# What's the dumbest thing you've heard?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [February 28, 2003, 11:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098 "2003-02-28T11:21:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ReuvenB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ReuvenB)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2003, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/21 "2003-02-28T23:09:54Z")
“You know what would be really funny, if a car gets hit with the football, it’ll blow up.”
This was said with total sincerity.
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### Author:  [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)
#### Post date: [February 28, 2003, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/22 "2003-02-28T23:52:28Z")
The dumbest thing I’ve heard was **I do** , out of my own foolish mouth.
What was I thinking? :eek: :wally:
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### Author:  [@Malice](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malice)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/23 "2003-03-01T00:30:12Z")
Mom’s friend, who is Caucasian, adopts a baby, who is Korean.
A random woman in the mall asks if the child is adopted.
Hearing the answer, “Yes, she’s from Korea,” the woman says, “Oh no, how you going to understand her when she grows up?”
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### Author:  [@airdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/airdisc)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/24 "2003-03-01T00:54:39Z")
I had a girl admit to me that she didn’t know what a syllable was.
How do people like that make it to 10th grade?
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### Author:  [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/25 "2003-03-01T01:17:58Z")
I had a boss once tell me:
“I don’t care if you have a customer who needs work done. You will take care of my personal work before any customer. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t have work, right? So I’m the most important one here.”
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### Author:  [@BuckleberryFerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckleberryFerry)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/26 "2003-03-01T01:31:21Z")
“If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.”
I take no credit for this line. Will identify later if legally necessary.
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### Author:  [@Quack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quack)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/27 "2003-03-01T01:52:54Z")
God bless Lewis Black, eh Buckleberry?
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### Author:  [@JayElle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JayElle)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/28 "2003-03-01T02:16:58Z")
I worked in astore that sold agate slices, dyed in bright purple, blue, pink - all completely unnatural colors and identified as **Dyed Agate Slice**. I overheard a customer exclaim, “Look at how god made the rocks in all the pretty colors!”
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### Author:  [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/29 "2003-03-01T02:32:03Z")
I once read a student paper that had, as the first line, the following statement:
“Without knowledge, we would not know half the facts we know today.”
My question is–what about the other half?
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### Author:  [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/30 "2003-03-01T02:38:03Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Hearing the answer, “Yes, she’s from Korea,” the woman says, “Oh no, how you going to understand her when she grows up?”
“A lot of people don’t understand the concept of Asian-American. A talk show host once told me, ‘All right, Margaret, we’re changing over to an ABC affiliate, so why don’t you tell our viewers, _in your native language_, that we’re making that transition.’ I turned to the camera and said, ‘Um, they’re changing over to an ABC affiliate.’”
- Margaret Cho
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### Author:  [@Triss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triss)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/31 "2003-03-01T02:39:23Z")
Quick one off the top of my head:
Overheard in the doctor’s office: “No, no, it’s not insomnia. It’s just that I can’t get to sleep.”
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### Author:  [@fizgig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fizgig)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/32 "2003-03-01T03:17:56Z")
Forgivable singly, but they’re all from the same person:
(In reference to the newly installed sound signals at the crosswalks) “Oh, it’s so nice that they put those in for the deaf people!”
“Well, it’s one of those, y’know, catch 20/20’s.”
“What was that thing with the pregnancy test? You know, when the racoon dies?”
Others:
“You’re moving to New Mexico?! Do you have a passport already?”
“Them things are alive?!” (in reference to a sea anemone at the pet store I worked at).
“Mr. Thompson, does expand mean, like… to get… bigger?” (during an exam in senior chemistry)
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### Author:  [@BuckleberryFerry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckleberryFerry)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/33 "2003-03-01T03:23:00Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Quack \*
> \*\*God bless Lewis Black, eh Buckleberry? \*\*
Amen, my friend. I’m quite glad to see someone got it right off!
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### Author:  [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/34 "2003-03-01T05:30:47Z")
Y’all are relieving some of the burden I have felt since talking to the operator.
> [@](#):
>
> Zoe, you didn’t call Washington state information by mistake, did you?
