31 Baffling Conversations People Had With Dumb Adults

‘She didn’t know that a thesaurus was a book’
31 Baffling Conversations People Had With Dumb Adults

I was going through this Reddit thread of stories where people cannot believe an adult doesn’t know some very basic thing — like where the sun goes at night or that “Bob” is short for Robert — when I stumbled upon this entry: “Fucking REPLY ALL on emails where I’ve included you and another person on purpose. Don’t just reply to me. Especially if I keep re-adding that second recipient with every reply! Especially if your job relies on email communication and you’ve likely grown up with the internet, no excuses!”

Yes! This has happened to me over and over again in my life, from idiot coworkers to my kid’s teachers — you’re educating my child! Everyone should understand how to reply all. It’s very, very basic knowledge.

Though, I’ll admit, there’s even more basic stuff people didn’t know, as evidenced by this Reddit thread.

peaphive . 26d ago I had to explain to my coworker M 33 that the sun always rises in the east and sets in the west. After I told them that they said every day?
partytil930 . 26d ago A person that didn't want to get solar panels because they were worried if too many people had them it would use up all the sun.
Mindful-Reader1989 26d ago I just had to explain credit cards to my 73- year-old mother. She didn't know that by paying only the minimum balance, she was racking up interest charges. She also didn't know that you could pay a credit card balance in full each month. Like she didn't know that was allowed. It certainly explains a lot of my upbringing.
InkyLeopard + 26d ago My ex was convinced that tampons were inserted and then you yank the cord like a fucking rip cord and it inflates up in there like a goddamn lifeboat. Не really truly believed that with all his stupid, idiot heart.
Guardian-Boy 26d ago Guy at my first base got a girl pregnant and didn't understand how. We asked him if he knew how babies were made, and he legit 100% believed that you could have sex all you wanted but wouldn't get pregnant unless you were married.
ResponsibilityNo6603 . 26d ago I've always just tossed my trash out the car window. What do you do with yours? Hold on to it?
CriticalKnick 26d ago My friend and I did a survey for $10 each. When we were through the guy made us wait because he only had a twenty. We offered to just take the twenty and split it ourselves; he didn't like that. Then I offered to accept the twenty and give him ten dollars change so he could pay my friend, he stood and stared at me with the gears loudly clanking in his head for maybe 15 seconds, then he says   no, II we're just going to wait for change
skrame 26d ago Edited 26d ago I'm a construction worker. I was out in a field inspecting for a dirt crew placing storm pipes in the ground, and one of the guys looks up at the sky in awe. Не says Holy shit, guys... the moon is in the sky during the day! Не was dead serious; he thought the moon only came out at night. This is a man with a wife and kids. Maybe he never looked at the sky growing up? Не had forgotten about the eclipse that was a few weeks before it. The whole crew
HawaiianShirtsOR 26d ago Every time my mom drove the car while snow was falling, she'd comment about how windy it was outside, even if there was no wind. I tried to explain that it only looks windy because of the speed of the car, but she insisted that she was right. I pointed out that the wind always blew toward the front of the car no matter what direction we were traveling. I pointed out that the wind mysteriously stopped when the car stopped. None of this made any difference to her.
sheflies 26d ago I was standing outside my office building with a coworker just chit chatting when a gentleman walked past us with a dog wearing a Service Dog vest. She immediately said thank you! fairly enthusiastically. The guy didn't break stride but had a confused look on his face. I asked her what that was about and she thought the vest on the dog indicated that he was in the service as in served our country. She was thanking the dog.
kindalosingmyshit . 26d ago I used to work with attorneys (I'm in law school now, so I guess I still do, but fuck this old job I had) and was FLOORED by the number of attorneys who don't know how email works. Like, I'd explain I was emailing them a link that would take them exactly where they needed to go and they'd put me on hold to get their secretary to come operate their email for them
gheissenberger 26d ago I was chatting with an older woman. She mentioned a shark attack at Cape Cod and said It's such a shame. I don't know why Mass doesn't do what Florida did. Confused I said Oh, what did Florida do? Oh they built a shark proof fence all the way around the whole state. I just kind of blinked at her.
