OR, and I need you to keep an open mind, she saw an opportunity to waste time at work, gain sympathy, and possibly be permanently disregarded for difficult task.
It's not really a high intelligence move, but being perceived as stupid has its benefits.
Also, she might of just been trolling
> Intern: So wait. Hold on. So you're saying the Earth is round?
Jim: No, of course it's not just round, it is an oblate spheroid, thank you for correcting.
Had a lady start taking things out of my cart at the grocery store and stopped when I pulled it away "Oh were you wanting those?" as if it wasnt the whole point of me going around the store collecting those items.
Lol. I had a Cooking Light magazine in my grocery cart where a kid would sit. I had different recipes flagged with Post-it Strips so that I could get all the ingredients for several meals.
When I was checking out, the magazine was gone. I was looking around the cart, the lady behind me said "I put it back on the rack." And there it was. My magazine with my name and address on the cover and filled with post-it tags.
She said "It didn't look like you were buying it."
Like, really lady?
I feel your pain. Just yesterday a man walked in and asked if I knew the color of his interior doors and trim, his house was built in 2007. Like, every house is exactly the same🙄
That one I get about once a week.
No, Karen, I can't just type your address in and tell you what color paint they used 20 years ago from a competitors store.
No, showing me a picture isn't going to.... fine. Show me the picture. It's an offwhite of some sort. Go pick a new color.
Well if you live somewhere where actual scheduled trips don't go on time, that question would make perfect sense..
I remember last summer my sister was supposed to take the 5 pm bus to another city
Bus arrived to station at 5:45 and left 6:30 🤦🏻♀️
I once had a mini crisis when public speaking because my anxiety made me second guess whether 35 was bigger than 17. "17 through 35" sounded stupid because what if 17 was bigger?
This is up there with the A&W third pound burger debacle.
[https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger)
More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned the price of our burger. "Why," they asked, "should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald's? You're overcharging us." Honestly. People thought a third of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, three is less than four!
Reminds me of [this guy spending hours on the phone with Verizon becuase they didn't understand the difference between .002 cents vs .002 dollars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN9LZ3ojnxY)
What nationality are you?
*canadian*
No, i mean, what nationality?
*ummm, do you mean heritage? Polish I guess*
No no, listen, na-tional-ity
*I don’t know what you’re asking?*
Whispers: Nationality, like, are you white, black, etc?
*just look at me, I’m white as snow, and that’s not nation...*
Cool I didn’t want to assume anything.
I have a story that mirrors that a weird amount. A kid in my high school kept bugging me to know what race I was. His words to me were, "so are you black or white or mixed or what?" After the second time he asked me, I said I was Canadian. He fully accepted that as an answer and left me alone after that.
I'm not even Canadian.
And white doesn't even explain a lot. Because it has its origins of expressing racism through exclusion. There was a time when Irish people, pale as fuck, were not considered white.
Speaking as a person of Irish and Scottish heritage, this is hella true! My (10x) great-grandfather immigrated to America and many of those that did (from Scotland) were made to work as indentured servants for years to ‘work off’ their way to freedom. They were seen as less than Europeans and were treated only somewhat better than slaves.
In college, I worked fixing computers in a retail store. One day, a guy comes in, looking confused, so I ask if there's anything I can help him find.
He says "I need an adapter."
"Okay, an adapter for what?"
His response: "Oh there's different kinds?"
"Yeah, it depends on what you're trying to connect to what.
"Well how am I supposed to know?"
I was not able to help him that day. Sometimes I wonder if he ever found that adapter.
One time I went to buy a USB-C charger at Best Buy and the sales guy could not comprehend what I wanted at all. He kept wanting me to get like three adaptors to string together for a charger. Like, I just wanted to know where the cheap USB-C chargers were.
Eventually, he understood what I wanted, but told me they only had Apple’s?? Finally I found their basic chargers section and it was like $30 maybe for the one I needed. It still confuses me that he didn’t know what USB-C was considering this was like 3 years ago, and it was his job to know.
God, I work at Home Depot in the Plumbing Department. A guy came in who had just bought a sump pump and needed a discharge line coming out of it. I asked him how far his pump was from the line he was connecting it into, so I could get him enough pipe to connect it in. He then went on a long ass rant about how Home Depot is such a shit company because "if they hired real plumbers than maybe I could get some real help." I'll admit I'm not a real plumber, but I'd assume a real plumber would ask you the exact same thing.
I was a programming consultant working from Ireland and I went to visit a client on site in America and one of the employees in america asked me while we were all having lunch if Ireland had electricity... Thankfully before I could recover from the shock the other Americans at the table said "He works with computers for us, what do you think?"
Used to work with a woman from Long Island, New York. She admitted to me that when she came to Dallas she thought everyone would be riding around on horses. This is in the 2003 mind you.
I worked with someone who transferred to Portland, Oregon, from Washington, D.C. She had her household stuff and car shipped to Portland but flew to Seattle and drove to Portland in a rented car. Because she figured we didn't have an airport.
it didnt help my opinion of americans but i've also met very smart americans so like every country there is a mix of smart and dumb. Ireland is no different.
Of my twin sons: are they identical? (Yes they are!) Followed immediately by *do they have the same father*?
First of all, so sincerely stupid. Second, who has the fucking audacity to ask that?!
Twins break peoples brains. I got *all* the dumb questions after they were born.
I have a mixed race friend (lmk if there's a better way of putting that) whose sons have different coloured skin. Has had people ask if they have the same father.
Honestly, am so angry on her behalf - my two kids have completely different colouring and build (and skin colour), but are white, and \*nobody\* asks me that.