No, her supervisor finally gave me the number of the Senate switchboard.
Two more from my past:
1. “Miss Zoe, if I sign up for swimming next year, will I have to get in the water?”
2. “Please excuse Kenneth for being absent yesterday. He was taking out the trash and the time just slipped away.”
As for my comment about voting, I am really not a proponent of Elitism. But I do think that ignorance causes big problems for our country.
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### Author:  [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/35 "2003-03-01T06:00:44Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mjollnir \*
> \*\*I have a friend who said that the #1 killer of children is dishwashing liquid.
>
> I said, “Wow! I didn’t know that.” \*\*
WhuuuuUUUUH???
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### Author:  [@CanvasShoes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CanvasShoes)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/36 "2003-03-01T06:08:09Z")
When I had a piece of equipment called a PID (photoionization detector) searched by security in the Airport. It has two small, flat, blunt wrenches that are used to attach the nozzle that “sniffs” the volatiles.
The security guy wanted to take them. I needed them for the job I was heading out to conduct, and luckily I sweetly talked him out of it, promising him that they would stay in the case with the instrument in the overhead compartment for the whole (a staggering 40 minutes) flight.
But I couldn’t resist asking (very nicely and non-threateningly) “um, how could they be dangerous anyway, they’re so flat and blunt”?
His answer? “well, planes have bolts you know, you could, like, unDO something”
???
Um, yeah, I’m gonna climb out onto the wing mid-flight and unbolt it!!!
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### Author:  [@gus28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gus28)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/37 "2003-03-01T06:57:52Z")
A friend of mine had the old style caller id, with the box between the phone and the wall outlet. All of the words on his caller id came up in Spanish, (new=nuevo etc.). He asked me to check it one day and it was in English. I say “Damn, you finally changed that to English”. His response - “Yeah, I don’t know why I bothered though, somehow everyone’s name still came up in English”
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### Author:  [@LifeOnWry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LifeOnWry)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 7:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/38 "2003-03-01T07:19:38Z")
A (Caucasian) family friend heard that one out of three children born in the US is Asian. Guess what she asked her doctor when her third child was born?
“Is she Chinese?”
Granted, she was exhausted from labor AND under the influence of some wonderful drugs, but still…
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### Author:  [@bludaycious\_babe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bludaycious_babe)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/39 "2003-03-01T07:41:01Z")
Dumbest thing I’ve heard: at the airport… when the people at the ticket counter asks you:
1.) “did you pack your bags yourself?” No, your mother and Osama packed them for me, they wanted to make sure the plane blows up the ‘right way’ this time. Jackass.
2.) “have your bags been in your possession at all times since you packed them?” No, you and your dumbass friend over there are in possession of my bags at this time. DUR.
and…
3.) “have you left your bags unattended at any time?” Didn’t you just ask that? You must enjoy repeating yourself bitch.
But the DUMBEST THING IN THE WORLD – “freebasing” UMMM… IT’S NOT FREE. HELLO?!
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2003, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-dumbest-thing-youve-heard/158098/40 "2003-03-01T10:46:05Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by bludaycious babe \*
> **Dumbest thing I’ve heard: at the airport… when the people at the ticket counter asks you:
> 1.) “did you pack your bags yourself?” No, your mother and Osama packed them for me, they wanted to make sure the plane blows up the ‘right way’ this time. Jackass.**
If you are willing to repeat this inside an airport, out loud, I can promise that you will receive a free gift. A very educational tour of what happens “behind the scenes” of an airport security office. And I say “educational”, because I just _know_ that you’ll learn something from the experience. 🙂
Never, ever, **ever** say things like this in an airport. I worked airport security in the 80’s, & even back then, you’d get hauled away by John Law if you “made a joke” about having a bomb.
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*But the DUMBEST THING IN THE WORLD – “freebasing” UMMM… IT’S NOT FREE. HELLO?! \*\*
I hope, for your health & sanity’s sake, that you **aren’t** freebasing. If you are, please say so, & you will be astonished by the number of offers of assistance you receive from your fellow SDMB posters.
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