I’ve always found the dumbest things to be those that pop out of otherwise intelligent peoples’ mouths. It’s a contrast issue, really.
A good friend once remarked that he thought the economy should really go back to barter as its basis. Out of left field, just floored me.
Well…it was kind of more offensive than dumb, well it was offensive and dumb. Back when I was having my ill-fated one month flirtation with higher education in Oxford (And I found out that being horribly dysfunctional in your dealings with the human species is no preperation for that kind of thing and that’s why it was so mercifully brief but that’s a whole other story). Back then I was sitting at a table in the refectory one breakfast time when the two boys who were sitting at that table too (who I didn’t know) came out with something about some woman they knew and about how she objected to rape because she was “too ugly to ever get raped”.
I was really angered and appalled by that, as you can imagine. I really wish that I had been brave enough to tell those morons what I thought, but being a shy reclusive little flower who hates confrontation, I just sat there and stewed silently in my fury. :mad:
Nowadays, I would hope that I would say something. I mean, God!!
By the student in front of me in my history class last year:
“I don’t get, like why, uhh… colleges give smart kids scholarships and stuff. I mean, I can see giving 'em to like athletes and stuff, 'cause they make the school money with tickets and other things. But, I just don’t get it.”
slams head off of desk
This one’s not really dumb, but kind of fits in with the rest:
I can’t remember all the particulars, but it was back in high school. This girl I knew kept asking me for my opinion about something, and after a while I said “I don’t know.” She said “Whaddya mean you don’t know? You either know or you don’t know!” I bust out laughing. I still use it sometimes when people say “I don’t know” because it strikes me as funny.
I was working at a grocery store, and this elderly couple came in my line with a carton of Breyer’s All Natural Vanilla Ice Cream. It said on the label “with real bean specks.” This man, asked me straight faced-“What does that mean, bean specks? Does that mean lima beans?”
My school recently put in a dress code. Nothing major, just a formal statement of what isn’t allowed. Shorts must reach mid-thigh, no spaghetti-strap tops, etc. But most importantly, and most enforced, is the rule about hair: no unnatural hair colors.
I heard two girls chatting just a few days ago. I didn’t bother to check their hair color, though I assume it was purple or something like that.
“I’m not dying my hair. They can’t make me. I’ll just say it’s against my religion to dye my hair natural colors.”
:rolleyes:
jessica
The absolute dumest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say was something a former cow-worker said one day at lunch. Why this guy chose to sit at the same table as the rest of us, I’ll never know. He was a hayseed hick who was proud to be a moron.
Anyways, one day he makes some insulting comment towards me and here’s the dialog which ensued:
Me: Hayseed, at least my closest relative isn’t an ape!
Hayseed: I don’t believe in none of that evolution stuff!
Me: I wasn’t implying that you had evolved from apes. I was implying that you had yet evolve from apes.
Hayseed: I’ve done a lot of research on my family tree, and I’ve yet to find any monkeys in it.
Me (turning to another cow-worker): A few sheep maybe, but no, no monkeys.
Hayseed: Well, sheep are useful. :eek: [sub]Those who’ve been reading Scylla’s latest thread will have a grasp at what’s implied here.[/sub]
I got up and left at that point.
Then there was the time when a buddy of mine out of the blue asked me, “Have you ever jerked off in a condom to make your girlfriend think you were cheating on her?”
At my library, like at many libraries we put blocks of wood on the shelves to indicate that some series of books is shelved in another location. They usually say something like “ASK STAFF FOR BOOKS WITH CALL NUMBER XXXXXX”
I had someone bring one of the blocks up to me and asked if they could check out the block and take it home.
I had a conversation with a cow-orker this summer that amazed me. This is an otherwise intelligent person, he had just gotten back from his vacation with his family; they went to South Carolina. This is an American guy in his 30’s:
Him: We went to this museum that had a huge cannon that they brought up from a sunken ship, and some other weapons from that war. What was that war called where the north and south fought against each other?