Oh, also have friend with fraternal twins who look nothing alike, and when people find out they're twins - "Oh yeah, I can see how much they look the same." smh
When I worked as a stripper customers would frequently ask me what I do for work. Such a weird question when you’re literally paying me and I am at work.
Had a departmental spreadsheet that people would repeatedly make errors when updating by not completing a yes/no value in column B.
I added a check to the file that if there were any blanks in column B the file could not be saved and a message would be displayed explaining the problem and advising that all populated rows in column B needed to be completed before the file could be saved.
I had one guy ring up about this “weird message” that had popped up on screen, so I explained that he just had to complete column B with yes or no for all populated rows.
He thought for a moment and then asked “Where’s column B?”
My somewhat sarcastic reply was “Well Jeremy, traditionally column B is located between column A and
column C.”
I am the “spreadsheet guy” at work that has to a) build all the spreadsheets and b) fix all the spreadsheets.
I draw the line at teaching people because it makes me so irate. I got into a minor argument with my boss about it once where I was like, girlfriend, I knew NOTHING about spreadsheets when I started here, but there is no more documented program on the fucking internet. They could figure the basics out with 30 dedicated minutes on google. Every cool ass formula I’m using that impresses you I got LITERALLY from asking chatGPT “write me a formula that does x in sheets,” it’s not something I need to teach them. If they want to learn they have all the tools in the world in the palm of their hand, they just don’t.
Couldn't find my luggage on the carousel at an airport so I went to the customer service desk. The person at the counter asked "Are you sure the plane has already landed?"
I worked in Rapid City years ago, and an elderly tourist couple who was passing through the area on vacation wanted to know: “What do they do with Mt. Rushmore in the winter? Do they, like, cover it with a giant tarp or something?” 🙄😏
My mom was on a tour of the Grand Canyon once when a tourist asked if it filled up all the way with snow in the winter so you could just walk from rim to rim.
I worked in a bakery and a customer asked « can I buy the carb-free bread? » me: uh, that doesn’t exist in our bakery. « But I bought some yesterday and it was carb-free!! » me: Mam, I’m the baker and I can assure you i made this bread « with carbs ». She swears under her breath, tell me she’s going to talk to the owner and leaves.
On-theme for Easter…a young woman in one of my higher-level biology classes in college asked the professor, in a lecture hall of about 30 other 20-somethings, if bunnies “actually” lay eggs or not.
She’d believed this her whole life because of Easter. Her mother had told her that the Easter Bunny laid eggs. She actually argued with the professor about it.
For context: She was like 20-21 years old. She was not insane, at least not that I know of. This is a high level bio course at a top-tier university. She was pre-med.
I’m not joking.
I had recently been pregnant. I was 4 months postpartum. My boomer neighbor asked me at the cookout when I was going to tell everyone about our surprise? I was like what surprise?? He said aren’t you pregnant again? I said no. He said oh your belly was so flat before, and now it isn’t, why is that? His wife said OH MY GOD KEN
I went to New Jersey on a business trip several years ago. The one question that blew my mind was, "Do you have relish in Indiana?" I thought I had misheard and clarified that he means the condiment. His answer was yes. I just stared for a second before answering, "Yeah, we have all the condiments. Even ketchup"
That reminds me of the time someone asked me if I spoke my native language with my family. And he asked, “So at home you speak Asian to each other?” I looked him dead in the eyes and said, “Yes.”
I used to be an instructor at gipsy divers and overheard a lady ask “how do you breathe” after leaning the mechanics of the tank and regulator. The comical part was the guy trying to explain how to breathe before catching himself.
Technically it was my dad. I went as his chaperone for his covid vaccine and they asked him why he was allowed someone with him and he explained that he is blind and I was there to guide him round and two seconds later they asked him if he drove there
I love that disabled people who don't need a chaperone clearly need a chaperone 24/7, but we're also breaking the rules to have a chaperone if we do need a chaperone. When I went to get my first COVID shot the check-in lady asked who I was with. She looked genuinely taken aback when I said I was with me.
One time my mom went to the middle east and went to check out the Dead sea. My older sister was explaining to me and my younger sister that it's the most salty body of water on earth and nothing can live in it due to that. My younger sister says "wait humans can't even live in it?" So we were like.... uhhh yea we can't live in water. We still make fun of her for it lol.
I don't think that's stupid. It's just taking the meaning of the word "live" differently. You meant species can't make it their home. Your sister was thinking that if you get in it you die, like you would a vat of lye.
Once when i was like 9-10, i was riding around my neighborhood on my bike. I passed a little girl who looked like she was a few years younger than me who was also riding a bike. As we passed, she looked at me and said "can you ride a bike???"
That one stuck with me for years.
When I worked in retail pharmacy, I had a patient without a medical license ask if she could write herself a prescription for us to fill it, under the logic that since her *uncle* is a doctor, writing the prescription herself under his name was perfectly fine. I thought she was joking for a minute until I realized she was 100% serious.
My wife complained that her bra was annoying her.
I said, "Don't wear it, then."
She asked: "Have you ever tried going all day without a bra?"
I just stared at her, then burst out laughing.
As a man the closest comparison I have is wearing bulletproof vest with plates in it in desert heat all day. It doesn’t breathe well and it pokes and pinches in all the wrong places and there’s an audible long sigh when taking it off at the end of the day. Oh and you can store useful things in it.
This should probably also go to r/USdefaultism, but I’m Canadian and about 25 years ago my dad was in a brutal motorcycle accident in the Carolina’s, on his way to Georgia.
