As my mother used to say, “It’s better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
This piece is based on an AskReddit thread. Link on the last page.
“The baby is in a little protective sack that keeps out all the bad stuff. Its fine.” As said to me by a drunk, smoking, pregnant teenager at a wedding I attended a few years ago.
DaisyX3
I went through treatment for cancer. The number of people who think it is helpful to point out that “big pharma has the cure for cancer but theyre hiding it” is mind boggling. Oh and thanks for pointing out that the chemotherapy I’m having is super bad for you (no duh). And no, I havent considered “alternatives” like eating organic and vitamin infusions.
Smiling_Sycophant
I’m a waiter. I once had a woman ask me if we had gluten free water. In her defence, thats all we have water-wise.
Thundercat_Care
“Why don’t they just shine lights on solar panels so they can work at night too?”
techniforus
Some guy once told me he believed that every person from Pakistan had murdered somebody. When I argued back that it was completely un-true, he responded with: “Well, that’s my personal opinion.”
Breath_less
In high school government class in the 90s we actually had a debate about whether we should ever have a Black president. One of the students said something that made us all pause in our tracks. (continued…)
Keep reading on the next page!
Not at all joking, this one kid in the class said we should never elect a Black president because he would “let all the slaves go free.”
sjmp75020
“You can tell that the dinosaurs they use in movies aren’t the real ones.” – The person I saw Jurassic Park with.
[deleted]
I had just returned to school after my house had burned down during the summer. Arguably the worst summer of my life. I was minding my own business in class and some guy blurted out, “Did you all burn your house down just for insurance money?”
No. We didn’t burn our entire lives in four walls for some measly cash. It upset me so bad knowing people could even think like that.
tricksterarchangel
I work at a fast food restaurant. Last night, a man came in and ordered his food. When he went to find a table, he came back up to the front asking if the table with a handicap symbol was “only for r****ds.” I had absolutely no words.
flowerpowerbb
“My daughter is struggling in math because girls aren’t good at math.” This was said to me by the father of one of my students. I am a female math teacher. Age 42.
Starla22475
After my sister had passed away, someone I knew said, “At least she died doing what she loved.”
She died of a heroin overdose.
BigOlGabe
“That’s not snow on top of the mountain.”
“Of course it is, what else would it be?” (continued…)
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“Its white plastic sheeting! It can’t snow on a mountain, silly.” Whew.
thesaltwatersolution
One of my best friends told me he doesn’t believe in science. Like doesnt believe in the concept of verifying things through experiment and observation.
Wagnasty90
When I was in high school Spanish class, I was talking to the person beside me about how my mother is from Mexico. Upon hearing this, the girl in front of us turned around in her seat and remarked, “Wow! Your mother is from Mexico? Do you think she can come over to my house sometime and clean it? My family has been looking for a new maid.”
From what I understand, she came from a very privileged life, so I can only assume her parents taught her to think that way.
F_is_for_Funeral
“People who weren’t beaten as children are inferior people because they are less like me.” Said by my step-father.
iamnotparanoid
When my wife died four years ago, a coworker said: “Look on the bright side – no alimony.” True story.
ccrawsh
Astronomer here! Might have shared this before, but I have a relative who believes in conspiracy theories, from how we didn’t go to the moon to the Holocaust is fake. He’s also an engineer who’s been successful at his job, so not an uneducated person.
Anyway, he was asking me a ton of questions once about various conspiracies (relativity isn’t true, for example) and then when discussing aliens he said: “But surely you can at least tell me we regularly talk to aliens via radio? Right???” (continued…)
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When I said no, and explained my research and how this doesn’t happen (I specialize in radio astronomy) he then just said in a sad voice: “Oh, so they’ve gotten to you too.”
Yeah, because my grad student stipend is totally enough to buy my silence over the eternal fame and fortune I would receive for discovering an alien signal.
I mean, I’ve had a lot of stupid stuff said to me about Astro topics, from astrology to fairies to stuff in between. Most of these cases though strike me as uneducated people who are ignorant because they never had a chance to know how rational thinking works. I feel like this was truly ignorant though because I know how well-educated he is, yet still prefers to indulge in ignorance.
