my sweat pants off while yelling “LET’S DO THIS!” I ended up accidentally yanking off everything, boxers and all...
#31 I’ll Pass on Trying This One At Home
I was about 12 years old and riding my bike home from middle school when I saw a pack of pretty girls ahead of me, about five years my senior. On the other side of the street was a boy who I had a big crush on at the time. This stretch of road meant that I had to ride on the pavement, so I thought that I could be cool and impress the boy by aggressively overtaking these older girls.
My plan was to drop down into the road, gain some ground, and then jump back up the curb once I passed them. Well, I almost passed that day. My determination to impress the boy overtook the part of my brain that deals with logic, and I severely miscalculated the jump. I skidded against the curb and it bucked me out to the middle of the road into oncoming traffic.
I scrambled to get back onto the pavement and my bike flew clean off the ground. I was then propelled head first into a bush.
On the bright side, goal achieved: I overtook the girls, and my crush did come over to help. He even called me cute when I started crying, so I took it as a win. I haven't been on a bike since, though.
#32 The More You Nose
In elementary school, I liked this girl. When I saw her touching her nose one time, I saw my opportunity and shouted out "EW, YOU'RE PICKING YOUR NOSE!" for everyone to hear. My rationale was that by embarrassing her, she would think that I was cooler than she was—and would therefore be interested. In hindsight, I was just being an irrational meanie.
#33 A Future Accountant
I worked with a woman who became a dear friend. While I adore her, she's... not the brightest. She didn't believe me when I told her that Native Americans lived on the East Coast of the US and still do. She insisted that they only lived in "Oklahoma...or the Southwest...or the Northwest, whatever." She once wondered (out loud) if we could see Earth in the sky...from Earth. I mentioned that I have a friend who's an archaeologist and the friend had worked in Greece. My coworker said, "What's there to dig up in Greece, anyways?"
I had to explain basic cardinal directions to her. Basic geography in general.
This woman is now working on her MBA and wants to become an accountant. I'm scared.
#34 Pickles From the Ocean
I used to manage a restaurant and there was this girl Emily who was legendarily dumb. I have a thousand stories about her but my fave involves Subway. So one day Emily comes into my office complaining of a hangover whilst toting a sub from Subway and going on about how it was the only cure for a hangover, etc.
Anyway, I ask her what kind of sub she got, to which she replies, "Pickle, cucumber and mayo." I say, "So you spent $10 on a cucumber and mayonnaise sandwich?" And she says "No! It has pickles on it too!" I then say that, "Pickles are just vinegar-soaked cucumbers, so it's basically just a cucumber and mayo sandwich."
Her mouth drops. "No way!?" She exclaims. I then had to explain to her the basics of pickling. When I asked her where she thought pickles came from, she replied "The ocean?" I miss that girl.
Daily Telegraph
#35 Gotta Choose One
Someone at my work once sold their TV so they could buy a VCR.
#36 Taking Care of the Fire
This is actually my SO's story but it always makes me laugh. My SO used to work as a squad leader in the army. In his country, they have a 3-month introduction education for the new people. One time, my SO had the task of leading them on a two-day field trip in the middle of the forest. Mind you, it's February and 5 degrees Fahrenheit at night, at least. So, during the night they set up a guard schedule because someone needs to take care of the fire. At around 4 am, my SO wakes up because he is freezing cold. He walks up to find a new recruit sitting by a cold fireplace.
"Hey recruit, what happened to the fire?"
"It's okay sir, I took care of it. Nothing is on fire."
#37 Moving Through Time
I worked with a developer who couldn't work out why the result of subtracting a fixed date from today's date increased by 1 each day. I literally had to tell him that it increases by 1 because we're moving forward through time…
#38 A Hole in One
When I was maybe 10 or 12, I threw one of my dad’s old golf clubs that was missing its head like a spear down the hallway after telling my brother it would be cool.
The result was a golf club hanging out of a hole in the wall and an EXTREMELY grounded me.
#39 Burning Through Cash
When I was 10, I saw this cool magic trick where you soaked a dollar bill in rubbing booze and then the booze burns off and your dollar bill stays intact. So stupid ten-year-old me was home alone one day when my mom left me $20 to order food with. I ended up soaking it in rubbing booze and burning it, causing it to disintegrate into ash immediately.
#40 Just Checking for X-Ray Vision
When I was a kid, I put a jacket over my head and fell down a flight of concrete stairs. I busted my face completely, but somehow only chipped a tooth. To this day, I just can't remember what I was thinking. Maybe that I could somehow see through the jacket? I clearly couldn't.
#41 Not Knowing Left From Right
Used to carpool with a coworker. I ask her where to turn and she said, "That way." I ask her left and right, and she had zero clue. We were 16 and she doesn't know her left from her right.