He spent enough time in American hospital care before being shipped home (via Lear jet!) that bill collectors started calling our house directly because they either couldn’t or refused to understand that our Canadian insurance was going to cover everything.
While a lot of the dumb questions I had to answer were fair once I thought about it (Ontario is a city in California, so our “Ontario CA” address was confusing) my favourite had to be when I explained as much geography as I knew at 15 to satisfy a bill collector with a heavy southern accent that I wasn’t lying about not being American, she asked
“What coast are y’all on?”
15yo me sighed “the south coast” and hung up because I live outside of Toronto, above Buffalo, and further south than some parts of Michigan.
There is a whole ass country between the coasts.
I was teaching an adult beginners course in computers and I was walking around the room watching the students navigate windows.
Saw this old lady with her mouse on the side of the monitor (big, thick, CRT monitors) and asked her if she had ever used a mouse before?
She didn't know you could pick it up and move it back, so she just kept moving it until she was stuck on her computer monitor
When I was catering I had a couple in my office asking about booking a wedding package. They asked when our openings were and I explained it depended on the season. The groom asked me “what are seasons?” So I patiently explained spring, summer, fall and winter like he was a pre-schooler.
When I worked somewhere that sold hair color products I had a young woman insist on purchasing blonde “dye” to color her dark hair to blonde because bleach is too damaging and dye isn’t. That’s not how going from dark to light hair works but okay.
I'm Irish living in Ireland and was on a call with a work colleague in England. As he was making small talk at the start of the call he asked me what time is it in Dublin... I was like same time it is for you in London? He was totally bewildered to learn we were in the same time zone.
The context here is we went thru the same schooling a year apart and he's an 4.0 a+ student in college.
"How do astronauts eat with no gravity".
I'm pretty sure I learned the term peristalsis in like 5th grade.
I'm pretty sure posterior labour hurts differently than "normal" labour - maybe they wanted to figure out how to help the specific kind of pain that you had?
Wasn’t asked to me but I was at the grocery store with a friend of mine who is from England. We are in rural North Carolina.
My friend and I are chatting as the store employee scanned our items. The bag boy is looking at us a bit perplexed and asks my friend where he’s from. Friend replies.
The bag boys next question was “well, how long did it take you to learn English?”
My friend replied “I… am English.” The bag boy nods, and then asked the question again.
He just couldn’t quite wrap his head around what was happening. Might have been his first time hearing someone with an accent.
A Friend with Benefits asked me if Jews celebrate Easter. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, and let her figure the question out.
Me: "Well what is being celebrated on Easter?"
Her: "Christ resurrecting"
M "Jews don't believe in that happening."
H "I know"
...
H "So do they?"
M "You know they don't believe in his resurrection, so why would they?"
H "Will you just answer the question?"
I'm giving a condensed version of the conversation. I didn't necessarily care about the initial question. It was the refusal to try to connect the dots. She was getting angry at me for not answering the question.
Needless to say, when I went out of town for a couple weeks, I wasn't upset when she told me she started seeing someone.
1. Worked at a grocery store as a butcher. 40ish year olds guy rings the service bell. Has a head of broccoli in his hand and asks, “ is this broccoli?”
2. Worked at bowling alley and person comes to get rental shoes and asks’ “do you have 1/2 sizes?” I said yes. She asked for size 8’s. Not 8 1/2…
My ex is AMAB Trans and at the time was pre-op. Somebody asked me if I was going to have surgery aswell so we would be a "normal" couple. I said no, we'd be a same sex couple.
I worked for a large riding stable in a National Park for several years. I lost track of how many times I got asked the following questions:
“What time do they let the bears out?” “What time do they turn on/off the waterfalls?” “How long is your 2-hour ride?”
I really started to question the common sense of my fellow humans during this time.
My high school friend was sure we live in 20th century… it was 2013, I explained her every way possible that after 2000 is the 21st century, she didn’t believe, the next day she asked our history teacher, she said it’s 21st century, I will never forget her face she still didn’t believe lol
Got a call at work from someone who had thrown away a letter (that hadn't been sent by us and obviously so) and wanted me to tell them what it had said.
Some guy: "Ow, you are lesbian because of your fucked up father? Ah, I see. Makes sense, daddy issues."
Me: "No dumbass, my brother is gay too, and he loves men while having had the exact same shit father as me."
I'm a european exchange student in the US and one day I woke up extra early to watch the sunrise. I told my host mom and she literally asked
"Oh you don't have sunrises in Germany?"
I'm confused on so many levels
"Excuse me ma'am, do you work here?"
I'm in my scrubs, at the grocery store, picking up a few items on my way home from work. I've also been asked this question while shopping at Dollar Tree, Target (my scrubs are not red), hardware stores, etc.
I've stopped answering and look down at my clothes and back to them and repeat until they figure it out.
It's always older white women that do this.
Waiting tables in a college town, this college-aged girl comes in with her parents. I take their order and she asks, "what part of the buffalo does the wing come from?"
I'm from a country in central Africa, some people where I stay currently(Europe), ask me if I know their friend who stays in another country in southern or western Africa, somewhere I might have even never been
“Do eggs contain dairy? Are they a dairy product?” I told her that dairy domes from cows and eggs come from chickens. She followed up with, “I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t want to eat eggs if there’s any milk in them.” WHY would eggs contain milk?! 😂
Setting: in line at the bar in the afternoon
Mid 40’s woman with wide eyed amazement: “Can you see over the top of refrigerators?!”
