# Amazingly stupid things overheard
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [December 28, 2011, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599 "2011-12-28T04:33:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 8
### Author:  [@Soylent\_Juicy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soylent_Juicy)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/141 "2011-12-30T16:57:45Z")
I actually said one myself many years ago near Halifax, NS: we were in a souvenir shop and I was looking at a postcard. I couldn’t tell what the drawing was and I said, “What is that, a volcano?” Turned out to be a bad drawing of the burning ammunition ship that exploded in Halifax Harbour in 1917. :smack:
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/142 "2011-12-30T17:03:55Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> they believed “pickles” as in brine soaked pickles grew like that on the vine
That reminds me of a humorous phrase, as used to promote [this English B&B](http://www.peakdistrict-groupaccommodation.co.uk/riverbank-guest-house-matlock-i163.html):
> [@](#):
>
> All tastes can be catered for including vegetarian, celiac, vegan, just ask, and your hosts are happy to oblige…they will even go fishing for kippers…
I’m not sure whether or not they are aware that this has become a euphemism for sexual congress… 😃
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### Author:  [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/143 "2011-12-30T17:06:54Z")
So I was in a Walmart in Portland Oregon just before Thanksgiving. They had a display of Smithfield salt cured smoked hams in the center of the aisle. I was looking at them and wondering if one would fit in my luggage when two ladies in their 50 walked up.
The gist of the conversation was that they could not and would not believe that these hams were in fact edible as they were not refrigerated. I tried to explain that this was how meat was preserved before refrigerators but they refused to believe me.
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### Author:  [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/It_s_Not_Rocket_Surgery)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/144 "2011-12-30T17:07:38Z")
I was renting a DVD from a Redbox in the local supermarket; the Redbox is right next to a Coinstar change machine. This woman was running her change through the Coinstar machine and it dumped out a non-standard coin. She picked it up, looked at it, and said to her friend, “It says “2 Euro cents”. It must be a Mexican coin.”
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### Author:  [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/145 "2011-12-30T17:11:23Z")
I’ve posted this before, but I have yet to stop being amused by it.
A woman was looking at a picture of two elderly women, which was titled “Helen Keller and her friend Polly Thompson.”
The woman remarked “Ooh, that’s a good one. But why is there two of her? Oh, I get it. In one she’s not wearing her glasses.”
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### Author:  [@voguevixen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voguevixen)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/146 "2011-12-30T17:31:46Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#):
>
> Yankees.
> What can you expect from folks who put sugar in cornbread?
> 🙂
And make sweet chili. (Skyline) ::shudder:: I had a chili dog at a Reds game and was all: What on earth?
Along the lines of the quesadilla, I once had to explain to a waiter (and apparently a bartender) in St. Maarten what a Cosmopolitan was. I even had to draw a picture showing the proportion of the ingredients.
(To be fair, I once had to do that in the USA too, and when the bartender went to shake the shaker she almost forgot to hold her hand over the top glass of the shaker - the whole drink, and the glass, would’ve splattered against the back wall. First day?)
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### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/147 "2011-12-30T17:35:05Z")
> [@It\_s\_Not\_Rocket\_Surgery](#):
>
> I was renting a DVD from a Redbox in the local supermarket; the Redbox is right next to a Coinstar change machine. This woman was running her change through the Coinstar machine and it dumped out a non-standard coin. She picked it up, looked at it, and said to her friend, “It says “2 Euro cents”. It must be a Mexican coin.”
I once used one of those machines for a tub of pennies, took the voucher it spits out to the cashier and she asked with a straight face if it was ok if she gave it to me in quarters because she was out of dollar bills…I declined and she had to go fetch some from another register.:smack:
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/148 "2011-12-30T18:12:30Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#):
>
> Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there!
If you’re gonna quote him, quote him right:
> [@](#):
>
> Cool beans, man, I live by the quarry. We should hang out by the quarry and throw things down there.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/149 "2011-12-30T18:13:30Z")
> [@echoreply](#):
>
> Just to be fair, Scottish occasionally get US geography a bit confused, too. At a conference I host in Denver, a visiting Scotsman asked me where he could catch a bus on Friday to Minneapolis and a return in time to catch his flight home (out of Denver) on Sunday. I explained that his best bet was to contact the airlines about changing his flights, but he insisted that was too expensive, and he just wanted a bus. When I told him this was not possible, he left in a huff to ask the hotel concierge.
I thought huffs cost more to ride in than a bus.
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### Author:  [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/150 "2011-12-30T18:42:56Z")
Had one just yesterday- I needed to buy some live food for some unexpected new critters (baby axolotyls, they’ll only eat it if it wriggles), and went to an aquarium shop; asked the guy there if they sold live food, and he replied that yep, of course they did- it’s just over here.
Then led me to the freezer.
I told him that… um… I needed _live_ food, and he confusedly told me ‘it is live, it’s just frozen’…
Maybe they sold tardigrades, I didn’t check.
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### Author:  [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/151 "2011-12-30T18:53:51Z")
Standing in line at the grocery:
Cahsier: “How many of those did you get? 20?”
Customer: “No, I got 5 and 10 and 5 and 10”
Cashier: “So that’s um…”
Customer: “Um…”
Me: “It’s 30.”
Them: “Oh thank you.”
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### Author:  [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)
#### Post date: [December 30, 2011, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/152 "2011-12-30T19:03:19Z")
> [@panache45](#):
>
> Two women behind me in a supermarket line:
>
> \*“Ain’t it something that the baby Jesus was born right on Christmas?”