MsUnderstandMe 26d ago Freshman college kids renting apartment. Mice problem (big U.S. city). Both Exterminator and I told them to keep food in fridge or hard plastic or metal container. Make it difficult for mice to find food and they'll go elsewhere. We also put out a couple of traps. Go back a week later and they had an OPEN box of cereal next to a mousetrap. Still experiencing mice. When I reiterated putting food in hard containers to deter mice, they thought they would catch the one or two mice with cereal and be done. Had to explain there
CrappyTan69 . 26d ago I don't understand that shit, I mean, where does the sun go at night?! when talking to someone about the relative size of planets...
Zenpoetry 26d ago I took me a while to realize that my warehouse employee was illiterate. I would give him a list of products, he would retrieve them with no issue. But when I asked him verbally to get something, he just couldn't. Не was matching words on the page to words on the product. Не just didnt know what the words said. Im impressed he's done as well as he has. So my great irony is, I have to write down words for my illiterate employee because he can't read.
-im-your-huckleberry 26d ago Smart guy I worked with. Had an MBA from a major university. Told me he didn't believe in evolution. Said he had seen single cell animals under a microscope, which proved that they're still here and didn't evolve into us. Dude thought things evolve like fucking Pokemon.
sagosaurus 26d ago This is a small one but I recently learned that my significant other never knew that Bob was short for Robert. Не thought they were completely different names and was blown away when I showed him that pretty much everyone he knows as Bob is actually named Robert. Same for Bill/William.
vers_le_haut_bateau 26d ago Fucking REPLY ALL on emails where I've included you and another person on purpose. Don't just reply to me. Especially if I keep re-adding that second recipient with every reply! Especially if your job relies on email communication and you've likely grew up with the internet, no excuses! I'm astonished how often I am have to explicitly ask people please reply all to keep so and so in the conversation, in the year of your lord 2025.
ProsciuttoPizza 26d ago She didn't know that a thesaurus was a book. She didn't believe me and said that a thesaurus was a dinosaur.
ging3rtabby 26d ago I used to work in a retail copy center and we had a self serve fax machine. This one woman came up to me after sending her fax, which she showed me and said it didn't work. It gave it back. I guess she thought faxes worked like those pneumatic tubes at the bank or something? I developed quite a poker face working there because I often had moments where I couldn't tell if people were genuinely clueless or if they were messing with me.
MrMerryface . 26d ago One of my colleagues is a flat earther... ...we're pilots
salehtrader . 26d ago We had a talkshow in the Netherlands where a guest (a singer-songwriter called Maan) asked how we knew all the names of the dinosaurs, given that they were all extinct. Apparently she didn't understand that humans thought of those names or I guess animal names in general.
Busy-Yellow6505 . 26d ago My first husband, when we were dating, he didn't know women have different exits for their monthly and their bladders. It was interesting to explain what I thought school anatomy covered but whatever lol
ng L TakeltSleazey 26d ago The woman on my bus, talking to her friends, and shocked to find out that, even though she lives on the other side of the country, the sun still rises in the east for her.
yourbaconess 26d ago My roommate thought we can't get mosquitos because we're on the second floor and that spraying just the stairs will be enough to keep ants out
scarsouvenir 26d ago I learned a couple of years ago that one of my coworkers didn't know how many letters there are in the alphabet
Benjay83 26d ago My sister told me just today that she was recently talking with our mom about mental health. When my sister was younger, she sought help for depression and my mom said, I never understood how you were diagnosed with depression. Your blood work always came back clean. I know my sister was a little disappointed, knowing that my mom never did any research to find out what her daughter was going through.
Mouth23big 26d ago Technically adults but in college my roommate thought chocolate milk came from brown cows... | was dumbfounded that he lived his life thinking that
pm_me_gnus + 26d ago I once had a coworker - fully adult woman in her 40s - who was convinced that she loses an hour of sleep every night during Daylight Saving Time.
Jan30Comment 26d ago One woman who didn't like the farm near where she lived: Why do they even keep these farms operating, with all the grocery stores we have now, we don't need that many farms anymore...
Bald_Peter394 26d ago There was a thunder storm outside. We were talking about lightning and thunder. They didn't believe me when I said that the thunder was the sound of the lightning. Not even after I explained that that was why you could count the seconds in between the lightning and the thunder to figure out how far away the storm was. They just said: I don't believe that.

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