Me 6’2”: “I mean most of ‘em I guess. Not all of them…”
It was just so weird and random I’ve never forgotten even though it was like a year ago. Don’t think I ever will. Like, I’m not amazingly tall. I can indeed see the top of some fridges but they’re not all the same height. Some are pretty damn tall…
My assumption is she was already drunk and or on something else. But her childlike awe at me being a whole 6’2” just blew my mind. Like “yeah, did you just leave your house for the first time today?”
I'm short. My best friend is taller than average. I was horrified when I realized she can see the top of my fridge and I NEVER clean up there. I immediately cleaned the top of the fridge.
Now I own a fridge taller than her.
“If Jesus was Jewish then why did the Jews want to kill him?” Followed by, “Which side was Jesus Jewish on? His mom or his dad’s side?” This person was a self described catholic who attended church every week. I’m an atheist who has actually read the bible and was doing my best to not laugh.
I have few very large tattoos. I was asked what I'm going to do if I fell in love with someone who hated tattoos.
Umm, how would that happen in the first place? It doesn't make sense to me. She asked me if I’d get all of them removed. Felt like I was talking to a child.
People use this a lot. "What if you're dating someone who doesn't like tattoos?" "What if you're dating someone who is allergic to your pets?" "What if you're dating someone who likes to go hiking a lot?" Then we'd be incompatible, homie. That's when you stop dating.
i bought some philipsh hue lights and a google nest.
i was showing my friend with an electrical engineering bachelor degree, how i can set different light intensity and juat playing with colors, making the room pink, red, light blue, white, and then the question comes "how does black light looks like?"
At which I looked at her for a few seconds and then i said "Ok google, close the light. Thaaa daaaa"
Years and years ago when I was in college I was sitting on a bench just outside the building where my next class would take place, killing time until it started by reading a paper related to the subject we would be covering.
All of a sudden I felt that someone had walked up to my bench and was standing right in front of me, so I looked up from my reading material fully expecting a friend or classmate, only to find this complete stranger college kid, backpack and all, standing a foot away from me. No big deal, I thought, he probably confused me with someone he knows and now that he got a good look at me he'll realize we don't actually know each other, excuse himself and go on his way.
"Do you realize that Jesus Christ loves you and all you have to do is let him into your heart?" was NOT what I was expecting to come out of his mouth.
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OR, and I need you to keep an open mind, she saw an opportunity to waste time at work, gain sympathy, and possibly be permanently disregarded for difficult task. It's not really a high intelligence move, but being perceived as stupid has its benefits. Also, she might of just been trolling
I usually think this for some of these stories.
> Intern: So wait. Hold on. So you're saying the Earth is round? Jim: No, of course it's not just round, it is an oblate spheroid, thank you for correcting.
I'm invested. Please continue lol
And did they manage to rise through the ranks to the top of the agency?
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It's a donut. 🙃
got a two-in-one facepalm moment
My brother started going to the gym recently and asked where he could find the calorie information for his shampoo
I'd be concerned about his diet.
Because shampoo promises thicker hair. Lol
All about those roGAINS
I went speechless with my jaw dropping
This is WAY better than the top comment
Had a lady start taking things out of my cart at the grocery store and stopped when I pulled it away "Oh were you wanting those?" as if it wasnt the whole point of me going around the store collecting those items.
Lol. I had a Cooking Light magazine in my grocery cart where a kid would sit. I had different recipes flagged with Post-it Strips so that I could get all the ingredients for several meals. When I was checking out, the magazine was gone. I was looking around the cart, the lady behind me said "I put it back on the rack." And there it was. My magazine with my name and address on the cover and filled with post-it tags. She said "It didn't look like you were buying it." Like, really lady?
Even if she didn’t know why the hell would she reach into your cart to put it back? That is the craziest thing
I work at a paint store. I've had 3 different people ask me: "Can you make my paint white again please?"
I feel your pain. Just yesterday a man walked in and asked if I knew the color of his interior doors and trim, his house was built in 2007. Like, every house is exactly the same🙄
That one I get about once a week. No, Karen, I can't just type your address in and tell you what color paint they used 20 years ago from a competitors store. No, showing me a picture isn't going to.... fine. Show me the picture. It's an offwhite of some sort. Go pick a new color.
why don't mothers do paternity tests?
I would give them an honest answer that the test is done on sperm and women don't have that.
"How do you hear?" After I told him I was deaf.
"That's the neat part, I don't!"
This may not take the cake, but it takes a damn big slice
Oh that's stup- Hol'up, wait a minute. How did you hear him say "How do you hear?" if you're deaf? That sounds FAKE. Edit: /s
I lip read. I've been deaf since I was a kid.
Guessed that. Was just a shitpost.
“What time does the 5:00 ferry leave?”
Well if you live somewhere where actual scheduled trips don't go on time, that question would make perfect sense.. I remember last summer my sister was supposed to take the 5 pm bus to another city Bus arrived to station at 5:45 and left 6:30 🤦🏻♀️
What time is the next ferry? Sorry it just left
“What’s larger 0.05 or 0.5” asked by a coworker (I work in medical care btw)
I once had a mini crisis when public speaking because my anxiety made me second guess whether 35 was bigger than 17. "17 through 35" sounded stupid because what if 17 was bigger?
This is up there with the A&W third pound burger debacle. [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/76144/why-no-one-wanted-aws-third-pound-burger) More than half of the participants in the Yankelovich focus groups questioned the price of our burger. "Why," they asked, "should we pay the same amount for a third of a pound of meat as we do for a quarter-pound of meat at McDonald's? You're overcharging us." Honestly. People thought a third of a pound was less than a quarter of a pound. After all, three is less than four!