#42 Halving the Sandwich
Back when I worked as a server, our restaurant hired a new cook. He was a lovely guy but darn was he stupid, at least when it came to cooking. He was still learning the menu, so some mistakes were understandable, but for some reason when a customer ordered a half sandwich, instead of making a sandwich with two half pieces of bread, he made a full sandwich and just took off one slice of bread and served it.
#43 All Out of Spite
I worked very briefly with a woman who showed herself to be both an idiot and a jerk. Her grandmother was gone and she and her relatives discovered that the man she'd known as her step-grandfather had never even been married to her grandmother. She bragged about the family throwing him out of the only home he'd known for three decades because, "If he wasn't good enough for my grandma to marry, he's not good enough for us." He was an elderly man who lived as this woman's husband and had everything taken from him out of pettiness and spite.
It showed me how stupid she was, and I was right. She was fired a week later.
iStock
#44 Stretching the Earth
I had a boss named Tammy. One night, we were all working late doing stocktake, and we were discussing the impending lunar eclipse. Someone asked what happens during an eclipse. Tammy grandly explained that the eclipse would occur when America went in front of the moon, blocking our (Australia’s) view of it. Like she literally thought the earth stretched itself into like a U bend or neck pillow shape, and half of it stayed in our normal orbit, and the other half stretched itself over and around to casually block the moon for the rest of the earth.
#45 It Sounds Like They Were the Ones Who Got Him…
An old co-worker named James. We worked at McDonald's and were both 16. One time, while mopping the lobby, he for some unknown reason decided to chase a number of customers around with the mop yelling "I'm gonna getcha". He was fired on the spot.
#46 Hammering it Home
A girl from my elementary school believed that outer space isn't real, that Benjamin Franklin invented the time machine, and she was unaware of hammers.
#47 Second, Third, and Fourth Chances Squandered
I work at a country club. He started out working in the kitchen. Every day when he arrived he would walk around with his German style motorcycle helmet on his head for at least an hour.
He never wore gloves and would smoke while working in the kitchen (clearly not acceptable) and if not lighting up would have a half burnt smoke hanging on his lips. Manager was nice so just moved him to the snack bar at the pool. Outside, away from a lot of people, less food handling, maybe more his speed.
Nope, he was reported for telling a woman she shouldn't get a hamburger because she was too fat. So manager still doesn't fire him, moves him to doing light maintenance work. The guy spent 4 days painting the inside of a small closet this bright blue color. No clue where he got this color of paint because there is no place at this club or any place in which I have seen this color.
Lots of other stuff that I can't recall at the moment but he was eventually let go for harassing a 16-year-old.
#48 Well, as Long as He Has a Sense of Humor About It, Right?
This one guy was a real blast to work with, although he always managed to find a way to screw things up. He once put about 16 pies in the oven and managed to not set the timer. He constantly burnt stuff in the toaster, which is pretty idiot proof. And has served sausage that was cooked on the regular meat time and setting, and then laughed about it—regular meat spends roughly 40 seconds while the sausage spends 90 seconds on the grill.
Pinterest
#49 Hey, Don’t Hog All the Moonlight!
I’ve told this story before, but I like telling it because I really hate Tammy. I had a boss named Tammy. One night, we were all working late doing inventory, and we were discussing the impending lunar eclipse. Someone asked what happens during an eclipse. Tammy grandly explained that the eclipse would occur when America went in front of the moon, blocking our (Australia’s) view of it.
Like she literally thought the earth stretched itself into like a U bend or neck pillow shape, and half of it stayed in our normal orbit, and the other half stretched itself over and around to casually block the moon for the rest of the earth.
#50 Good Luck Trying to Weather This Stupid Storm
My roommate for the last three years once said that if solar technology keeps advancing at the rate it is, we will absorb all the energy made by the sun and fix global warming. Not five minutes later after attempting to inform this poor fellow about how the sun’s energy output is not determined by what the energy eventually interacts with, he states that wind farms are worse because they cause tropical storms. I hope he is simply engaging in elaborate mischief. I just... I don't know...
#51 I Feel Like Asthma Would Be the Least of Their Worries...
Had a guy in a third-year undergrad developmental psych course raise his hand in a full lecture hall and ask the professor; "Prof, do infants diagnosed with SIDS get asthma later in life... like are they more likely to get asthma??"
SIDS stands for Sudden Infant end Syndrome. He just kept pursuing the question, the prof didn't understand how she could answer it, she thought there was some kind of logic in it that she wasn't seeing. Finally, some girl took the initiative to shout across the room, "No they are not more likely to get asthma, they are perished. They have perished suddenly, and will thus not be at risk of developing asthma." Great day. He always sat in front of me and I would see him writing just absolutely horrible poetry and song lyrics.
#52 Thanks for Trying, But...
