A couple of years ago I went to the post office to buy stamps. I stood in line behind an elderly lady. I recognized the postal clerk and gave her a little wave. The lady in line ahead of me wanted to make sure she didn’t get any stamps that were “pre-licked.” The clerk assured her that the stamps were not pre-licked, but that didn’t satisfy the woman. It turned out that she didn’t like the peel-off adhesive ones, but wanted to lick the stamps herself. Those were beginning to be phased out then, so the clerk had to go find some. While the rest of us waited.
I used to wait tables and I have fought off squadrons of idiots with my bare hands.
A favorite:
As I drop off the bill: “Here you are, sir.”
Idiot, holding credit card in one hand, pen in the other, looking at the bill: “Where do I sign?”
Me: “Oh, that’s just the bill. I can take your credit card to the machine right now, if you like.”
Idiot: “That’s ok, I’ll just sign this one.”
Me: “That’s only the bill. It just lists the items you ate and the total price. It’s not linked to your credit card in any way.”
Idiot: “What? I’d just like to pay.”
Me: “…We haven’t received your credit card information as of yet. Right now, there is no way for us to receive any money for your meal.”
Idiot: “Yes there is, right here.” Holds up credit card.
Me: “Sir, is this your first time using your credit card?”
Idiot: “No.”
Me: ???
Me: “I need to take your card to our computer and enter the data.”
Idiot: Eyes me suspiciously
Me: “You can come with me, if you like.”
Idiot: Ok, let’s do that.
I then proceeded to charge his meal to his card, a process with which he was suitably impressed.
From my brother-in-law, an automotive technician:
Customer: “My car is making this funny noise.”
BIL: Is there anything that brings the noise on?
Customer: “Yea, when I drive it.”
BIL: “No, I mean: Does it happen constantly, or only when you brake, accelerate, or turn? Does it happen right away or only when you’ve been driving for a while? Does it only happen at certain speeds or at all speeds?”
Customer: “I don’t know.”
BIL: What kind of sound is it? Is it a ticking or a squeak or a buzz or…?"
Customer: “A clanking.”
BIL: “A clanking, Ok, great. Where is the car right now?”
Customer: “Outside.”
BIL: “Can I take it for a drive to try and figure out the sound?”
Customer: “Sure.”
So, my BIL takes the car for a test drive where he tries to diagnose the problem.
After 20 minutes, BIL returns: “I can’t duplicate any unusual sounds. How about you drive it and I’ll ride with you and when you hear the sound you let me know.”
Customer: “Ok.”
So, they go for a drive and drive all over town, with no luck so far. After some time, the customer pipes up:
Customer: “Hey, my house is right over there. Do you mind if I stop in?”
BIL, already annoyed: “Go right ahead.”
So, as they are pulling into the customer’s driveway there’s a loud ‘Clang!’
Customer: “There it is!”
BIL: “What’s that?”
Customer: “The noise! That was it!”
BIL: “…Back up the car for a second…”
Clang!
Customer: “There it is again!”
BIL: “…and forwards, please…”
Clang!
Customer: “Again!”
They were driving over the storm drain in her driveway. :smack:
From when I was a stock boy at the local mom and pop grocery store:
Customer storms into the store and rushes up to me, out of breath: “Do you have crushed Moroccan rose petals, in bulk?”
Me: “No.”
So I used to work in a science fiction book store. Not just SF of course, but also fantasy and horror. Management had decided that some books should only be available through special order, such as The Necronomicon and The Satanic Bible (I think it was because they didn’t want to sell any religious or occult literature, and those two were counted as such. These days there’s a paperback stand full of Necronomicons, so I guess profit won out.)
This of course contributed to the image of The Necronomicon as a terrible book full of unspeakable blasphemies that not even the intrepid science fiction store would sell openly. I’d have conversations like this one about once a month (the following is an actual exchange):
Customer: Do you have The Necronomicon? (pronounced in italics)
Me: We don’t keep it in stock, but I can order a copy for you.
Customer: Oh… I see. You don’t keep it out where people can just stumble over it.
Me: …Yeah.
Customer: Have you read it?
Me: Yes, I have.
Customer: It’s really heavy stuff. Powerful. The spells in there shouldn’t be used by regular people, you know. It was written by a mad arab.