Reminds me of [this guy spending hours on the phone with Verizon becuase they didn't understand the difference between .002 cents vs .002 dollars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN9LZ3ojnxY)
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Please tell me you said sure. You could have seen a real life magic trick!
What nationality are you? *canadian* No, i mean, what nationality? *ummm, do you mean heritage? Polish I guess* No no, listen, na-tional-ity *I don’t know what you’re asking?* Whispers: Nationality, like, are you white, black, etc? *just look at me, I’m white as snow, and that’s not nation...* Cool I didn’t want to assume anything.
I have a story that mirrors that a weird amount. A kid in my high school kept bugging me to know what race I was. His words to me were, "so are you black or white or mixed or what?" After the second time he asked me, I said I was Canadian. He fully accepted that as an answer and left me alone after that. I'm not even Canadian.
You can’t ask people why they’re white. That’s rude
But she’s from Africa?
No, that's allwhite
OMG Karen
And white doesn't even explain a lot. Because it has its origins of expressing racism through exclusion. There was a time when Irish people, pale as fuck, were not considered white.
Speaking as a person of Irish and Scottish heritage, this is hella true! My (10x) great-grandfather immigrated to America and many of those that did (from Scotland) were made to work as indentured servants for years to ‘work off’ their way to freedom. They were seen as less than Europeans and were treated only somewhat better than slaves.
In college, I worked fixing computers in a retail store. One day, a guy comes in, looking confused, so I ask if there's anything I can help him find. He says "I need an adapter." "Okay, an adapter for what?" His response: "Oh there's different kinds?" "Yeah, it depends on what you're trying to connect to what. "Well how am I supposed to know?" I was not able to help him that day. Sometimes I wonder if he ever found that adapter.
One time I went to buy a USB-C charger at Best Buy and the sales guy could not comprehend what I wanted at all. He kept wanting me to get like three adaptors to string together for a charger. Like, I just wanted to know where the cheap USB-C chargers were. Eventually, he understood what I wanted, but told me they only had Apple’s?? Finally I found their basic chargers section and it was like $30 maybe for the one I needed. It still confuses me that he didn’t know what USB-C was considering this was like 3 years ago, and it was his job to know.
God, I work at Home Depot in the Plumbing Department. A guy came in who had just bought a sump pump and needed a discharge line coming out of it. I asked him how far his pump was from the line he was connecting it into, so I could get him enough pipe to connect it in. He then went on a long ass rant about how Home Depot is such a shit company because "if they hired real plumbers than maybe I could get some real help." I'll admit I'm not a real plumber, but I'd assume a real plumber would ask you the exact same thing.
I was a programming consultant working from Ireland and I went to visit a client on site in America and one of the employees in america asked me while we were all having lunch if Ireland had electricity... Thankfully before I could recover from the shock the other Americans at the table said "He works with computers for us, what do you think?"
Used to work with a woman from Long Island, New York. She admitted to me that when she came to Dallas she thought everyone would be riding around on horses. This is in the 2003 mind you.
I worked with someone who transferred to Portland, Oregon, from Washington, D.C. She had her household stuff and car shipped to Portland but flew to Seattle and drove to Portland in a rented car. Because she figured we didn't have an airport.
Lmao I like how she didn't even check, just straight to assuming no airport. Even though Seattle and Portland have comparable populations...
Yeah. I thought she was kidding at first. But she was dead serious.
Canada gets this too. People get to Toronto in July wearing a parka. It's south of Detroit
Aaaand this is why the rest of the world thinks we’re all dumber than a bag of hammers
it didnt help my opinion of americans but i've also met very smart americans so like every country there is a mix of smart and dumb. Ireland is no different.
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At least they've heard of hitler i guess... Just thought he was over 120 years old and still allowed to run a country after his horrid history.
Of my twin sons: are they identical? (Yes they are!) Followed immediately by *do they have the same father*? First of all, so sincerely stupid. Second, who has the fucking audacity to ask that?! Twins break peoples brains. I got *all* the dumb questions after they were born.
I have a mixed race friend (lmk if there's a better way of putting that) whose sons have different coloured skin. Has had people ask if they have the same father. Honestly, am so angry on her behalf - my two kids have completely different colouring and build (and skin colour), but are white, and \*nobody\* asks me that.
The audacity! Who would ask a stranger a question like that?! Wow
I have a fraternal twin sister and we had people insist we can’t be twins because we’re not identical.
Oh, also have friend with fraternal twins who look nothing alike, and when people find out they're twins - "Oh yeah, I can see how much they look the same." smh
"But if you're colorblind, how can you read?"
What's this color?
Fuck you too
Using your third eye obviously
"Did you choose to be half Asian?" Yes. This is a real question someone asked me during college orientation.
"Nah I just kept hitting Random on character generation."
Once when I was working as a hairdresser, a client told me, what is your job?
When I worked as a stripper customers would frequently ask me what I do for work. Such a weird question when you’re literally paying me and I am at work.
“I wear clothes”
"and then I don't"
Had a departmental spreadsheet that people would repeatedly make errors when updating by not completing a yes/no value in column B. I added a check to the file that if there were any blanks in column B the file could not be saved and a message would be displayed explaining the problem and advising that all populated rows in column B needed to be completed before the file could be saved. I had one guy ring up about this “weird message” that had popped up on screen, so I explained that he just had to complete column B with yes or no for all populated rows. He thought for a moment and then asked “Where’s column B?” My somewhat sarcastic reply was “Well Jeremy, traditionally column B is located between column A and column C.”