I am half Korean and was going to high school in the Midwest during the 1992 LA riots. My typing teacher pulled me into the hallway and asked if I had an uncle or something I can call in LA to make the riots stop. She said she knew that we are all close and we all have stores and whatnot, therefore I must have a connection there. I was like, "Lady, even if I did have an uncle I could call, do you think he is Batman?"
#53 There Are No Wrong Answers! … Except for That One
Our biggest argument was over whether the correct phrase is “egg yolk” or “egg oak.”
#54 When in Doubt, Drink the Poisonous Substances
My high school classmate, whose name is Nick, would have to be my choice for this question. We were in chemistry class, doing a lab practical, which required the use of a bulb pipette (a glass pipette with a removable bulb that you squeeze). Nick didn't know how to use the pipette so he put it to his mouth to suck up SULFURIC ACID. It got about three-quarters of the way up before our teacher screamed "NICKKKKK!!!! STOP THAT RIGHT NOW."
#55 Do I Need to Draw You a Picture to Explain This One?
Back when I was in middle school, I was playing Guitar Hero with the neighbor, and he asks: "Hey man, why does the yellow button have a bump on it?" And for whatever reason, I, without missing a beat, say, "So blind people can play, and they know where to put their fingers." We both accepted this as the obvious answer, and my brother was sitting on the couch watching and he was like: "Are you two completely stupid? How would a blind person play this game? Think about it for a second."
I felt pretty stupid after that.
#56 Well That Sure Sucks
I have a friend who was out of work and looking for a job, only to strike up a conversation with the CEO of a company he was interested in working for. The CEO liked him and told him to show up the next day at 10, to his house no less.
He showed up at 10.
10 pm.
The lights were out and no one answered, so he rang the doorbell until the CEO woke up and told him to get the heck off his property.
#57 Someone’s in the Kitchen with Stupid
When I was in the Navy, there was a cook on my ship. He once served "rare" chicken. I genuinely couldn't tell whether he was trying to cover up his limitless incompetence or if he genuinely believed that rare poultry is a real thing. He was dumb enough to believe it.
Another time, he just filled a pan with ground beef and called it meat loaf. Another time he was supposed to make sugar cookies, you know, several hundred of them for the whole crew. He didn't bother to read the label on the container he opened, and apparently, he didn't taste the batter at any point, and he actually made salt cookies. He used up all the remaining salt in the pantry and we had unseasoned food for the remaining several weeks of the mission, during which time the captain assigned someone to be the cook's bodyguard.
#58 We're Laughing All the Way to the Bank
My friend's father robbed a bank in a small town in Indiana where he lived. This was in the late ‘70s or early ‘80s. He spent 10 years in correctional facility for the offence . The same day he was released from the correctional facility , he robbed the same bank again.
He was caught and back to correctional facility he goes. He did not learn in those 10 years not to rob any banks or anything of that sort. My friend was like “This is what every father does” and did not seem shocked over it.
#59 I Just Can’t Get a Read on This Girl...
My brother’s girlfriend can barely read and can't write anything more than a few simple words. She has actually drawn cryptic pictures instead of leaving a note for my brother. I thought my brother was joking and referencing Charlie Kelly's illiteracy from It's Always Sunny. He wasn't joking and hadn't watched the show.
The illiteracy was originally discovered because she had burned or under-cooked a significant number of the pre-made frozen dinners my brother started buying. She couldn't figure out the instructions, so she was just guessing. She kept saying that the oven was broken in my brother's apartment.
MPC Forums
#60 Immaculate Conception Gone Wrong
My brother’s girlfriend believed she couldn't get pregnant because her mom allegedly told her that only teenage girls get periods. Since her periods didn't magically stop on the day of her 20th birthday, she believed her womb was "busted" like her aunt's and she couldn't get pregnant. My brother, the second stupidest person I know, believed her and said that our mother, who is a Nurse Practitioner of gynecology, was full of you-know-what.
Naturally, she tested pregnant after two months of dating my brother. Instead of just admitting that my mother was right, they believed their conception was a "miracle from God." After the birth, she got a operating a vehicle under the influence with her six-month-old in the car because she didn't know that the prescription painkillers she took from her dad were considered an intoxicating substance. Also, she didn't have a driver's license or insurance. Her dad had gotten her the car. She took too many of those painkillers and hit three parked cars, then got out to fight some random pedestrian on the sidewalk for "running into her."
She went to correctional facility her moron mom got custody of the kid. Child Protective Services removed the child after less than two months because the child was losing weight. After questioning, her mom said she was teaching the baby not to throw food by sending her to bed hungry. Her mom was charged. The kid was placed with a foster family because her dad and aunt are felons and apparently both sets of grandparents have illicit histories too. She did four months in county while awaiting sentencing, but somehow she got off with time served, got custody of her kid (unbelievably), and only got three years of probation and a six-figure fine (plus restitution for the vehicle damage) despite a misdemeanor (seriously?????). She pretty much hit the jackpot in the judicial lottery. Something called deferred adjudication.