The Necronomicon is possibly the most successful spin-off ever.
Edit: Here’s a linky for those who haven’t yet befouled their eyes with that awful tome of ghoulish mysteries.
These are true complaints made to a travel agency in the UK :-
I*t took us 9 hours to fly to Jamaica from England - it only took the Americans three hours
No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.
I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friend’s three bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller.
I was bitten by a mosquito - nobody said they could bite.
We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white.*
And the classic one from a British holidaymaker in Spain :-
There were too many Spanish people. The receptionist spoke Spanish, The food was Spanish. Too many foreigners.
This one is not really a complaint, just a stupid question:-
The brochure stated “No Hairdressers at the accommodation”. We’re trainee hairdressers, will we be OK staying there?
I take it people reading the Necronomicon don’t realise it’s a work of fiction then?
The Satanic Bible on the other hand… Well, that shit will make your skin fall off.
It seemed to be the case with many - at least in the sense that they wanted to believe it was the real thing. And then again some took it as an actual, bona fide spellbook that would conjure Cthulhu and whatnot. They would get very angry if you contradicted them.
We only ever had customers complaining about rash…
I had one customer who was utterly shocked that I could actually get him a copy of the real, live, honest-to-goodness (spoken in stage whisper) Necronomicon. I explained that it was a spinoff of Lovecraft’s work, written quite recently, but he didn’t believe me. He was just sure that for ten bucks he would become immensely powerful. sigh
I wonder what microwaves taste like. Hmmm.
You owe me a keyboard.
Alright. But it may not be a fresh one in a box. I also make no representations regarding testicular proximity at any previous time material hereto.
I have a reverse situation.
I was at a Subway and asked if the (Whatever Sandwich)came in a foot long wrap.
The answer: No, it it 12 inches long.
I was very glad I had a friend there with me to exchange looks with and witness that moment of duhhhhh.
Oh, and it was the manager that told me this, too.
This is pretty much my friend’s mindset. He wanted people who had real, practical experience fixing hardware and software problems.
A dear girlfriend of mine in high school was 6’ tall. Being as how I am extremely short, she would always be asked “Ohmygosh, you’re so tall! How tall are you?” To which she would always reply, “I am 5’12"” – you would not believe how many people responded with, “Really? Wow, I would have thought you were at least six feet!”
People are stupid. Daily, I get idiots on the phone who will ask me which ribbon is wider – the 3/8" or the 1 1/2". I am not joking. Or how about the one that wanted to know what colour my blue tissue was – I am not talking about a customer who wanted to know if the blue were more of a royal or a light blue – she clarified that she just didn’t know what colour blue is. Uh, yeh, ok. Seriously, I could go on and on about idiot customers, I think the gift business brings out the biggest morons. I get several calls a day every day from bored housewives who have decided to start their own business and want me to tell them what they will need for it. Not just what packaging products (and don’t get me started on the ones who don’t understand that I can’t fucking recommend what size box they need if they don’t know the dimensions of the thing they will be putting in it – what the fuck is the “standard cupcake” dimensions???), but what licenses, registrations, everything. Seriously, how do you decide to start a business and not have a clue what you’re doing? In this economy?
Oops, sorry, let me get off my soapbox. It’s been a Monday here. Back to your regularly scheduled non-pit thread. 
My reverse-stupid Subway story:
Some time ago, I walked into a Subway. I walked through the door with the giant poster advertising their new Philly Cheesesteak sub, next to the window with the giant poster advertising their new Philly Cheesesteak sub. I walked past several tables and trash cans with table tents advertising their new Philly Cheesesteak sub. I walked up to the counter (with it’s advertisement of their new Philly Cheesesteak sub) and said, “I’d like the Philly Cheesesteak sub, please.” The woman behind the counter gave me a look of utter contempt, and informed me in her most condescending tone, “uh, we don’t have a Philly Cheesesteak sub.” I looked up at the menu (with a full panel advertising their new Philly Cheesesteak sub) and said, “Ok… I’ll have a steak and cheese.”
My store is an official USGS map reseller. We buy some standard folded Park Service, Forest Service, and BLM maps from them, but it’s mostly USGS map quads, which we sell flat. The customers may roll or fold them as they choose.