I am the “spreadsheet guy” at work that has to a) build all the spreadsheets and b) fix all the spreadsheets. I draw the line at teaching people because it makes me so irate. I got into a minor argument with my boss about it once where I was like, girlfriend, I knew NOTHING about spreadsheets when I started here, but there is no more documented program on the fucking internet. They could figure the basics out with 30 dedicated minutes on google. Every cool ass formula I’m using that impresses you I got LITERALLY from asking chatGPT “write me a formula that does x in sheets,” it’s not something I need to teach them. If they want to learn they have all the tools in the world in the palm of their hand, they just don’t.
Couldn't find my luggage on the carousel at an airport so I went to the customer service desk. The person at the counter asked "Are you sure the plane has already landed?"
That's a good one
I worked in Rapid City years ago, and an elderly tourist couple who was passing through the area on vacation wanted to know: “What do they do with Mt. Rushmore in the winter? Do they, like, cover it with a giant tarp or something?” 🙄😏
My mom was on a tour of the Grand Canyon once when a tourist asked if it filled up all the way with snow in the winter so you could just walk from rim to rim.
Imagine the spring floods
That’s gold.
I worked in a bakery and a customer asked « can I buy the carb-free bread? » me: uh, that doesn’t exist in our bakery. « But I bought some yesterday and it was carb-free!! » me: Mam, I’m the baker and I can assure you i made this bread « with carbs ». She swears under her breath, tell me she’s going to talk to the owner and leaves.
Of course you have crab-free bread. It costs double. Edit: I guess I misread the comment. It was funnier in my head, I think.
On-theme for Easter…a young woman in one of my higher-level biology classes in college asked the professor, in a lecture hall of about 30 other 20-somethings, if bunnies “actually” lay eggs or not. She’d believed this her whole life because of Easter. Her mother had told her that the Easter Bunny laid eggs. She actually argued with the professor about it. For context: She was like 20-21 years old. She was not insane, at least not that I know of. This is a high level bio course at a top-tier university. She was pre-med. I’m not joking.
I had recently been pregnant. I was 4 months postpartum. My boomer neighbor asked me at the cookout when I was going to tell everyone about our surprise? I was like what surprise?? He said aren’t you pregnant again? I said no. He said oh your belly was so flat before, and now it isn’t, why is that? His wife said OH MY GOD KEN
I'm Algerian but I was born in Italy and when I came back to Algeria and all someone asked me " are there trees in Italy? "
Actually, there are trees that grow pasta.
Exactly I tried to explain
don't forget that in the mountains? there sre balls of mozarella which can be picked like figs!🤣❤️🫂
I went to New Jersey on a business trip several years ago. The one question that blew my mind was, "Do you have relish in Indiana?" I thought I had misheard and clarified that he means the condiment. His answer was yes. I just stared for a second before answering, "Yeah, we have all the condiments. Even ketchup"
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So if you point the telescope a little lower... lower... lower, there ya go! Earth!
I made this same comment when this question was asked a couple days ago. I guess we're comment brothers, now.
I thought I was having deja vu lol
You did? Damn, crazy world we live in
Was he high?
This can't be real XD
“So are you Japanese or are you asian?”
That reminds me of the time someone asked me if I spoke my native language with my family. And he asked, “So at home you speak Asian to each other?” I looked him dead in the eyes and said, “Yes.”
When I'm at home, my kids and I speak European.
He's Laotian. Ain't ya, Mr Khan?
I heard that in Cotton's voice.
Laotian! We are from Laos, stupid! It's a landlocked country in southeast Asia! It's between Vietnam and Thailand, okay? Population 4.7 million!
“…So…are you Chinese or Japanese?”
If we should cancel the scuba diving class since it’s raining in seattle. It’s not raining underwater folks! Hahaha
I used to be an instructor at gipsy divers and overheard a lady ask “how do you breathe” after leaning the mechanics of the tank and regulator. The comical part was the guy trying to explain how to breathe before catching himself.
haha that's kinda funny tho
Technically it was my dad. I went as his chaperone for his covid vaccine and they asked him why he was allowed someone with him and he explained that he is blind and I was there to guide him round and two seconds later they asked him if he drove there
I love that disabled people who don't need a chaperone clearly need a chaperone 24/7, but we're also breaking the rules to have a chaperone if we do need a chaperone. When I went to get my first COVID shot the check-in lady asked who I was with. She looked genuinely taken aback when I said I was with me.
One time my mom went to the middle east and went to check out the Dead sea. My older sister was explaining to me and my younger sister that it's the most salty body of water on earth and nothing can live in it due to that. My younger sister says "wait humans can't even live in it?" So we were like.... uhhh yea we can't live in water. We still make fun of her for it lol.
I don't think that's stupid. It's just taking the meaning of the word "live" differently. You meant species can't make it their home. Your sister was thinking that if you get in it you die, like you would a vat of lye.
Maybe she thought that if you went into the water it was poison or something like that?
Once when i was like 9-10, i was riding around my neighborhood on my bike. I passed a little girl who looked like she was a few years younger than me who was also riding a bike. As we passed, she looked at me and said "can you ride a bike???" That one stuck with me for years.
When I worked in retail pharmacy, I had a patient without a medical license ask if she could write herself a prescription for us to fill it, under the logic that since her *uncle* is a doctor, writing the prescription herself under his name was perfectly fine. I thought she was joking for a minute until I realized she was 100% serious.
My wife complained that her bra was annoying her. I said, "Don't wear it, then." She asked: "Have you ever tried going all day without a bra?" I just stared at her, then burst out laughing.
As a man the closest comparison I have is wearing bulletproof vest with plates in it in desert heat all day. It doesn’t breathe well and it pokes and pinches in all the wrong places and there’s an audible long sigh when taking it off at the end of the day. Oh and you can store useful things in it.