Andromeda321
Once a guy told me that slavery wasn’t the worst part of US history. According to him, the darkest chapter in the history of our country is the invention of electricity. Oooookay.
Anonymous
“You can’t be French if you’re Black. You must be from Africa. Where are your parents from?”
“France.”
“Grandparents?”
“I don’t know much about them but I assume France.
“Speak French.”
“Petit con tu vis sous une pierre?”
“Whatever you say, Africa.”
“You realize there are Black people everywhere other than America and Africa right?”
“Haha youre funny.”
brbafterthebreak
When my brother died someone said, “God has a plan for us all. Hes in a better place now.” The best place for a 15-year-old boy is to be alive.
ChocolateSnowflake
“Minimum wage is going up because they want small businesses to fail and have everything run by corporations. I’ve been making minimum wage for 6 years and managed to buy a car, rent an apartment, move to a house, and I run a business. It’s all about managing your money.”
No, Brandy. Let me lay it all out there for you. (continued…)
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You’ve been getting government assistance the entire time. You’re on Medicaid, you used to get food stamps, you had WIC, and your boyfriend brings home over $500 a week from tips that I know don’t get claimed in your taxes. So no, it’s not all about managing money correctly.
Also, the only reason you have a house is because your Aunt is selling it to you. The only reason you have a business is because our boss is selling it to you at cost. The government isn’t out to get you. Maybe if you raised your prices a little instead of whining about how little you make on everything you would turn a profit and it wouldn’t be so hard to pay people a living wage and your employee turnaround wouldn’t be so high.
But don’t listen to me. It’s not like I went to college, or took economics, or wrote thesis on the minimum wage/living wage issue. You keep doing you, Brandy.
Anonymous
“You have a roof over your head, you get to eat every day. You have no reason to be depressed.” I wasnt even depressed. Im just a quiet kid who doesn’t smile much.
lemonadeandicecream
Please note: I am a Christian, so I don’t think she’s stupid for reading a Bible in general, but…
A girl I went to college with told us she prefers the King James Version because “it’s the only real version of the Bible, since it’s the first one written.” Guess she had never heard of Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic.
BowmanTheShowman
Many, many years ago I waited tables in a restaurant that was inside a posh department store. Once a week or so, a woman would bring in her wheelchair-bound sister who appeared to have cerebral palsy or some similar illness. They both seemed to be very nice people, always tipped well, and frankly, it seemed like they both needed this time together to get out of the house.
One day while they were there, one of the waitresses I work with complained to me: “They shouldn’t let people like that [referring to the wheelchair bound woman] into public places. No one wants to look at that.”
What a jerk! So sorry she inconvenienced you by having the audacity to exist!
bicyclemom
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“All Latin Americans are Mexicans.” Oh, and apparently we all speak “Mexican,” a language that came from Spanish.
namkash
My dog got diabetes early in life and developed cataracts, which quickly turned into glaucoma. His eyes were so swollen that they caused excruciating migraines. We were going to put him down, but his vet made a really good case for his odds if we did a bilateral enucleation (eye removal) so we decided to follow through with it.
I called my mom from school to find out how he’d fared during the surgery. My ‘friend’ at the time asked me what I was calling my mom for and I explained the situation, and she got this look on her face and asked, in all seriousness, “ew, why don’t you just get rid of it?”
I don’t have that friend anymore. I still do have the most special dog I’ve ever met, who got an extra 8 years on this planet with us and a vastly improved quality of life.
lowratesfreewifi
When I asked a climate change-denying Facebook acquaintance why he doesn’t believe the majority of climate scientists who say climate change is real, he responded:
“Why I should believe in climate change just because it’s popular among scientists? Since when did science become a popularity contest?”
I then tried to explain the concepts of scientific consensus and peer review and how literally every scientific discipline relies on them, but of course he didn’t want to hear it. As they say, “you can’t reason someone out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into in the first place.”
Weirdly, he is perfectly fine with the scientific consensus on other issues like vaccines and GMOs. He says he believes the scientists who say vaccines and GMOs are safe because “those scientists aren’t bought and paid for the way climate scientists are.”
TheHornyCripple