But it didn’t end there! She celebrated her freedom by doing crack and failing her very first drug test with her probation officer. She claimed she didn't know that crack was not permitted. Crack. You know, the stuff you can't buy from any CVS. The stuff you have to buy from a drug dealer. So the kid was placed back with the foster family. My moron brother is convinced that they're still in love and she'll be out in a few months because the judge will see her mistake (she won't). He also went to correctional facility (again) for selling forbidden substances at his workplace (again). Family, right?
#61 Old Habits
Had a next door neighbor who robbed a Howard Johnson's at the top of our street at gunpoint, wearing a ski mask. Took the money, took off the mask and was walking home (two blocks down said street) when authorities pulled him over and found the mask, the piece , and the money. He was inebriated and asked them "Would it help if I said I'm sorry?" Got a couple years in Riker's Island.
Came out, broke into a local apartment house, took some money and jewelry, got stuck out on a fire escape when the ladder wouldn't go down, and he had closed the window behind him. Couple more years. That's two stories, I guess. There's a few more, but you get the picture. He did leave me a box of cassettes when he went up one time, among them The Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore. I became a lifelong fan, so, thanks, unnamed next door failed burglar . He was actually a really nice guy, and, like, a young Ray Liotta handsome. Just dumb as a brick.
#62 I Hope She’s Just Horsing Around
We were on a drive through an animal park. We see an animal. She asks "what kind of meat would that one be?" Someone replies "Oh, it'd probably taste similar to beef I'd imagine".
A few minutes later we see a different animal. She asks "and what about that one? Would it be, like, a fillet or a T-bone or something?" Then I realized that this woman thinks different cuts of meat come from different animals.
#63 Puppy Scam
A new guy at work is the dumbest person I know. Everyone takes advantage of him in his personal life, he has no money and whatever he does have, his mother/girlfriend (not exclusive, she sees other guys) take.
He walks into work last week, I just bought a new puppy! Oh cool. What did you get? XXX (can't remember). It's from over the border but I had to pay a guy in Zimbabwe via WU and they will mail it in 2 weeks.
I couldn't stop laughing and had to explain he got scammed and how it's not a good idea to send money to other continents and that you can't buy a dog for 50 euro and that you can't just import pets from outside the EU (where I live).
#64 Australia, America; Tomato, Tomahto
A woman I work with thought that Australia and America were the same place, and that they were just essentially different names for the same country. She also automatically assumed my Australian boyfriend was black. She recently called me to help out with her till, as she was given £5.20 (a £5 note 20p coin) for a £4.20 charge and didn’t know what to do. She’s in her 30s and I don’t know how she’s made it this far, but bless her she means well.
#65 Communication Issues
I used to work with a girl at the bank, and she told me she wouldn't date anyone without an iPhone because they couldn't communicate.
She's now a nurse.
#66 That’s Just Cheesy
Once at a restaurant in New Orleans, my friend ordered macaroni and cheese. At the table with about 15 other people he says out loud, "How did macaroni and cheese become a thing?" To which I replied, "What do you mean?" He says "I mean, it's so redundant, you know?" I say "What? How is macaroni and cheese redundant?" And he says "Think about it. You've got cheese and then you have pasta, which is made of cheese." HE THOUGHT ALL PASTA WAS MADE OF CHEESE...
#67 Sounds Like a Perfectly Reasonable Question…
“Why do the crossing lights beep?”
“For blind people.”
“But blind people can’t drive?”
“...”
#68 Some Serious Competition for the Stupidity Championship
I have seen some people do some very strange and disgusting things. I've seen everything from a girl employee (literally) not know the change denominations, to a stoner employee try to sell weed to random customers, clean trash cans in the food sink, and pronounce sesame buns as Sea-Sam-bun. I also know a kid that ate an over-cooked egg patty that sat on top of raw fish, nuggets, and beef.
#69 Priorities
My freshman year roommate dropped a class because he wanted to play his PlayStation more. It put him below the minimum credit threshold for his scholarships and his parents owed $40,000.
#70 Devil’s in the Details
I worked on a hay press for about a month. Most guys had a high school education. One particular guy was telling me about a girl he was talking to on Tinder (or some other dating/chat app) when he said that she was in New York and that he wanted to go visit her. I told him that that’s pretty cool and New York will be quite the change from our little town. He then asked me how close New York was... we were in Washington state... he had no idea New York was over 2,000 miles away.
#71 This One Actually Kinda Sounds Like Fun…
My mother rolled down the car window to clean it... from inside the car... right after the car wash started.
#72 Roy’s Guide to Life
I worked with a man named Roy. Roy had theories about how to live life. Royconomics.
