What’s the most astonishingly stupid thing someone has ever said to you?

39 comments

1. It would be me. Always me asking stupid questions. Asked the lady in the Chinese years ago what flavour the prawn crackers were.

   Lots of laughter and sniggers from the other people waiting for their takeaway.

2. This post from a few mins ago is kind of right up there! https://reddit.com/r/AskUK/s/vRvjfkS2K2

3. ‘We wouldn’t have queer rights if it wasn’t for the royal family’

   I’m still lost on this one…

4. Pitbulls are nanny dogs

5. I had a friend who was diagnosed with celiac disease about 18 months later I noticed him eating/drinking stuff he had to give up after diagnosis so I asked him about it. He said it was fine because “he gave that shit up”. It wasn’t a fad diet he was doing, he still suffers terribly from it but he just ignores it and eats what he wants.

   Also once managed a girl who was going to bake a cake and bring it in to the office. She had never done this before so asked how long she would need to put the cake batter under the grill before it was cooked.

6. In my early 20s, I worked with a heavy drinker in his late 30’s (he’d drink on the way to work and bring beer in to work – he worked night shifts). His drinking almost killed him.

   Now I looked up to him as an engineer, but when he said, “I didn’t think you could be an alcoholic if you didn’t drink spirits”, I was (and remain) absolutely stunned.

7. Someone told a work colleague that he had made some Broccoli and Stilton soup the night before. He responded with..

   “How do you get the stilton into the broccoli.”

8. “Fish aren’t animals”

9. I can’t remember how it came out but my friend’s older sister (about 16 at the time) revealed she thought the sun and moon were the same thing.

10. I was working with a young work placement student when we heard in the office that Nelson Mandela had died. He paused with a deep and thoughtful expression on his face, and finally said,

    “Is he the bloke on the Uncle Ben’s rice packet?”

11. Some moron I used to manage was maoning about immigration outside work.

    He asked me if all these immigrants pissed me off. I said no and he asked why. I told him that my own family are an immigrant family, my grandparents moved to the UK from Ireland weeks before my mum was born.

    He said my family can’t be immigrants because we are white.

    Another time, in work, we were having a discussion about performance. It was a call centre and he kept making the same mistake when typing up notes to customers. It wasn’t serious, but it was becoming a problem because of his inability to learn.
    I called him in to a room and showed him the mistake again. He denied he made it but his account had been used to type the notes and his voice had spoken to the customer. He then feigned remembering what happened, no lie he said “Oh yeah, a pigeon flew in the window and started taping on my keyboard. I didn’t realise until it was too late”.
    He was angry when I didn’t believe him. If he was joking he took the joke very far and displayed superb acting skills.

12. One particular idiot I had the misfortune of managing once declared:

    “I DO have common sense, it’s just not the same as everyone else’s!”

13. Remember me as a kid seeing ‘only in cinemas” posters… so I assumed I had better watch it as its wasn’t released on vhs..

14. My old job, the amount of customers who would ask if something was available in for example size 10, I’d tell them no, it was only available in 8. They’d then ask if it was available in size 12. I’d have to repeat it was only available in size 8.

    EVERY. SINGLE DAY.

15. Not said to me, but overheard on a bus –

    “Why aint you lettin’ me speak?”

    “Why ain’t you lettin’ me speak?”

    “Why ain’t you lettin’ me speak?”

    “Why ain’t you sayin’ nufffin?”

16. Guy, I used to know, complaining how everyone is so angry on the roads these days.

    I happened to be driving behind him one day, he was doing 40 in a 60.
    Massive queue of traffic behind him, very few places to overtake.

    Same guy, couldn’t understand why people didn’t eat meat, either ethically or medically.

17. In 2016 I was working at a museum. There was a big sign outside the door that said “Step into 3000 years of history”. One day somebody asked how we can claim to have 3000 years of history when there has only been 2016 years.

18. I live in Edinburgh which has a castle in the city centre. Once had a tourist ask me if they “take the castle down after the summer” and what’s there during the rest of the year. Like they thought it was a big facade put up just for summer tourists?!

    Also overheard other tourists say “isn’t it great that they built the castle near all the shops, so you have something nice to look out whilst you’re walking around”. Mental.

19. Nothing major springs to mind, but I remember a customer asking me “is this duck sushi vegetarian?”

20. I was working in an office for a musical instrument retailer. So we’re all musicians and talk about music a lot.

    Someone brought up the topic of bands from the 60s named after animals. So we started listing them off. The Eagles, The Monkeys, The Groundhogs, The Beatles, The Animals etc

    Then as we’re starting to run out of bands, one of my colleagues enthusiastically chimes in, “Sheryl Crow!”

    We were in fucking stitches.

21. The guy who did my car respray told me that there were lizard people everywhere – including the royals and if you didn’t believe it you were a lizard too and they would take over the world one day if you didn’t sort your vibrational energy out.
    The earth was flat and he could prove it – I didn’t ask.

