We all have those moments where we experience a brain fart. Sure, we may misspell a few words or make up stories by the seat of our pants, but that’s as far as it goes. For us, anyway. Other people consistently show us that their foolish decisions are indicative of their lifestyle.
#1 Sleep it Off
One night during high school, my friend and I got invited to a party. I didn't drive back then so my friend picked me up. All went well on our way to the party. On the way back, however, he got pulled over. As we were pulling to the side of the road, I told him that I was going to pretend to be sleeping (since I was the passenger).
I heard the cop get out of his cop car, walk towards our car, stop at the window but not say anything. I could feel the brightness of his flashlight but I didn't hear him or my friend say anything. After what seemed like an eternity, I decided to open my eyes to see what was going on. That was when I saw my friend, the guy who drove, pretending to be asleep too.
#2 Can’t Make it Up
This one guy I went to high school with was at a party and asked the homeowner if he could have her tattoo kit. She obviously told him no. So, like an idiot, he left and came back an hour later with a ski mask on, demanding for the tattoo kit. He was arrested the next day. I can’t make up that kind of stupidity.
#3 Ultimate Game Plan
I used to work with this girl 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 attacked her boyfriend 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.
#4 Where Babies Come From
My friend’s sister was 20 and pregnant. She said something about how upset she was that her private area would be ruined. I jokingly said, “Maybe he’ll come out of your butt instead.” She said, “What do you mean? Can they come out of there too?” I thought she was joking, so I just told her, “Duh. It’s a 50/50 shot.” She thought I was serious and asked her doctor if he could tell if the baby was going to come out of her butt.
#5 Surfer Ben
The first time I met Ben was in Improv 101. I was only taking the class for fun, but about half the people there were aspiring actors… including Ben. On the first day, the teacher had us all play this silly game to break the ice and so we'd all remember each other's names. The rules were pretty simple. You’d pick an adjective that starts with the same letter as your first name, introduce yourself using Adjective + First Name, and do a simple gesture that goes with it.
So, everyone was going around the circle, introducing themselves as Daring Daniel, Lonely Lauren or Awesome Alex. Then we got to Ben. Ben introduced himself as "Surfer Ben." He proceeded to misunderstand at least one key element of every game or exercise for the rest of the class. I have no clue how this man functions in daily life.
#6 Dumbest Person Award
Back in my younger and crankier days, I worked with a young woman who was hands-down the dumbest person I've ever met. She once won a basket auction that included a copy of The Beach Boys’ album Pet Sounds . She then complained about winning that particular album because she "didn't want to hear a lot of mooing."
Another time, 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 for exactly five minutes. I’ll be honest, though. I, however, enjoyed her sulky silence for the rest of the day.
#7 Rock Beats Everything
My ex-husband. We were playing Rock Paper Scissor to decide who had to go change the baby — best two out of three. Round one, I threw scissors and he threw rock. “I win!” He proclaimed. Round two, I threw paper and he threw rock. “I win!” He said again. “Umm, paper beats rock,” I told him. His response? “No, rock beats everything.” I spent like five minutes trying to wrap my mind around this. Finally, I asked him, “Then… what’s the point of even playing?” In total sincerity, he said, “To have fun!”
#8 Speaking American
The first time I met my future sister-in-law, she asked me, “If you’re Canadian, how come you speak American?” She was 20 at the time. She's my husband's step-sister, so there's no relation to him or me. Yes, it was a genuine question (I asked her about it later). She's not smart, sarcastic, or witty enough to make a joke like this.
#9 Monkey See, Monkey Do
Whenever a customer would enter the store, this one guy would mimic everything they said. He’d also try his best to copy their accent, no matter what it was. Multiple complaints to our store have been made about this guy and he had plenty of warnings. Last week, he finally got fired while serving an Asian customer. In full view of our manager, he said something incredibly offensive. He then got pulled into the office where he still maintained he'd done nothing wrong and couldn't understand why he was being fired. Definitely an idiot.
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#10 Honesty’s the Best Policy
My mom's cousin was the getaway driver when his friends held up a 7-11. He had some outstanding tickets at the time. As he was driving his idiot friends him home, he sped past a cop, who inevitably pulled him over. He defended his bad driving by telling the cop he was just the getaway driver. Then he got arrested. He has since been arrested for a series of other similarly stupid crimes.