They shipped one of my orders in a “mailing tube” (actually a piece of cardboard folded into a long triangle) with maps rolled up in it, and I asked them not to do that any more. Just to make sure, I asked them to enter that in their customer database, and I put it on my latest PO in the comments field.
So today, I received an order with over 100 maps (included folded ones) rolled into one of these “tubes.” On the address label on the outside of the box, printed in bold type above my store name, it said “SHIP FLAT.”
:eek: I’ll pass then.
That last one earns that person a place in Chimera’s Home for the Criminally Stupid.
About 12 years ago, there was an excellent story in the Wall Street Journal about the stupidity of people visiting our national parks. Such gems as;
The two women who went hiking down a trail at sunset without flashlights. When it got dark, they sat down on the trail and called the park rangers, demanding that someone be sent out to bring them flashlights.
Same thing with another group and rain gear.
Repeated and almost common complaints about all the bugs, and how the entire forest should be sprayed to get rid of them. :rolleyes:
And many many more, just ungodly amounts of stupidity showing an extreme disconnect with nature and the real world.
When I visited Mesa Verde back in 1992, you could climb down to and walk around in one of the great cliff palaces. Probably can’t do that anymore. But climbing back up, I was behind a 350 pound woman who complained bitterly about how they needed to put escalators in to make it easier. :rolleyes: Yup, let’s put escalators OUTSIDE for your fat ass to be able to reach these places. Frankly, my thought at the time was that if she’d just STFU, she might not be so short of breath, that it was the constant running of the mouth while trying to climb that was making things worse for her.
Tell you what. Climbing Mount Everest is too hard and too dangerous. Why don’t we make them put in a chair lift so everyone see the top? :rolleyes:
Oh wait, no. That wouldn’t be handicapped accessible. Let’s drill a verticle shaft and put in an elevator.
Then we can net off the sea coast so there are no fish to startle the idiots. 
I recently had a seemingly-intelligent person ask me where the animal feeding stations were in Yellowstone National Park. She assumed that the animals couldn’t survive the winter without being fed.
My dad and step mom workkamp* every summer. They’ve had some gems, I can tell you, from people in Alaska asking where they keep the mammoths (some of the gift shops sold mammoth tusks) and if they took American money. In West Yellowstone, he’s had to tell people that it’s not a good idea to get too close to the buffalo or the grizzly bears…yes, they’re cute, but you won’t win in a foot race.
*Workkampers: Folks, mainly retirees, who get in their RV and work in a park for a summer or longer. Many places will allow the workkampers to hook-up for free as well as pay them a small stipend for working in the office/store/doing the landscaping, etc. It’s a great way to see part of the country and get paid for it.
The problem with stamps and envelopes and the like becoming peel-off adhesive means that all those clever forensic folks have one less place to find the kidnapper’s DNA … 
About five years ago, two Hawaiian teens walked right past me, right past the “Buffalo are dangerous, do not approach” sign in Custer State Park (SD), telling their dad they were going to climb this huge bull buffalo so dad could get a picture. As dad shuffled forward with the camera, I pointed to the sign and said that it might not be a real good idea. Dad stopped them.
Would have been a lot of witnesses (perhaps 30 people along the side of the road) and a lot of pictures of the incident, but I would have happily testified that they walked right past the warning sign to commit their Act of Stupid.
From one of my dad’s diaries (he sends these out every couple of days, with pictures, of what they do and where they go. I think the Prismatic Basin is at Yellowstone National Park.
*For your information the water coming out of the Prismatic Basin is hot! It is 160 degrees. Can you imagine a buffalo walking through that hot water. It is very hot to the touch. A human would get 3-4 degree burns if they walked through that hot water.
There are signs telling you not to get off of the walk-way; because of the hot water and that the ground can be just a thin layer of crust. This means that your weight could cause you to fall right through it and be burned to death.
While we were walking up to the basin a couple was ahead of us, and the man asked his wife or girl friend to walk over to the boil. She stepped off the walk-way and began walking toward the basin I immediately spoke up and told him that was a NO-NO! She very quickly returned to the walk-way Duh! *
You probably spoiled his carefully planned murder plot, and wasted all the life insurance that he had recently bought on his wife!