Me: The Civil War.
Him: Yeah, that one. The cannon and stuff was from the south, I think they said it was Confederate. That was the south, right?
Me: Yes.
Him: And the north was the Yankees, right?
Me: Also called Union.
Him: Yeah.
I think he must have been absent from school the day they covered that.
My mother told me if I stick a hot pan or pot into cold water, it could catch fire. Yup, she actually told me that.
She also told me if I didn’t turn the light switch all the way on or off, sparks would fly out. . . and start a fire.
A theme.
And a guy I knew once asked me, “how do you spell mechanic?” Stupid part? He is one.
“I dare you to ban me!”
“itz nun uv YOUR bisNESs how i POST!!!”
“My band is KOOOL! Visit my website at http://www.notalentatall.com and buy my records!”
“I posted this in all the forums because no-one pays attention to me”
From an Army Sergeant Major: “I’m living proof that stress kills.”
He outranks me by a bunch, so I had to limit myself to smiling and nodding, almost causing my guffaw nerves to rupture. Close one, man…I mighta DIED!
I’m sitting in the waiting area at the barber’s and I overhear:
**Hairdresser:**So where do you work?
**Customer:**At that big warehouse down the road, I load ocean containers.
**Hairdresser:**Ooh, that must be hard work in hot weather like this
**Customer:**What about you, where do you work?
“Day”? Man, you people have a boring history… 
Sitting on the bus behind 2 older ladies on vacation. One of them says to the other “If the sun is always up during the daytime, why isn’t the moon always up at night?”
My eyes probably got as big as dinner plates and it was all I could do to keep myself from jumping up and giving them a nice long lesson in the reason why. I recall exactly what they said next because I was just too shocked but I think they went into a discussion about how the sun shines light but the moon absorbs it and their conversation finished with no conclusion reached.
I’d think you’d have fun answering these, actually…
“4pm. Make sure your hotel has a roof with a Force 7 classification, otherwise just take cover in our gift shop.”
“4:15pm. Right after the glacier explosion. But there’s a coccooning process that lasts for 1/2 hour before they turn into elk. We have postcards about it in our gift shop.”
“They’re stapled onto the front of the presidents’ heads.”
“Yep. Over there. Head about 1/2 mile to the east and you’ll see a trail that goes along for about 2 miles and ends up by a burnt out stump that some teenagers usually hang in and a small lake that I swam in last summer (the water’s fine, just a tad chilly), along the way you may bump into a few rangers who can lead you to the lake. But it’s beautiful up there, the staff agrees. Nobody knows about it, though.”
“Neither do Satanists. Maybe it’s a conspiracy!”
Once while (foolishly) debating the existence of God with a Xian, I was confronted with the question, “Well, where do you think the rain comes from?”
I’m at a convenience store just off an interstate off-ramp, about 45 miles south of Kansas City, on a Sunday morning in November. A van-load of middle-aged men pulls up. Chiefs paraphernalia adorns the van, and the men are dressed in Chiefs jerseys, Chiefs hats, Chiefs jackets, and other Chiefs regalia. They commence to buy beer, sausages, hot dog buns, and more beer.
They get to the cash register and the clerk asks…
“You boys goin’ to the game?”
A teacher told a guy in a class I was in once that he had excellent spatial skills and that males generally had superior spatial skills to females. The poor guy didn’t know what the word “spatial” meant and he had to ask.
I had a step-mother that was famous for this sort of thing.
My two favorites are-
We were all watching Johnny Carson one night. During the monologue he made a joke about how NASA was going to send a rocket full of penicillin to Jupiter to clear up the red spot. She looks right at me and asks, " Are they really going to do that?".
Another good one happened when we were returning from a vacation. We stopped at a hotel at about the halfway point.
We’re getting settled in the room and Cagney and Lacy was on the TV. She says, " We must be getting close to home. The same TV shows are on here as the ones at home."
Guess the concept of network television had never really sunk in.