Have you ever heard something so earth-shatteringly dumb, that you can’t help but stifle an uproarious fit of laughter? If you have, you surely understand that it’s not easy maintaining a straight face and direct eye contact with someone who just said the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard. They can’t really be serious, can they? Believe it or not, it’s not only kids that say the darnedest things. Keep reading for some major brain hiccups.
1. Burned Out
Last summer, my friend got incredibly sunburned. Like blistering, can't wear clothes sunburned. When I asked him why he didn't wear sunscreen, he told me he wanted to get a little tan. When I told him he still would have gotten tan if he had worn at least a low SPF, he didn't believe me. So then I asked him what he thought SPF meant. His answer was unforgettable.
He said, I kid you not, "That's the number of hours it works before you have to reapply". Once I stopped laughing, I sat him down and explained UVA/UVB radiation, how sunscreen works, and what the SPF means. Fast forward to this summer, hanging out in my neighbor's pool. I notice my friend is looking a little red and ask if he's wearing sunscreen.
He said: "Yeah! I got SPF 8, so it blocks 80% of the UV rays"! Well, it’s a start. Now we're learning math.
2. Dad To The Rescue
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 looking for dad as quick 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.
3. It's The Effort That Counts
One time my husband called me at work and said, "Babe, you're gonna be mad. I made a mess, but don't worry, I'll fix it"! I didn't even ask, just sighed, because he is basically Lucy from I Love Lucy. When I got home a little bit later, it was to a living room COVERED in grey powder. My husband was completely filthy holding a trash bag, broom, and with a super panicked look on his face.
That’s when I realized what he’d done. It turned out he'd decided to help around the house and wanted to clean the fireplace. He'd just decided the best way to do it would be to stand in front of it with a trash bag and use the leaf blower to blow the ashes in. Spoiler, that doesn’t work. I didn't want to hurt his feelings, but I laughed my butt off and it's still one of my favorite weird things he's done.
4. Mentally Clumsy
My sister has done all of the following. She is 26 years old, and all of these have occurred around and after the age of 18. She accidentally lit a loaf of bread on fire in the microwave, and set countless frozen pizzas aflame from neglecting to remove the cardboard ring on bottom. In the car, she insisted that her headlights wouldn't work because she's almost out of gasoline.
She also asked my dad if our boat had brakes. He knew just what to say for a laugh. He told her yes, but they don't work because they're wet for a laugh. But those are nothing compared to her greatest hits. She once asked my mom if Mickey Mouse was a cat or a dog. She thought Canada was a state and thought Washington, DC was in the Pacific Northwest.
She also asked why we (as humans) can't air-condition the outside world. She once asked how to spell VCR, as she thought it was a word. Also, just last week she bought two right shoes!
5. Feeling Is Believing
I have a "friend" who doesn't believe many things if he hasn't experienced them himself. He told me he doesn't believe allergies are real. I asked why not and he replied, “I've never had them. It's all in people's minds".
6. Ruler Of The Sun
I had a guy I was working construction with say, “I hope the sun comes up on that side today” (pointing west), “because yesterday it came up on this side and it was so hot” (with us being on the east side of the building). That’s not how the sun works, bud.
7. Anatomically Confused
I work in veterinary medicine. Some clients are shy when talking about their dog's anatomy while some don't care and will start yelling about how their "cat's butt is crammed up with poop". But that’s not the dumbest thing that a client has said to me. That would be the time that a client said that their dog "is licking her butt, but like, the front part of it". Not her vulva, her “front butt”.
I don’t know if this dude was afraid to say the word vulva, or if he genuinely thought female dogs have two butts. It’s plausible, as my brother thought his dog’s vulva was "some weird growth". The whole thing is an inside joke at our clinic now.
8. Born This Way
Someone once said to me: “Isn’t it amazing how dogs just come out knowing commands—like sit and lay down”? The man was stone-cold serious.
9. The Magic Cure
I had a middle-aged neighbor tell me that my grandpa’s stage four-kidney cancer would go away if he just switched to drinking distilled water for a few months. He was 100% serious.