>
> “Praise.”\*
>
> That’s all I heard, because I had shoved ice picks into my ears.
> [@Ponch8](#):
>
> And they’re not even right.
No, they’re correct. It’s just that Christmas is on the wrong day.
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### Author:  [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/153 "2011-12-31T05:09:41Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> I once used one of those machines for a tub of pennies, took the voucher it spits out to the cashier and she asked with a straight face if it was ok if she gave it to me in quarters because she was out of dollar bills…I declined and she had to go fetch some from another register.:smack:
At least she didn’t try to give it to you in pennies.
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### Author:  [@Tess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tess)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2011, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/154 "2011-12-31T05:30:14Z")
One of my teenaged niece Elle’s friends (let’s call her Moira) apparently failed to notice the same guy was constantly at my sister’s house and showing up to Elle’s school events (he’s Elle’s step-dad). One day Elle mentioned her step-dad.
“When’d your mom get married?”
“Sixth grade.”
Moira turned to my sister and said, “I didn’t know you got married in sixth grade!”
“Yep. Elle was is sixth grade when we got married.”
There was a look of slow realization. “Oh. When _Elle_ was in sixth grade.”
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### Author:  [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/155 "2011-12-31T06:22:53Z")
> [@voguevixen](#):
>
> That is beyond stupid. That borders on horrifying, and potentially cruelty to animals. I not naive, I’m sure plenty of inbreeding goes on in the wild/feral population, but to intentionally force it when most cognizant people know it’s a BAD IDEA? Appalling.
Considering how much _mother-son_ breeding is done by professional breeders (admittedly more when trying to establish a new breed), you’ll find a lot of us are more ‘meh’ about this. Still, you’re not wrong. There are risks, and not much payoff. Cats are still to be had for free.
> [@grude](#):
>
> Europeans who have never spent time in the USA have no concept of the sheer size of the country, its impossible to explain you have to experience it.
Russians would be the exception.
> [@gaffa](#):
>
> I had a similar experience when I had just seen _[Inglourious Basterds](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0361748/)_ and, in the hallway waiting for my wife to emerge from the bathroom, overheard a woman say “I didn’t know Hitler died in Paris”.
For a Hollywood film, that level of ahistoricity is pretty normal. Just not so much for major 20th Century figures that aren’t supposed lost princesses–no, wait, pretty normal.
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### Author:  [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)
#### Post date: [December 31, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/156 "2011-12-31T17:20:33Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#):
>
> Russians would be the exception.
Not all of them.
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### Author:  [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2012, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/157 "2012-01-01T02:41:14Z")
> [@matt\_mcl](#):
>
> It happens for Canada too. Once in a while you’ll get folks who visit Montreal and Quebec City and then think they’d like to take a day trip to the Rockies. (I gently suggest the Laurentians.)
Not overheard by me, but on the same topic of not realizing the size of the country, my grandmother (living in Moncton, New Brunswick, on Canada’s East coast) boarded a couple of British pilot trainees during WW2. They announced one day that they had a long 4-day weekend pass coming up and thought they would take the train to the West coast to see a bit of the country. She gently broke it to them that it was about 3,600 miles to Vancouver, and just the trip out would take longer than their 4-day pass would allow.
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### Author:  [@missinformation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missinformation)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2012, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/158 "2012-01-01T03:21:48Z")
I was in the Dollar Tree just before Christmas. Mind you, there are signs all over the store that proclaim, “Everything in the store is a dollar”. I was picking up earbuds as cheap stocking stuffers for my neighbor. Guy comes up to me and asks me, “How much are these?” I looked at him and told him that they were a dollar, just like everything else in the store, unless it was marked 2/$1 (like candy). He stared at me like I was from another planet and asked if there was a price scanner. I told him to go to the register and ask…
I was wearing street clothes, mind you, and was not a store employee…
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### Author:  [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2012, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/159 "2012-01-01T03:51:06Z")
> [@missinformation](#):
>
> I was in the Dollar Tree just before Christmas. Mind you, there are signs all over the store that proclaim, “Everything in the store is a dollar”. I was picking up earbuds as cheap stocking stuffers for my neighbor. Guy comes up to me and asks me, “How much are these?” I looked at him and told him that they were a dollar, just like everything else in the store, unless it was marked 2/$1 (like candy). He stared at me like I was from another planet and asked if there was a price scanner. I told him to go to the register and ask…
>
> I was wearing street clothes, mind you, and was not a store employee…
I always respond, “A dollar two ninety eight.”
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### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [January 1, 2012, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/amazingly-stupid-things-overheard/607599/160 "2012-01-01T15:54:57Z")
> [@voguevixen](#):
>
> This actually happens with American people in America. Eons ago an internet friend and I planned for her to fly (from Michigan) to San Francisco, then drive to a concert in LA. I began discussing hotel options for after the concert and she was all “why don’t we just drive back?” Because it’s a SEVEN HOUR DRIVE!
Did she not know how far it was, or not know that it was a bad idea? When I did Americorps\*Vista we had a project lined up for us by our worthless leader. She knew that the service project was in a town over 5 hours away and that we wouldn’t be allowed to spend the night (if you don’t know, the position is stipend based - set at the poverty level for a single person - and Vistas aren’t allowed to work another job, so paying out of pocket wasn’t possible) or take the next day off but signed us up for it anyway. Hey, **she** wasn’t the one who had to spend twice as long driving as helping renovate a park, so why not?
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