#11 Look, the Moon
An old co-worker of mine takes the cake for me. He was once helping me move and while we were carrying a couch, he dropped it. Thinking he was hurt, I asked if he was okay. With the most serious and frightening look in his eyes, he pointed at the sky and said, “Look. It’s the moon and it’s day time.” He was 25 at the time.
#12 Bleach Blonde Bubblehead
I had a manager named Roxanne (Rocky). She was a bleach blonde bubblehead who only had the job because daddy owned the restaurant. Rocky was really obsessed with her looks and not much else. One day, she told me and a co-worker that she had her nose job done so that her eventual children wouldn't grow up with the same nose as her. She wasn't kidding. The co-worker and I just looked at each other and walked away. We knew it wasn't worth the effort.
#13 Truck on Fire
When I was in the military, we had to halt a convoy due to a broken-down truck. I was standing around with a few others for security when I heard a driver behind us yelling for his squad leader. Looking to see what he needed, I observed thick smoke billowing from his truck. He kept yelling "My truck is on fire!" without getting out of his seat or attempting to extinguish the fire. I was dumbfounded.
#14 Roy’s Theories on 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, "Do 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 amount for your down payment. Then, you don't make any payments, and you don't show up for your court date..."
#15 School Loot
There was this guy at my high school who wasn't too bright and was mostly harmless. But, about halfway through, he decided he was going to be a thug. One day, he went into a class of first years when their teacher wasn't there and robbed all of their electronics, cash and valuables without covering his face. Before he left, he gave them his real name.
He then proceeded to leave school grounds with all the stolen stuff but decided against stashing it off-campus. So he came back with all the stolen stuff in his backpack and went back to spy on the class with his backpack full of loot. Meanwhile, police officers were there taking statements to make sure they weren't ratting him out.
#16 A Whole Lot
I once helped a client out to his car with some merchandise. He struggled for a bit to get into the vehicle. I, jokingly, asked if it was his car. He backed up, looked at it and said, “Nope. No, this is not my car.” He then went to a different color and make of car in the lot. There were only three vehicles in the whole lot.
#17 Paying the Bills
A 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 co-worker 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 also 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. Last we heard, they were garnishing his wages.
#18 Secret to Immortality
I work with a guy who honestly believes he will not pass away. He also believes that doctors are"part of the system" and that they lie to you for profit and personal gain. He believes in Eastern traditional medicine, however. If you're interested to know his secret to eternal life, it's six raw eggs a day and a keto diet.
#19 What Dads Do
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 prison for it. The same day he was released from prison, he robbed the same bank again. He was caught and sent back to prison. He didn’t learn in those 10 years not to rob any banks. My friend was like, “This is what every father does” and didn’t seem shocked over it.
#20 Cooking in the Navy
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 actually 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 meatloaf.
Another time, he was supposed to make several hundred sugar cookies 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. He 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.
#21 Where’s New York?
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 online. He said that she was in New York and that he wanted to go visit her. I told him that was pretty cool and New York would 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.
#22 Two Moons
This girl I went to school with thought Earth had two moons and adamantly argued with me and a teacher. The girl thought that there were two moons of the same size, one on each half of Earth. She thought that the earth didn’t rotate while in orbit. She also thought that since the sun was so big and bright that it blocked the moon during the day. Nothing she said made sense and she wouldn’t answer any further questions or follow up with any rebuttals.
#23 Guitar Players
Back when I was in middle school, I was playing Guitar Hero with the neighbor. He asked, "Hey man, why does the yellow button have a bump on it?" For whatever reason, I, without missing a beat said, "So blind people can play, and they know where to put their fingers." We both accepted this as the obvious answer, but my brother was sitting on the couch watching. He then went, “Are you an idiot? How would a blind person play this game? Think about it for a second.” I felt pretty stupid after that.
#24 That Says “Michael”
There was this receptionist at the veterinary office we have taken our dogs to over the years. She literally argued with my dad one time about how to pronounce his own name. My dad went in to pick up some prescription for our dog Daisy and this girl asked the typical "name of dog, name of owner" type questions.