10. The Bees And The Birds
We were learning about local Native American cultures and legends in elementary school. One legend had all the men go off to fight except one boy, and it was left to him to continue the tribe's existence. We got in a debate with a girl who loudly asked why didn’t he just go and die too, saying that the women can keep the tribe alive.
Being worldly and having had “the talk” already, I tried to explain that there would be no more tribe without at least one guy present. She yelled back, “That’s not true! We know how to fish”! I had to be told to sit outside because I couldn’t stop laughing.
11. You Are Where?
Once, my significant other and I went for a walk around a local nature reserve. On the way in we got a map given to us so we could navigate the area. Later on the walk she is looking at the map and says to me, "These maps really need a 'you are here' on them". It took me a second to realize what she meant, so I explained that it's a handheld map and that it wouldn't be possible.
It took four or five attempts before it clicked with her.
12. Stars Are Blind
A friend of mine asked me why we didn’t see stars when we flew over them. She truly believed that when you were flying on an airplane, you flew over the stars. I was speechless.
13. Armageddon
A work colleague once asked whether any of those ancient prophecies about the end of the world actually came true.
14. 900 Seconds
When I worked at the Old Faithful Visitor Center, my favorite question was, "How long is the 15-minute film"?
15. Not How That Works
A customer came in today and apparently had an excuse for not wearing a mask. We offered curbside pickup for their safety and the safety of others. They let us know that they work at a Covid clinic, so they had "literally 0% chance of contracting it".
16. The Answer Is In The Stars
I had a boss named Tammy. One night, we were all working late doing stock take and we were discussing the impending lunar eclipse. Someone asked what happens during an eclipse. Tammy’s explanation for it was seriously deranged. She 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” or neck pillow shape, and half of it stayed in our normal orbit while the other half stretched itself around to casually block the moon for the rest of the earth.
17. Babies Make It Better
The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard was from a family member, years ago. "My husband and I are having problems, so we're trying for another baby. That should make things better". I smiled quietly and walked away, stunned.
18. Check Here For Innie
As I'm in labor with our daughter, my husband asks, "Do you want her to have an innie or an outie belly button"? Weird question, but whatever. So I tell him I don't mind either way, both are cute. And then he says, "Yeah, but when the doctor asks, which should we pick for her"? He thought when they clamp the umbilical cord, parents tell the doctor the type of belly button they prefer.
He's really smart, I promise.
19. Running On Empty
Last month a co-worker asked if I’d run out of blood eventually because I donate every couple months. He's 34 years old.
20. Catfish Spotted
Former boss told me his "girlfriend" at the time, who lived in the US, couldn't Facetime him because "they don't have that over there yet".
21. Is That What They Mean By The Graveyard Shift?
Was talking to the cashier at a 24-hour Tesco's at about one in the morning and he said, "I don't mind working nights because I'm a necrophile". I choked down a bit of laughter and asked: “Do you mean night owl"?
22. I’m No Lizard
When I worked in the oil field I had an accident that chopped off the top 1/4 of one of my fingers. I was young so still going to parties and such with my gauze on. When it finally healed enough to let it breathe I took it off, and people were looking at how gnarly it looked. This one girl came up completely serious, looked at it and said, “How long will it take to grow back”?
23. Quit It
Here it is, the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard: "I'm never going to quit smoking. My aunt was healthy until she quit. Then she was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer”. This was said to me by my manager at a Domino's Pizza. I didn't have the time or energy to explain to a man three decades my senior that she probably had cancer for a long time, but didn't go to the doctor until she was feeling withdrawal from the nicotine.
So we finished our smokes and went back to slingin' pizzas. I quit smoking and delivering pizza not long after.
24. Relationship Killer
My now ex-girlfriend from high school said the dumbest thing ever. Her power had gone out. She called crying saying she had so much homework to complete. I told her to drive to my house since I still had power. She yelled at me saying, “How dare you attempt to get me to drive! How do you expect me to do that? My headlights won’t work”!
It didn’t last much longer after that.
25. The Mythical Beast
It was less stupid because he admitted he was wrong but…my high school physics teacher thought I made up narwhals. In his defense, I absolutely had a penchant for drawing weird, made-up creatures whenever the moment presented itself. We had to do a sock puppet show to explain something I don’t remember and I chose to make narwhals for my puppets, because it was 2010 and I thought it was the funniest.