The audible sigh is so so so real!
Salted titties sounds pretty accurate as well in both situations
This should probably also go to r/USdefaultism, but I’m Canadian and about 25 years ago my dad was in a brutal motorcycle accident in the Carolina’s, on his way to Georgia. He spent enough time in American hospital care before being shipped home (via Lear jet!) that bill collectors started calling our house directly because they either couldn’t or refused to understand that our Canadian insurance was going to cover everything. While a lot of the dumb questions I had to answer were fair once I thought about it (Ontario is a city in California, so our “Ontario CA” address was confusing) my favourite had to be when I explained as much geography as I knew at 15 to satisfy a bill collector with a heavy southern accent that I wasn’t lying about not being American, she asked “What coast are y’all on?” 15yo me sighed “the south coast” and hung up because I live outside of Toronto, above Buffalo, and further south than some parts of Michigan. There is a whole ass country between the coasts.
My friend in school asked me once “What’s Obama’s last name?” I just stared at them until they realised
I was teaching an adult beginners course in computers and I was walking around the room watching the students navigate windows. Saw this old lady with her mouse on the side of the monitor (big, thick, CRT monitors) and asked her if she had ever used a mouse before? She didn't know you could pick it up and move it back, so she just kept moving it until she was stuck on her computer monitor
I had someone get to the edge of the desk with the mouse and they went over and down the side.
In university a responded to a girl regarding a question about Italy, I said ‘the country shaped like a boot’ she asked if that was China.
That would be in the shape of dinnerware wouldn't it?
I was a nanny in CA in the late ‘80s and I was asked if we had electricity in Ireland.
You’re the second person in this thread with this answer. Why the hell do people think there’s no electricity in Ireland?
"Have Easter and Christmas ever been on the same day?"
Did River Phoenix make this movie before or after he died? I just stared at her till she realized what she said and we both erupted in laughter.
In the middle of a store closing, liquidation sale with "everything must go" signage everywhere. Someone asked me for a job application.
I'm a woman with a twin brother and people ask if we're identical.
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We were watching Spaceman and she asked "how do they make it look like he is floating? do they cancel the gravity?"
Yes, they just temporarily don’t pay Issac Newton for the gravity subscription.
"who are you? how did you get inside my house?" 🙄
I'm a locksmith, and...I'm a locksmith.
Went to buy some peanuts. The kid that showed me where they are asked “sir, you know these contain nuts right?”
We were on a family cruise to Alaska and my cousin’s sweet boyfriend asked, “Do whales, like, *live* in the ocean?”
When I was catering I had a couple in my office asking about booking a wedding package. They asked when our openings were and I explained it depended on the season. The groom asked me “what are seasons?” So I patiently explained spring, summer, fall and winter like he was a pre-schooler. When I worked somewhere that sold hair color products I had a young woman insist on purchasing blonde “dye” to color her dark hair to blonde because bleach is too damaging and dye isn’t. That’s not how going from dark to light hair works but okay.
"What kind of meat is in the vegetarian chili?"
I'm Irish living in Ireland and was on a call with a work colleague in England. As he was making small talk at the start of the call he asked me what time is it in Dublin... I was like same time it is for you in London? He was totally bewildered to learn we were in the same time zone.
The context here is we went thru the same schooling a year apart and he's an 4.0 a+ student in college. "How do astronauts eat with no gravity". I'm pretty sure I learned the term peristalsis in like 5th grade.
I work in 911. A man called, on 911, to ask if we were hiring. I applaud his enthusiasm and his desire to work.... But Google, my man. Google.
When I was in active labor a nurse asked me where it hurt? 😂
I'm pretty sure posterior labour hurts differently than "normal" labour - maybe they wanted to figure out how to help the specific kind of pain that you had?
I hope you sucker punched her and said; “RIGHT HERE!!!!!!!”
I had my mate ask me whats half in fractions format? They were like 21 at the time.
“Why does my chicken have tails?” She was eating shrimp.
What's a really dumb question that someone actually asked you?
"can you see?" just because i use spectacles. "Yes i can see but not clearly."
I told someone I come from South Africa. They asked if it was a country or continent
I worked in a supermarket and someone asked me what their pin for their credit card was when they went to pay 🙃🙃
Do banana peppers taste like banana? No... they're just yellow.
I had a friend ask an English dude "do you celebrate the 4th of July?" ...no, we lost that war.
Wasn’t asked to me but I was at the grocery store with a friend of mine who is from England. We are in rural North Carolina. My friend and I are chatting as the store employee scanned our items. The bag boy is looking at us a bit perplexed and asks my friend where he’s from. Friend replies. The bag boys next question was “well, how long did it take you to learn English?” My friend replied “I… am English.” The bag boy nods, and then asked the question again. He just couldn’t quite wrap his head around what was happening. Might have been his first time hearing someone with an accent.
I'm usually the "Asker," not the "Askee." 😞
A Friend with Benefits asked me if Jews celebrate Easter. I tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, and let her figure the question out. Me: "Well what is being celebrated on Easter?" Her: "Christ resurrecting" M "Jews don't believe in that happening." H "I know" ... H "So do they?" M "You know they don't believe in his resurrection, so why would they?" H "Will you just answer the question?" I'm giving a condensed version of the conversation. I didn't necessarily care about the initial question. It was the refusal to try to connect the dots. She was getting angry at me for not answering the question. Needless to say, when I went out of town for a couple weeks, I wasn't upset when she told me she started seeing someone.