"We have it listed as Michelle and you don't look like Michelle," she said. Dad asked how it was spelled on the monitor and it was still spelled "Michael," my dad's name. He said, "That says Michael. That's my name." She argued with him about it! He had to get his driver's license out to show her. Even though she finally relented to let him pick up his order, she was adamant my dad has been mispronouncing his own name for 50+ years.
The best part is Dad told us this whole story and we thought nothing of it until like three months later. My mom took the dog in for a check-up. The girl still thought the owner of the dog was "Michelle" and that my mom must be in a lesbian relationship. My mom gently corrected the lady that it was Michael and again this girl was adamant it was pronounced Michelle. My mom, bemused, said something along the lines of, "It's literally a name from the Bible. It's pronounced Michael and has been for thousands of years." The receptionist sat in silence outside of the minimal amount of talking needed for the rest of that visit.
#25 Oh, I Work Here
I have a friend named Rachel. Now this one night in high school, we all got the munchies and decided to go get ourselves some late-night Sonic. We piled into Rachel’s car even though we heard stories about her bad driving. Anyway, she asked us how to get to Sonic and we proceeded to give her direction turn for turn until we finally pulled into the Sonic parking lot. Upon our arrival, she smirked and said, “Oh. I work here!”
#26 Dumb as a Rock
I once had a property manager 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. We couldn’t help but think that because of all the shady 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.
#27 Practical Knowledge
My high school classmate whose name is Nick. We were in chemistry, 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, "Nick! Stop that right now!”
#28 A Capital Two
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 came 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 two key at the same time. He turned his head and with a puzzled look he asked me, "Wouldn't that be a capital two?"
#29 Coming For You
I’d have to say that the dumbest person I ever met was 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. He’d keep yelling, "I'm gonna getcha." He was fired on the spot.
#30 That One Girl
There was this girl I knew in high school who would constantly say or do stupid things. She once drew a cover page for a unit in science class, where she drew Earth and put ground underneath it. Another time, she asked, “What lightbulbs did cavemen use?” She also argued that she wasn’t a Homosapien because “she liked men.”
#31 Social Stupidity
I knew this guy in high school really thought his “practical jokes” were hilarious. He would just do stuff designed to upset you, thinking your salty reaction would make it funny. You may be thinking this guy was the worst and you’d be right. But he’s also incredibly stupid. Every time someone said, “Dude, chill out with your nonsense,” he just blew it off. Social stupidity I guess.
One day, he knocked this kid’s hat off his head. (These guys were friends but clearly there was some hostility.) The other kid picked up his hat and told the prankster to get away from him. The prankster then smacked his hat again. The other kid told him if the prankster knocked his hat off a third time, he’d knock his head off. The prankster has a grin, completely oblivious to how serious this guy was. He then got absolutely clocked in the face when he messed with this guy’s hat a third time. All he could say was, “What the heck, man?! Chill out!” But no one was willing to hear him out.
#32 Soft Moos
My brother's (now ex) girlfriend was a super kind lady. When she found out I was a vegan, she literally went through every kind of meat she knew of and asked if I could eat it. It was a little painful. Cute story about the same girl, though. Anytime we would go on a road trip and she saw cows, she would always softly moo under her breath. Even if she was in mid-conversation.
#33 Here’s My Money
There was a troubled kid I went to high-school with. He decided to photocopy the front and back side of a 20 dollar bill, cut it out of normal paper, and glue the two halves with Elmer’s glue. What's even sadder is that to test his new money, he went to the gas station and bought some gum. Apparently, it somehow worked?! So, in his mind, it must have meant that it was foolproof. 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.
#34 Ha, Psych
I knew this guy in high school who was a huge idiot. The best story about his stupidity happened when he and another friend got pulled over by the cops. Instead of acting like a normal person, he got the hilarious idea to step out of the car and proceed to run as fast as he could down the block. The cops chased right after him, not amused at all.
He got a couple of blocks away and decided to turn around, put his hands up in the air, and scream, "Psych!" The cops, of course, did not find any humor in this situation and tackled him to the ground. They then arrested him. Keep in mind this was before YouTube prank videos, so he wasn't doing it to gain subscribers or anything. He did it because he was a moron.