One day, he turned to me and the other member of the crew. "You boys wanna know how you get nice things?" he asked. "You go to the store, and you finance everything. New furniture, new appliances, televisions, stereos, everything. Then, you don't make any payments, and you don't show up for your court date. They'll end up garnishing your wages, but they take way less than the payments would have been!"
Then, about a week later, "You boys wanna know how you buy a house? You apply for every credit card you can possibly get, you take out your entire balance in cash from all of them, and you use that for your down payment. Then, you don't make any payments, and you don't show up for your court date..."
#73 My, How the Mighty Have Fallen
My flatmate at university did something pretty stupid. He put a whole bunch of effort into forging £10 notes—researched paper, found some spray adhesive that was just the right consistency, got hold of a very sharp craft tool and cutting board, figured out how to fake the metal strip and watermark with kitchen foil and crafty printing. He had an excellent printer.
His copies were pretty good, but by no means perfect. So he and his accomplice Joe decided to keep to two simple rules: only use them in dimly lit bars when it was too busy for staff to check every note and only ever take one copy out of the house. That way if they were caught they could claim it was an honest mistake, they got them in their change, etc.
Well, at first it worked surprisingly well. They'd buy one drink with the dodgy ten, pocket the change and nip back to the flat to grab another. In fact, it worked so well that they got cocky.
One day, my flatmate was out with Joe in a crowded area in broad daylight when they decided to roll a joint. Joe took a bag of weed out of his pocket and passed it over. Right in front of two law enforcement officers. Of course, the officers stopped and searched them and found over £200 worth of forged notes, all with the same serial number.
#74 Diving Right in
Me, 15-16, gets invited from a mutual friend to a pool party. See old friends, make new acquaintances, and there she is. The girl I had a major crush on. She smiles and waves and continues floating around on her back. Attempt to dive over her, like a boss, and end up kneeing her right in the nose. There's blood, screaming, and a hundred seething fingers pointed right at my feels. She ran away crying, and I never spoke to her again. I ended up seeing her about a week later, it was bad. I still feel terrible.
#75 Gas Emission Failure
Twelve years old, hanging out at my friend's for the night. His sister also had a girlfriend spending the night. They were hanging in the sister's bedroom and we were playing video games in the den. I thought it would be funny to crack the bedroom door and moon them. Their backs were turned from the door, and after 10 seconds or so with them not noticing I thought it'd be amusing to release a loud wind to capture their attention. Bending over in the middle of the doorway, pushed one out. Pooping.
#76 This Has Been a PSA
I once had a property manager (person in charge of the rental I lived in since homeowners lived out of state) who did a bunch of obnoxious things. My husband and I thought she was greedy and maybe getting money for herself and hiding it from the homeowners for repairs or something like that because of shady seeming things she would do when we had repairs.
Then we mentioned something about gardening.
She said "You know, I've always wanted to try growing tomatoes and just watering them with salt water. That way, the tomatoes would already be salted when you ate them!"
Huge reminder to never attribute to malice what is just pure old-fashioned being dumb as a rock.
#77 Taking Things to the Next Level
My 24-year-old cousin legitimately thought that my sister being a vegetarian meant that she could not eat animal crackers…
#78 Stupidity in Writing
Knew a guy in high school who I'm 99% sure only passed because he cheated like crazy and got tons of people to do his work for him. In grade 11 he was taking some kind of politics course and was writing some kind of essay on American politics—we're from Canada.
I agreed to edit his essay and it was the most insane thing I have ever had to edit. There were multiple sentences that I couldn't understand until I asked him directly, he ended his essay with the phrase "just like Jesus would have wanted"—I don't even think he was Christian? He also spelled Condoleezza Rice as "Conga Lisa Rice."
#79 Proceed with Caution
Guy I worked with named Buddy bought a huge Snap-On roll-away toolbox for over $3,000, on credit. Two days later, he sold it to a coworker for $1,500 because he had some overdue bills and had to pay them.
Needless to say, he never paid Snap-On for the toolbox. He was off into the winds after he was fired for starting his fourth fist-fight at work. One of the other guys I worked with told the Snap-On salesman where Buddy's new job was, and last we heard they are now garnishing his wages.
Guy was a nutcase though. He had very thin skin and the slightest thing would set him off. He'd go absolutely nuts when he was set off though. He yelled at the security guard and threatened to have him fired because he didn't like his tone. He almost got fired three times for fighting, but he was able to win the department manager over until the fourth time. Oh, and one time he was told to put Caution Tape across a malfunctioning gate and he said: "I don't know how."
#80 How Is This Even Possible?
My cousin. All through public school, she was a snob who looked down on everyone. She was super stylish and struggled academically.
We graduated in 2014. We both went to colleges (not the same one). She got a job at a bar, stayed out late drinking. Her boyfriend told her she didn’t need to complete college, so she just stopped showing up. Didn’t drop; just stopped showing up. Completely flunked out.