He asked me if the creatures in my presentation were creatures I made up, or if they were from mythology. I’ll never forget the projector pulled up to the Wikipedia page on narwhals, and my teacher scrolling through it going, “This is crazy! I thought you made them up”!
26. A Lost Cause
A few years ago leading up to an eclipse, a co-worker overheard us discussing it and said, "You guys don't actually believe in that, do you"? I figured he misunderstood whatever we were talking about and thought we were talking about mysticism or something regarding the eclipse, but I was dead wrong. He followed up with, "Don't you know if the moon went into the sun, it would melt. That's why the eclipse can't be real".
I genuinely felt like humanity should probably start over from scratch after that.
27. Stupidity Lurking In The Shadows
My 22-year-old girlfriend, after having walked under some street lamps, said “I just discovered that we have two shadows. I think the other one is only visible at night”. I explained what shadows are and how they're dependent on the light source. There was visible brain processing strain on her face.
28. Peep This
I remarked that it’s odd that we associate rabbits with eggs for Easter. I jokingly said we should make it an Easter platypus because unlike rabbits, they do actually lay eggs. Then someone overheard this and said, “Wait...no, rabbits DO lay eggs”. This turned into a two-minute argument over whether or not rabbits lay eggs.
And then when she finally accepted that she was wrong, she was so irritated that she asked all of our co-workers if they thought the same as her. To the best of my knowledge, she’s the only one.
29. Book Smart, Otherwise Dumb
“Tigers are girl lions”! This was said by my 40-year-old ex-boyfriend who is a nuclear engineer.
30. Cold Pencil, Hot Air
My old roommate pointed a laser thermometer at a pencil on a table, inside our house. The laser thermometer read 68F. He exclaimed, “This thing is broken”! I asked why he thought it was broken? His answer blew me away. He said: “This is a pencil. It doesn’t produce any heat. This thermometer should say 0”. I stared at him for a few seconds, unable to collect my jaw off the floor.
I said: “Well, 0F would mean it is frozen, or well beyond frozen, so I think 68F is the temperature of the air in the room”. This man was 26. His two adult brothers were sitting in the room. I was the only one who understood why the thermometer was correct.
31. The Borderlands
I had an acquaintance claim that the earth must be flat because nobody's talking about the white landmass around the map and how it's a cover-up. He was pointing at the white rectangular border of the paper.
32. A Sixth Sense
I told someone I’d met: "I'm studying physics at university". He answered: "Oh cool! Like ESP, mind over matter stuff"? He seemed disappointed when I said no.
33. Is That Flight Direct?
We were in class and this girl was so confused at how a flight from America to Russia could be quick, because the world map shows America being at the far left and Russia on the right. The teacher said, “Look at the map”. She replies, “Yeah, they're so far away”. A moment of silence. Teacher says, “The world is round; it isn't flat like a map”.
34. A Buffet of Stupidity
I work in the restaurant industry. I was refilling items on the breakfast buffet and this lady walks up to me and blurts out, "I want some of that" and points. I knew just how to response. Keep in mind this is during covid, and I don't want to directly be placing food onto people’s plates. And we don't usually do this anyways.
So I told her, “Oh yeah, it’s really good today”. She then asks me, "How do I get the stuff over there"? I just look at her straight-faced and say, "Walk around the buffet". You really see the dumbest people in the service industry.
35. Next Stop, Please!
I’m a skydiver. I once had a woman ask me if the plane stops for us to get out. Yeah, it parallel parks next to the 747.
36. No Place Like America
Not me, but a friend of mine traveled to the US with her family when she was younger. Upon hearing her family’s accent, an American asked, “Where are you guys from”? The answer was Australia, and that person confidently responded with, “Ah, which state is that”?
37. Float On
My cousin used to think Alaska was an island, since it’s shown on the bottom of a lot of maps with Hawaii.
38. My Mistake
One time someone rang my phone asking for John. I am not John, and there was no John at that number. When I said he had the wrong number, his answer made me roll my eyes so hard they almost fell out. He asked, “Are you sure”? Oh, my bad. Yeah, my bad—it turns out I really am John after all. Sigh.