    2) not something someone said but someone has blocked our garden gate and we can’t get out. I searched Facebook to contact him and he believes planes spray chemical clouds to inhibit your breathing and that 20 minute cities mean you’ll only have carbon credits to get out. He also believes on a thing called “Brit coin” which is British crypto – which they will switch off if you’re naughty. A he owns a fitness gym round the corner!!

22. I was buying non-alcoholic beer once and the self service checkout still needed approval.

    The lady came over to do it and I said “That’s weird, it’s non-alcoholic beer”. She looked at me like ***I*** was stupid and said “It’s still alcohol though isn’t it?”

23. My sister refusing to eat the eggs my chickens had laid because she knew they came out of a chickens butt. She was mid 30s, married with 3 kids when she said that. She will eat eggs from elsewhere just not from my chickens. I haven’t been able to work out where the hell she thinks supermarket eggs come from.

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25. I worked in an internet cafe. Guy wanted to print something. He then complained.

    ​

    HE WANTED TO PRINT A VIDEO.

26. At work, cleaning each floor of the building, when my coworker comes to me and says: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve cleaned the lift on all floors.’

    I’m not sure if they understood why I was giggling.

27. I once had to explain to someone that ‘Little Women’ is not about female dwarves.

    I don’t think that not knowing the plot is stupid but a) why is that the first place your mind goes? and b) why would you not just ask?

    Could not convince him otherwise.

28. A girl I knew said “I don’t believe in dinosaurs!” Which got us confused because there are fossils and scientific data but she was adamant she didn’t believe they were real but couldn’t justify why.

    Obviously this got us curious so we digged a bit deeper until we couldn’t do it anymore when she said “yeah I believe in ghosts because how do you explain all the strange happenings otherwise?” Shes an accountant who apparently lives a different reality to the rest of us!

29. I had a mate who stole a load of weed off someones washing line in the dead of night. When I say weed, I obviously mean mint…Some poor bugger grew a load of mint and left it out to dry and this fella mistook it for weed lol. When we called him on it he said he had a cold

30. That’s weird the power has gone out but my laptop is still on?

    I don’t know how I could of used all my data, I haven’t even connected to wifi?!

    Both my dad.

31. Apparently I have to wear a wedding ring or ‘I won’t know I’m married’.

    I was conscious during the ceremony. There’s a couple photos round the house, too.

32. Talking about the moon landings at school and a girl in my class wondered if we’d ever land on the sun. I told her no because the sun was far too hot for a start. She suggested they could make the landing at night when the sun was off.

    Since the subject of vegetarianism has cropped up a few times too, when I was a vegetarian a female coworker told me that she was also vegetarian, except for fish, chicken, pork, lamb, duck… By the time she finished listing all the exceptions to her “vegetarian” diet, I said to her “So basically you’re not a vegetarian at all, you just don’t like beef?”

33. Me: “what direction does gravity pull you?”

    Mum: “down”

    Me: “ok – so towards what?”

    Mum: “Cornwall?”

34. During all the panic buying around covid, a coworker told me they had been going round all the shops to stock up on lots of toilet roll.

    However they weren’t panic buying, they were just trying to have loads so if the panic buyers bought it all then they would have a sufficient supply.

    They didn’t understand my point that they were literally the panic buyer!

35. I worked with a woman who said she preferred a particular beer because it came cold because it was filtered through ice. I asked how that affected the temperature in the pub and she looked at me like I was terminally stupid.

    “It’s filtered through ICE! Of course it’s cold!”

    I tried to explain that once it had been filtered and kegged it could have been stored in an ambient warehouse for days. She just kept saying, “Through ice.” She had a science degree.

36. It was 5.15pm. Phone rings in the shop I work for.
    Customer: what time do you close?
    Me: 5.30pm
    Customer: I’m just leaving from [neighbouring town]. Will you still be open when I get there?
    Me: Well, if you get here before 5.30, then yes.

    Put the phone down and my manager was folded up laughing, my tone of voice was so “I’m done with this shit”. But what did the customer expect me to say?!

37. I don’t know if this counts, but my son was due to meet up with his friend. On the way to the meet up, the friend ran out of data. He had to walk a mile to a shopping centre to use their WiFi so he could communicate through whatever app they were talking on.

    I said to my son afterwards “Why didn’t you just call each other?”

    The look of shock and realisation I received still makes me laugh to this day. It also demonstrated how little young people use phones for their original purpose.

38. Mine is the other way round but might make you laugh

    I bought some wardrobes from John Lewis Dept store

    On the day of Delivery the driver called to say he was 10 mins away and the call went like this..

    “Hi, It’s John Lewis here, I’ll be with you in 10 mins”

    “Oh Hi John, thats great”

    “No, my name’s Dave – (pause) – I’ll see you in 10 mins OK?””

    He did laugh about it when he arived

39. About 10 years ago I worked with an openly racist idiot, always complaining about immigrants. How she didn’t get sacked I’ll never know.

    One staff meeting she said, “I’d love to emigrate to Canada.” I replied, ” you can’t in good conscience do that can you?” She asked, “why not?” To which I said, “because you’ll become the thing that you hate the most, an immigrant!”

    The death stare I got after was worth it!