Here comes the mega stupidity: Our families live hours away from her college at the time. Her family went to move her back home. My cousin’s mom noticed a pile of clothes in the corner. The mom said “What’s that, your laundry? Pack it and we’ll wash it when we get home later.”
My cousin (I kid you not): “You can wash those?!”
Turns out, she’d been throwing away clothes instead of washing them. She claimed she didn’t know she could, yet she washed her undergarments and bras without a hitch.
She’s now at home with her family and has started doing more chores to show an increase in responsibility. She still tries to throw clothes away, citing that she didn’t know they could be washed and reused. Makes me wonder what she thought all those years before college, before she left home. She wore some of the same outfits repeatedly—she had to have known they could be washed.
#81 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 unpermitted substances and go down a bad way. He decided to photocopy the front and back side 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 fool proof. So he then tried to go and deposit the glued up money at an actual bank. He was obviously found out and apprehended. I don’t know where he is now but I’m assuming he is making similar life choices.
#82 To Be Fair, TV Is Pretty Complicated
A girl my dad dated for a while. Even while dating her, my dad would say she was dumber than a bag of rocks.
One day, she sat down to watch a movie with my dad. The movie was all about this guy and his twin brother. She sits and watches the whole thing, no interruptions. At the end, she turns and asks, "So there were two of him?"
That would explain why she always had the TV turned to a music channel. Apparently, she couldn't follow normal TV or movies.
Piqsels
#83 So You're Saying the Answer Is Yourself
My brother and I were in the kitchen one day as teenagers. My brother was filling the sink to wash dishes. When the sink was nearly full he went to turn the tap off but it wouldn’t budge so the water kept flowing. I tried turning it too but with no success. This is when the panic set in.
The level of the water was rising fast and we didn't want to flood the kitchen. He took big saucepans out of the press to fill with water to keep things from overflowing, while I was in a frantic scramble under the sink trying to find the mains to turn it off there. I couldn't find it!! Now really panicking I took over the pot filling duty and my brother went running off to look for dad as quickly as he could.
Dad came running in with my brother while we were shouting at him about looking for the mains. Dad just came over to the sink and pulled the plug out of the hole letting all the water down the drain.
#84 A Simple Misunderstanding
We were driving to a restaurant and wanted to see how long the wait was. My dad handed me the phone book and asked me to look up the number. I, for whatever reason, thought he said “get rid of this.” So I opened the window and chucked the phone book out while we were going 70 MPH down the highway.
That was over ten years ago and I still get mocked for it.
#85 Not Exactly Rocket Science
I failed a science test. I decided that I would just burn the grade and it would no longer exist.
So I'm sitting in my bedroom with the door open. I make sure I'm on the carpet for safety reasons and I just grab the entire test—which was roughly three pages—and light the corner.
My brother walked down at the right time and saw me. The paper went up instantly. I had no idea it was going to be that fast! In movies it would always slowly burn so you can see what the message was before the evidence was erased.
My 12-year-old brother quickly put it out with his hands. And later, my mom found a small stain on the carpet.
My brother didn't get burned or rat me out. Or if he did, no one told me.
Clearly, I failed science for a reason...
#86 Write This Down
Microwaved a pen for two minutes in the workplace microwave. To this day I do not know why I did that. Didn’t lose my job though, so that’s good!
#87 Wrong Guy for the Job
When I was in the Navy, there was a cook on my ship. He once served "rare" chicken. I genuinely couldn't tell whether he was trying to cover up his limitless incompetence or if he genuinely believed that rare poultry is a real thing. Another time, he just filled a pan with ground beef and called it meat loaf.
Another time he was supposed to make sugar cookies, you know, several hundred of them for the whole crew. He didn't bother to read the label on the container he opened, and apparently he didn't taste the batter at any point, and he actually made salt cookies. He used up all the remaining salt in the pantry and we had unseasoned food for the remaining several weeks of the mission, during which time the captain assigned someone to be the cook's bodyguard.
#88 Too Inept to Break It
I worked with a guy for a while at a maintenance job. Well, we did snow removal. One morning, I come in a bit late and get regaled with the story of true, unadulterated idiocy.
This guy got a riding lawnmower with a John Deere snow brush attached to the front (think how a vacuum works) to remove the snow in a parking lot. He decided that it would be better if the snow blew backward (toward himself) rather than away from himself for whatever reason, and asked our boss about it.
Now our boss hates this guy, and he basically told him to just get the snow moved and be done with it. So what does this guy do?
He called John Deere and talked to them for AN HOUR. They told him that yes, you technically CAN reverse the brush, but it will mess everything up if you run it like that for any real amount of time. He proceeded to tell John Deere that they were wrong, and tried to do it anyway. The only reason he didn’t ruin the brush was because he was inept, and our boss basically told him that if he broke it, he was fired.