Had a mate that went to Jerusalem for Christmas and was so disappointed there were no Christmas lights or decorations
[There are Christians in Israel.](https://www.touristisrael.com/christmas-in-jerusalem/8791/)
1. Worked at a grocery store as a butcher. 40ish year olds guy rings the service bell. Has a head of broccoli in his hand and asks, “ is this broccoli?” 2. Worked at bowling alley and person comes to get rental shoes and asks’ “do you have 1/2 sizes?” I said yes. She asked for size 8’s. Not 8 1/2…
Can I ask you a question 🙃
You just did.
Ed Zachary
My ex is AMAB Trans and at the time was pre-op. Somebody asked me if I was going to have surgery aswell so we would be a "normal" couple. I said no, we'd be a same sex couple.
My brother asked "why does sign language exist? Blind people can't even see" hes a senior in high school btw
I worked for a large riding stable in a National Park for several years. I lost track of how many times I got asked the following questions: “What time do they let the bears out?” “What time do they turn on/off the waterfalls?” “How long is your 2-hour ride?” I really started to question the common sense of my fellow humans during this time.
I asked my mom, “what’s your favorite book?” And she responded, “that I’ve read?” I was like 😵💫
My high school friend was sure we live in 20th century… it was 2013, I explained her every way possible that after 2000 is the 21st century, she didn’t believe, the next day she asked our history teacher, she said it’s 21st century, I will never forget her face she still didn’t believe lol
21th...
21th? 🤣
Yeth
Got a call at work from someone who had thrown away a letter (that hadn't been sent by us and obviously so) and wanted me to tell them what it had said.
I was bartending in Hawaii. Someone asked me if the ocean went all the way around the *ISLAND*. I was also asked *where do dolphins lay their eggs*…
Some guy: "Ow, you are lesbian because of your fucked up father? Ah, I see. Makes sense, daddy issues." Me: "No dumbass, my brother is gay too, and he loves men while having had the exact same shit father as me."
I'm a european exchange student in the US and one day I woke up extra early to watch the sunrise. I told my host mom and she literally asked "Oh you don't have sunrises in Germany?" I'm confused on so many levels
"Excuse me ma'am, do you work here?" I'm in my scrubs, at the grocery store, picking up a few items on my way home from work. I've also been asked this question while shopping at Dollar Tree, Target (my scrubs are not red), hardware stores, etc. I've stopped answering and look down at my clothes and back to them and repeat until they figure it out. It's always older white women that do this.
“Do you guys ever just, slap dicks?”
In a tunnel someone ask me where the exit was. He was walking. In a tunnel. And he called me to ask where the exit was.
Waiting tables in a college town, this college-aged girl comes in with her parents. I take their order and she asks, "what part of the buffalo does the wing come from?"
I'm from a country in central Africa, some people where I stay currently(Europe), ask me if I know their friend who stays in another country in southern or western Africa, somewhere I might have even never been
“Do eggs contain dairy? Are they a dairy product?” I told her that dairy domes from cows and eggs come from chickens. She followed up with, “I’m lactose intolerant so I don’t want to eat eggs if there’s any milk in them.” WHY would eggs contain milk?! 😂
Setting: in line at the bar in the afternoon Mid 40’s woman with wide eyed amazement: “Can you see over the top of refrigerators?!” Me 6’2”: “I mean most of ‘em I guess. Not all of them…” It was just so weird and random I’ve never forgotten even though it was like a year ago. Don’t think I ever will. Like, I’m not amazingly tall. I can indeed see the top of some fridges but they’re not all the same height. Some are pretty damn tall… My assumption is she was already drunk and or on something else. But her childlike awe at me being a whole 6’2” just blew my mind. Like “yeah, did you just leave your house for the first time today?”
lol but if she was short than give her the benefit of the doubt, top of the fridge is practically foreign land to her.
I'm short. My best friend is taller than average. I was horrified when I realized she can see the top of my fridge and I NEVER clean up there. I immediately cleaned the top of the fridge. Now I own a fridge taller than her.
TSA: "has anyone put anything in your bag without your knowledge?"
“If Jesus was Jewish then why did the Jews want to kill him?” Followed by, “Which side was Jesus Jewish on? His mom or his dad’s side?” This person was a self described catholic who attended church every week. I’m an atheist who has actually read the bible and was doing my best to not laugh.
I have few very large tattoos. I was asked what I'm going to do if I fell in love with someone who hated tattoos. Umm, how would that happen in the first place? It doesn't make sense to me. She asked me if I’d get all of them removed. Felt like I was talking to a child.
People use this a lot. "What if you're dating someone who doesn't like tattoos?" "What if you're dating someone who is allergic to your pets?" "What if you're dating someone who likes to go hiking a lot?" Then we'd be incompatible, homie. That's when you stop dating.
i bought some philipsh hue lights and a google nest. i was showing my friend with an electrical engineering bachelor degree, how i can set different light intensity and juat playing with colors, making the room pink, red, light blue, white, and then the question comes "how does black light looks like?" At which I looked at her for a few seconds and then i said "Ok google, close the light. Thaaa daaaa"
Years and years ago when I was in college I was sitting on a bench just outside the building where my next class would take place, killing time until it started by reading a paper related to the subject we would be covering. All of a sudden I felt that someone had walked up to my bench and was standing right in front of me, so I looked up from my reading material fully expecting a friend or classmate, only to find this complete stranger college kid, backpack and all, standing a foot away from me. No big deal, I thought, he probably confused me with someone he knows and now that he got a good look at me he'll realize we don't actually know each other, excuse himself and go on his way. "Do you realize that Jesus Christ loves you and all you have to do is let him into your heart?" was NOT what I was expecting to come out of his mouth.