#35 Cuts of Meat
We were on a drive through an animal park. We saw an animal and this one girl asked, "What kind of meat would that one be?" Someone replied, “Oh… it'd probably taste similar to beef I'd imagine.” A few minutes later, we saw a different animal. That same woman asked, "And what about that one? Would it be, like, a fillet or a T-bone or something?" Then I realized that woman thought different cuts of meat came from different animals.
#36 Put it Out
I once heard panicked shouting from the kitchen. So, I rushed in to see what was happening since my roommate was in there. I saw him holding a burning paper towel in his hand, waving it around and holding it so the flames were climbing towards his hand. I told him to drop it and quickly stomped it out. Turns out, he had turned on our gas stove with the paper towel nearby. I don't know if you can be stupider than screaming about something about to burn you without doing anything to stop it.
#37 Down the Drain
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, but with no success. That was 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. Meanwhile, I was in a frantic scramble under the sink trying to find the mains to turn it off there. I couldn't find it! We were then really panicking. I took over the pot-filling duty and my brother went running off to look for our dad as quickly as he could. Our 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.
#38 Following Movies
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 sat and watched the whole thing, no interruptions. In the end, she turned and asked, "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.
#39 Petty Woman
I worked very briefly with a woman who showed herself to be awful. Her grandmother passed away 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 kicking 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.
#40 Clicked in His Head
A guy I knew was confused as to how it could be the same season in the United States as in Europe. Watching his girlfriend explain how hemispheres and longitude versus latitude worked was so hard to do. I just kept staring down at my phone to keep from laughing out loud. I’m still not sure it ever really clicked in his head.
#41 During an Eclipse
I had a boss named Tammy. One night, we were all working late doing stock and we were discussing the impending lunar eclipse. Someone asked what happened 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 a U-bend and half of it stayed in our normal orbit while the other half casually blocked the moon.
#42 Can’t Stand Meat
This one lady at an Atlanta Festival clearly didn't know where she was. I'm getting started on this rack of ribs, quietly minding my own business, when from the group in front of me this lady comes up to me. She tells me how she can't stand the smell of meat, roasted or smoked. She then tells me to get away from there. This is despite the fact that the event's name has Barbecue in it and she had to pay $40 to get in. After she left, I had a good chuckle and facepalm with another lady at the table. But, I've never seen more stupid in my life!
#43 Solar Technology
My roommate for the last three years once said that if solar technology keeps advancing, we will absorb all the energy made by the sun and fix global warming. 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 stated that wind farms are worse because they cause tropical storms. I just… I don't know.
#44 Uncle Batman
I was half-Korean, 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 could 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’s Batman?"
#45 All Kinds of Pasta
Once at a restaurant in New Orleans, my friend ordered macaroni and cheese. At the table with about 15 other people, he asked, "How did macaroni and cheese become a thing?" I asked what he meant and he said, "I mean, it's so redundant, you know?" Of course, I asked how it was redundant. He then said, "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.
#46 Conga Lisa Rice
I 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 an essay on American politics (we're from Canada). I agreed to edit his essay and it was the most insane thing I 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.” He also spelled Condoleezza Rice as "Conga Lisa Rice."
#47 List of Rules
One of my roommates. I live in a house where we give interviews to prospective new roommates to make sure they're cool. We were interviewing a deaf guy and he was looking like a good fit. We also have a list of rules and guidelines for living in the house. One of the current roommates asked, "Oh man, are we going to have to get the rules printed in braille?" That was far from an isolated incident.
#48 Live From Space
I had a classmate in 10th grade who thought Google Earth was a live stream from space. This was in 2008 or something. His dad was deployed overseas and was supposed to come home that other week. I asked him about when his dad should arrive and he answered that his dad was already there because he saw the ship in the harbour on Google Earth. He wouldn’t believe me as I pointed out that he saw an image. It was overcast that day, too.
#49 Fax it Over
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, asked her to call up OfficeMax 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. I’m pretty sure she thought the only reason it didn't work is that the guy wouldn't charge it to our account.
#50 That’s Your Opinion
My high school librarian tried to tell me that there are 51 states in the US, because of Puerto Rico. When I informed her that Puerto Rico is a territory and not a state, she said that she didn't agree with my opinion. It's not an opinion, lady. I even pulled it up on Google and showed her. She got mad at me for challenging her. Pointing to the extremely detailed world map on the wall across from her desk didn't work either.