#89 Faxing Paper
I worked with a girl who was entitled, and dumb, so we used to mess with her.
Once I told her we were out of paper and asked her to call up Office Max and have them fax us over 100 blank sheets, and charge it to our account.
Then we watched as she tried for a few minutes to convince the worker to fax us paper. Pretty sure she thinks the only reason it didn't work is because the guy wouldn't charge it to our account.
#90 Directionally Challenged
We shall call him Chad. Chad was a guy I worked with years ago and he was terrible with directions. He had no idea where he was, or where he was going and was terrible at identifying landmarks. So we are working less than 5 minutes from our store on this particular day in a small residential area about a mile and a half down the road. Including the turn out of the driveway, you have to make 3 turns, all right-hand turns, and cross one intersection, and you'll be at our store.
A short time into what is an all-day job we realize we have some equipment at the store that would help us out tremendously. I ask Chad to go get it. He doesn't know the way. I explain it to him. He stares at me. It's 3 right-hand turns, Chad, I think you can do it. Chad wants a map. Fine. I draw a map. Chad leaves. 25 minutes go by. Chad should have been back by now. I call the store and I'm told that Chad left 10 minutes ago. As I am on the phone I hear the truck coming and he drives right by the house.
Well, darn. Poor Chad forgot what house we were at. No big deal, the road is a giant circle and he will come around again in a moment. So I walk up the driveway and sure enough, here he comes again. I wave, and he pulls in the driveway. As he gets out I laugh and say, "Haha, aww man, you forgot what house we were at?"
Chad deadpans, "Naw man, ya moved the truck."
...Chad was looking for the company truck in the driveway. The very same truck he was driving.
#91 Candle in the Wind
I tried to put out a candle by covering it with a Kleenex. It didn’t work…
#92 There’s a First Time for Everything
I stuck my hand in a hot bowl of soup simply because I hadn’t before and wanted to see what it was like…
#93 Taking the Bait
I jumped up and (successfully) bit the string that is used to pull the attic door down. It had a metal bead on it. Immediately after, I remember thinking, “ Wow, I actually managed to get it in my mouth and broke the string.” Then I realized the string was still there, but half my front tooth wasn’t.
As the best man at my wedding said, “the attic string went fishing for idiots and caught one.”
#94 Manipulation Backfire
This girl I used to work with before she got fired. One day she came to work with a broken arm and claimed her boyfriend pushed her during a fight and she fell. We all were super concerned for her until she came in a week later saying she poked her boyfriend in the hand during a fight to get back at him for breaking her arm.
Then a few weeks later she told everyone she was secretly trying to get pregnant because if she got pregnant her unemployed boyfriend would have to get a job and help pay rent. She got pregnant and her boyfriend immediately dumped her.
#95 Staring Down a Piece
I can sum it up very easily: We were at the hitting range, his piece jammed, he looked down the barrel to see what was wrong.
#96 Say Hello to My Little Friend
I bought a hedgehog off of someone, planning to give it to my crush to keep as a pet. I was very young and didn’t have much of a thought process past “she’s definitely going to like me after this!” Unfortunately, her parents said no when I showed up at her house to deliver this unexpected gift to her. I ended up having to keep him myself for the next seven years. He turned out to be the sweetest boy ever, though, so I’m pretty happy!
#97 A Tacky Story
I used to drink cans of soda by stabbing them with a push pin/thumbtack. If I just pulled it out, there would be a stream of spilled soda. So I would pull the tack out with my teeth while creating a seal with my lips. One time I accidentally swallowed the tack. One emergency room visit and a few X-rays later, I was sent home to dig through my poo. I was 14.
#98 Blood Money
Yesterday I was using a nail piece on the trim around the windows of my house. Being the idiot that I am, I decided to see what would happen if I shot a penny. The nail ricocheted off the penny, shot past my head, and ended up in the fridge behind me. Close call.
#99 Gracefully Mistaken
When I was little, I threw my ballet shoes into a toilet I had just peed in. I have no idea why. I then ran to my mom, who couldn't decipher through my bad crying what was going on. To this day I still have no idea why I did it, but I remember feeling that I had to do it.
#100 Picky, Picky, Picky
I once picked a guy’s pocket and put it back just to see if I could do it without getting caught. I didn't get caught. It was the single dumbest thing I've ever done in my life, considering how bad it could have gone if I had gotten caught.
#101 Burning With Passion for Class
This was during a graduate business school class. I was sitting in the back row, bored out of my mind. I had a foil gum wrapper that I rolled into a horseshoe design. I then looked at the electrical outlet, and it was like my hand automatically started to move towards it. I remember in my head, I was saying, "Don't do it - you know what will happen!" but I couldn't stop.