39. It's All Relative
We were driving through some back roads and passed a couple pastures. My girlfriend saw some cows and started (very excitedly) trying to get my attention. She grabbed my arm and exclaimed, “Babe, babe, look how FAT those horses are”! I have never let it go and she still doesn’t think it’s funny.
40. Ignorance Is Bliss
Was on a very windy hike and I passively mentioned that it would be better once we were protected by the trees. A friend of a friend who was with us stops and says, “Wait, don’t the trees make the wind”? It took me a minute to realize just how ridiculous their logic was. This human being got to 23 years old believing that trees actively flapped their leaves to generate wind.
They felt the wind on their skin, saw the leaves moving and somehow believed this was the way the world worked and never questioned it.
41. History Class Horrors
A kid in my grade 9 history class turned to me on the first day and asked, "Is Scandinavian another word for Chinese"? Years later he was seen drinking a can of gravy, because he couldn't decide if he was hungry or thirsty.
42. They Just Don't GED It
I teach GED and have heard some fantastic ones from my students. Pointing to Africa on a globe, one student said: “That's Texas, right"? Another once asked: "Wait, so the sun and the moon ARE different things"? My favorite, though? "I'm never going to need to use math or science. I just want to be one of those CSI guys".
Plus, there's one student who believes that EVERYTHING is an Illuminati conspiracy. Including the GED test.
43. There Are No Dumb Questions—Except This one
Learning about WWII-era stuff. Teacher is talking about the Japanese invasion of China. This girl raises her hand, “but why would they do that”? The teacher asks what she means. She says, “Why would they kill their own, like, Asian kind”? Entire room slowly looks at her in disbelief. This was a senior history class.
44. Stuck On Stage One
A butterfly garden consists of an area full of specific plants to attract butterflies. My co-worker was mad because there were no butterflies in his recently planted butterfly garden. Eventually, I realized the disturbing reason why. I put it all together when he told me, "Stupid caterpillars keep eating all the leaves on the bushes. So every morning I go out and squash all the stupid caterpillars. I've got a pile of caterpillars and no butterflies".
45. Curiosity Kills
This one guy I went to high school and then worked with at a cheese factory, was certainly the dumbest guy I have ever known. At this factory, we had a block dumping room where we would dump cheese out of the cardboard cases they came in, stack them on another pallet and toss the cardboard into a large hydraulic compactor.
He actually asked one day what would happen to him if he was in there while it was pressing the boxes. Despite what everyone was telling him, he was somehow convinced that the boxes would protect him. The boxes that this thing was designed to crush! He once actually started to climb in it before a couple guys stopped him.
I'm truly surprised he hasn't somehow offed himself already.
46. Drivers Beware
The dumbest thing I ever heard was in my health class in the 10th grade when we somehow got on the topic of driving. Eventually, a girl in the back of the class asks, "So, if you're texting while you're driving and you run a red light and hit someone, is it your fault"? She was super serious, and then argued with the teacher about how she doesn't think she should be at fault for that, "because she was texting".
I'm honestly not sure if it was a hypothetical question, or if she had already done this and was still confused why she was at fault. It just terrifies me that there are people like this that drive on the same roads I do every day.
47. Trivia Night Isn't For Everyone
I attended a work quiz one night at which one of the questions asked was, “What was the first man made object to break the sound barrier”? After some deliberation, a female co-worker offered her answer, "a dog". Not only was she being serious, she actually took it up with us for laughing and questioned as to what was wrong with suggesting a dog, saying it was a better answer than most of ours.
48. One Vowel Off
In one of my high school classes, we were going over a chapter in our textbook when a girl asked the teacher with utter disbelief on her face, "it's against the law to give alcohol to minors"? He looked at her and was like, "Yes…of course it is". She exclaimed that the law was ridiculous and that minors should be able to drink. Eventually, we realized what had happened.
They had a brief back and forth, then it came out that she thought minors=miners.
49. Thunderously Stupid
A co-worker argued that thunder and lightning are only related because similar weather patterns cause them. This is why you can get a thunderstorm without any lightning, and lightning storms without thunder.