Once both ends of the foil wrapper were in two of the holes for the electrical outlet, there was a pop, a spark, and then some smoke. The guy next to me was so startled, he flew back in his chair against the wall. I shorted the whole row of outlets that everyone had their laptops connected to. The professor started walking up to my area to see what happened, so I pulled the wrapper out of the outlet and tried to play it off. He only came up part way and made some comment about "sticky fingers." Later on, I was voted by my peers to be "most likely to burn down the business school." So, I have that going for me.
#102 Tug of Conflict
Me and my brothers would tie ropes to each other and run in opposite directions. Did it to trees, too. I tried to bungee jump from a tree with just a regular old rope one time. That one hurt pretty bad.
#103 The Computer Should Have Knocked Some Sense Into You
Angrily thwacked my laptop when the internet went out for the 10th time when I was trying to do my homework. Turns out I hit it where the hard drive was, and it never worked again.
Lost the homework I was trying to do.
#104 Sounds Like One Wild Fourth of July Party
When I was about nine or ten years old, I threw a piece of pie into my neighbor’s yard. Turns out my neighbor was in her yard. She came and knocked on my door, asking why a piece of pie flew out of nowhere and almost hit her. Strangest thing I ever got in trouble for.
#105 We All Scream For Ice Cream, Literally
I was a little mentally out of it one time and eating ice cream out of a big tub. I needed my hands for something and instead of just putting the ice cream down, I chucked it out of the window. That way just seemed easier, I guess.
As you can imagine, there was someone passing my window, but they just went "what the heck?" and laughed. I hid under the table for a while and lamented the loss of ice-cream.
#106 Pushing the Limit
I used to hang out with this girl at her house when I was 14 or 15 (I am also a girl). One day she came out of her parent's room with something in her mouth. At first I didn't realize what it was but once she sat back down on the couch, I saw that it was a… marital aid toy. In her mouth. And it was turned on...
I kind of flipped out and asked her what the heck she was doing. She said her gums hurt, so she was massaging them. The bad/sad/disgusting/weird thing was that she didn't even know what it was. She found it in her parent's room one day and thought it was for your teeth/gums so she just kept using it regularly.
On top of that, her parents knew she used it for that purpose because they walked in and talked to her while she had it in her mouth. I didn't go back.
#107 Painting a Pretty Stupid Picture of Your Judgment
I chopped an aerosol paint can in half with an axe. I was definitely old enough to know better, but my cousin and I thought we had it worked out. My mom always said, “One kid, one brain; two kids, no brains.” Boy was she right. I was yellow for a week.
#108 Bon Voyage!
I was packing up the car for a trip and just completely forgot to grab the last suitcase and put it in. It was apparently just sitting on the sidewalk for the entire two days I was gone…
#109 Curiosity Ended the Cat
You know those lighters in old cars? Nobody in my immediate family smokes, and when I was younger, I decided to press it out of curiosity one time and it popped out. I pulled it out to inspect—it was just grey coils—it didn't look red hot or anything. So I tested that sucker the best way I knew how—I stuck it to my tongue.
#110 Fan One, You Zero
I threw a plastic bottle at a ceiling fan. It ricocheted back, right on my forehead.
#111 Always Listen to Your Little Voice
I had an intrusive thought that said I should scream in the middle of a mostly quiet class.
I didn't ignore it.
#112 That Bowl Wasn’t Exactly Your Cup of Tea...
I have a bad habit of sucking cups around my lips/mouth and then pulling them off so they make that very satisfying "pop" sound. One day I was holding a plastic bowl and absent-mindedly stuck it to my mouth and tried to suction it to my face. Discovered it was too big, so I moved it up over my nose and proceeded to suck.
Proceeded to panic until I could pull the bowl off my face.
#113 Was the Snow Yellow?
I picked up and licked that machine they use to melt snow. It was not salty as I had hoped, and it did not taste good. Would not recommend.
#114 Strrrriiike Three!
My dad was sleeping on the couch and I happened to be holding an avocado. Without giving it a second thought, I chucked the avocado at his head for no reason. It plonked right off his forehead, waking him up of course. He was so furious he couldn’t look at me for the rest of the day.
I was like 11 years old, and my dad has a temper. The moment it left my hand I knew my life was ending so I just helplessly watched it sail into his sleeping face.
#115 What a Wonderful Way to Start the Day
When I was a wee boy, I woke up early before everyone, went down to the kitchen, grabbed a chair, brought it to the fridge, and took the small metal pencil sharpener from the top. I decided to sharpen my pinky first thing in the morning so I could have a sharp finger! Ended up waking the parents up and bleeding profusely.
#116 Half Past Stupid
Someone asked me what time it was. I lifted and rotated my wrist so I could look at my watch. I was holding an iced tea and just poured the whole thing into my lap.
The best part?
I wasn’t wearing a watch. I didn’t even own a watch. Never have.
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