50. Don't Try This On Your Own
In freshmen science, in high school, a girl suddenly decides to speak up and asks, "Is lava hot? I mean, can you swim in it? Would it burn"? The same girl (different class) also asked, "Where's North America? I know where it is, but where is it on a map"?
51. Picking Winners
This girl I went to high school with asked the stupidest questions. "Wasn't Martin Luther King Jr. the first black president"? "What kind of bottled water did they have in ancient Greece”? "I'm going to stay away from having a boyfriend until February 31st". Those are just some of the top ones I recall her saying.
52. O Canada!
On my freshman orientation day at my university, we were put in groups with older students who had volunteered to show us around, tell us boring facts about the school, etc. I had been wearing a shirt with a Canadian flag on it. Our "group leader" walks up to me and asks, "Do you speak Russian, or did you just visit Russia"? Confused, I responded, "Neither"? Her witty response was, "Oh, well I thought so because of your shirt".
53. Tiny, Round Ice
I used to work at a boba place, and this customer asked for a milk tea with boba and no ice. So I make the drink for him and hand it to him, he points at the boba at the bottom of the drink and says, "Dude, I asked for no ice". I asked him, "Umm, since when does ice sink"? After that, he took his drink and left.
54. Don't Try This At Home
I was teaching my ex-girlfriend how to snorkel. Her question, "If I go all the way underwater, can I still breathe through this thing"? Facepalm.
55. You Spin Me Right Round, Baby
A girl from a high school in an extremely rural area said to me, "My uncle explained to me that the Earth really is only 6,000 years old. If it was billions of years old like they say, well, that just doesn't make sense. Because the Earth's rotation is slowing down”. And then, “if it was billions of years old that means back then the Earth would have been spinning so fast, we all would have flown off the surface of the Earth”.
Poor girl. She was really sweet actually. My first lesson in keeping a straight face.
56. Corporate Jargon Is Stupider Than Any Person
I once overheard someone say, in a professional context: "We standardize on a case-by-case basis".
57. He Needs Something More Than Medical Help
My old friend was hands down the stupidest man I've ever met. He had a heart of gold, though. He once called me while he was in Maryland—we're from Ohio. What he said was so bizarre, it’s unforgettable. He asked me to call 9-1-1 for him because he was having a panic attack and was genuinely worried that he was going to have a heart attack.
I proceeded to explain that instead of calling me, he should call 9-1-1 for himself or go to the hospital. He replied: "What? Maryland doesn't have any hospitals"! He then started arguing with me that Maryland doesn't have hospitals. He legit thought hospitals only existed in Ohio. It took like five minutes to get him to understand that hospitals are literally EVERYWHERE.
I’m still absolutely dumbfounded by that conversation five years later.
58. No Brainer
I work as an IT person in an office and was trying to help a woman at her desk. Her computer was slow that day. No one ever realized that having open 12 programs at once and 15 tabs in Internet Explorer would slow down the janky PCs we had. I said it over and over, but what would the IT guy know about computer performance?
That’s when she came up with an explanation of her own—and it was a doozy. She yells out, “My computer is connected with a blue network cable and the rest of yours are all yellow. Mine must connect somewhere else and that's the reason why it runs so slow”.
59. Technical Difficulties
When I was doing tech support someone asked, "How do I type the upside-down i"? I had to explain: "Ma'am, that's an exclamation mark".
60. Mommy Issues
My mother once told me that a horse ate a needle and thread, which sewed its intestines shut (perfectly, like with stitching). When I asked where she heard this, she replied, "in a book I read". I asked if the book was fiction. Her answer was seriously unforgettable. She said, "Yes, but most of the time fiction is more real than non-fiction".
Another time, she called from her cell and was annoyed. Her landline hadn't been working for the past six months even though she'd been paying the bill. I called and it rang, she couldn't hear it. I told her I'd help her troubleshoot. Got her to check the ringer volume on the cordless, check that it was plugged in, etc.
When I asked if the cord was in the wall well, she said, "It is, but the cord is cut". I was like, "The cord is cut? Like, in half"? "Yes", she says. "Well, there's your problem. Get a new cord". Long pause, then she tells me, "No, I don't think that's it. I'm going to go find a man because a man would probably know".
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