We've all had our moments where it took us an embarrassingly long time to grasp a concept.
Something we can laugh off after a few minutes, days or years.
However, sometimes we might encounter people whose grasp of reality, logic and common sense is so off the rails, that we still have trouble shutting our jaws.
We're talking "next-level stupid."
Mind you, this doesn't necessarily mean that these people are stupid themselves.
Rather, they find themselves in a moment where they don't come off looking like the sharpest knife in the box, leaving all those around them dumbfounded.
And inadvertently providing stories which will last them a lifetime.
Redditor bost724 was curious to hear experiences people still haven't stopped shaking their heads in disbelief over, leading them to ask:
"What was your 'This person is on another level of stupid" moment?'"
Never Leave A Paper Trail...
"Dude burned down his convenience store for an insurance claim, and stopped the milk and bread deliveries the day before."- parsons525
Zero Grasp Of Human Biology
"Demolished my right foot, and a bunch of other sh*t in a motorcycle crash and had to have the top of my foot removed."
"Guy I worked with asked me when it would grow back."
"I explained that the skin and stuff was going to have to be grafted, but the tendons and bones that had been removed were gone forever."
"He looked me dead in the eye and asked 'why don't they just cut the whole f*cking thing off and let it grow back?'"- rugernut13
Oops...
"Going through security and the person says I need to show a different form of ID."
"I ask why because I gave them my driver’s license."
"They say I need a US document like a green card or something."
"I’m a US citizen, then I realized, I explained how District of Columbia is long for DC. Like Washington DC."
"As in the capital of our country."- agangofoldwomen
flying den haag GIF by Rotterdam The Hague AirportGiphyUh, Mom...
"I got a bad grade in geography in high school, my teacher kept trying to push me and suggested I talk to my parents about it."
"I told my mom I was failing geography and she said 'how f*cking stupid can you really be Justin, how do you fail geography it's just shapes'."
" I'll never forget that one."- I_Am_Justin_Tyler
Irony Doesn't Even Describe It...
"Coworker bought a low-flow shower head."
"He filled the BATHTUB using the new low-flow shower head BECAUSE IT WOULD USE LESS WATER!"- pdfrg
Lightbulb!
"While driving from one big city to another, I stopped in a small town to eat at a fast food chain in Texas."
"I order my food, get my orange number tent and sit down to wait for my order."
"The lady who's bringing out orders has this 'I give up' demeanor as she's calling out numbers that guests aren't claiming."
"Each time this happens, she speaks to a couple tables to seemingly figure out who food is for."
"Then I hear her call for number 55 while holding a tray of food for one person."
"I was number 54 and noticed I was the only single-party guest there."
"We make eye contact and she heads towards me."
"She confirms my order with me and says 'sorry, for some reason the computer prints 1 number higher'."
"I immediately ask 'well then why don't you just call out one number lower than what's printed?'"
"She freezes and I can see the 'gears turning" in her head'."
"I tell her 'thank you' and she goes on her way."- SergioFromTX
lightbulb GIFGiphyDouble Trouble...
"I’m an identical twin, and have been asked all manner of utterly ridiculous questions about it throughout my life."
"But I think the stupidest was when a girl once asked me 'do you ever get yourselves mixed up with each other?'"
"I responded 'are you asking me if I ever sometimes think I’m my brother?'"
"She replied, 'yeah'.”
"No. I don’t."- Rottenox
Were You Even Listening?
"When I was in middle school I was in art class with a boy named Devon."
"I told him my sister has the same name as him and he asked me what her name was."- ihambrecht
Reckless Much?!?
"The time I watched someone who had missed their exit on the highway stop on the shoulder, back up, turn around, and go up the entrance ramp."
"I could not f*cking believe it."
{A couple of fun details about this incident to really highlight its stupidity."
"The next exit was a few miles up the road."
"Going to that exit and then turning around might have delayed their drive by 15 minutes tops."
"There was no traffic ahead."
"I watched this person do this as I was coming down that same entrance ramp to get onto the highway."- snickerdoodle--
tsunami no GIFGiphyYoho National Park
"I work for Parks Canada in Yoho National Park. I have been asked the question (seriously), “Where do you keep the animals at night?” twice in my career. To this day I still find great joy imagining what they thought was going on each night as we “collected” every large animal in the Parks."
nakednfamous-
In Theaters Near You
"I was a co-hostess with a girl in a restaurant, watching ads on a hanging TV for a new movie. At the end, it said 'coming soon to a theater near you,' to which she turned to me with wide eyes & genuinely asked "how do they know where I live?"
wontwasteme
Salesforce
"This was my first experience in retail where I learned what many customers would be like."
"Seasons were changing, so we put a lot of shirts we had to get rid of in the front and made them 50% off. I was working the register when a woman came up to buy her things. I rang her up and could see a look on her face like something was wrong. That’s when the following happened."
Lady: “Why is this so much.”
Me: “Pardon me?”
Lady: “This should only be $10 not $20.”
"I thought that maybe her item was on sale, so I asked if she could point out the sign because I wasn’t aware of it. It was a small store and we didn't have to walk anywhere."
Lady: “This sign here.”
Me: “This sign says that all shirts are 50% off.”
Lady: “Yes, so why is this full price.”
Me: “This is a hat.”
AstaticDynamic·
Not A Plant
"Back when the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster happened we were discussing how the reactor had failed in a science class. 5 minutes into the conversation a girl piped up and said "I don't see what the big deal is. Why can't we just regrow it?"
"She dead@ss thought a nuclear power plant was... A plant."
BroomStickLegend
Global Perspective
"There was a girl in my high school who forced the teacher to pause a documentary about people living in mud huts in Africa because she was upset that they were showing us fictional movies in a history class. It took everyone else in the room to convince her that people actually live like that in some places. Wealthy area living for ya."
IWasSayingBoourner
Microwave
"I was friends with with a guy who believed those fake apple adverts like "Apple Wave - Microwave your phone for instant battery charge" I was so dumbfounded that he actually fell for it. When I saw him the week after and he had a new phone it all clicked for me."
TheChosenOne118
Pasta
"Someone in my history class argued that Mussolini was a type of pasta."
Interesting
"Not me but a friend worked in a call center for a CC company in the disputes department. The number one item people called to say they never purchased... ’Interest Charge’."
friedmators
The things some people actually say.
Though, we shouldn't be too hard on them.
After all, let us not forget a former president of the United States actually thought "stratgery" was a word.
Likely connected to "nucular" weapons...
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- Teachers Reveal The Worst Fights They've Broken Up In School ... ›
Curious to hear examples from those who've witnessed extremely unusual behavior at these facilities had plenty to share when Redditor N3SSDOGGDOGG asked:
"People who have spent time in a Psych Ward what is the craziest thing you’ve witnessed?"
One thing is certain. There is never a dull moment.
Consequences Of Enabling Drug Addiction
"In our tiny community some kids are smelly because typically the parents are addicts who either didn't pay their water bill, don't own a washer/dryer or are too brain dead to care. The nearest laundromat is now 30 miles away because the local one got broken into and robbed too many times by. Our school is awesome, there are staff members who do laundry for these kids and make sure they get showers. It's discreet so they're not ridiculed. I hate how our society enables addiction and even celebrates drug use, but I don't know how we can fix it at this point. It's gotten completely out of hand."
– Marisleysis33
Taking You To A Live Commercial
"My brother-in-law had a stint in a psych ward a little over a year ago, and on a particularly manic day they were in the middle of the community room and started singing."
“I have a structured settlement and I need cash now”
"This was then met by about 40-50 psych patients shouting back."
“CALL J.G. WENTWORTH!!! 877-CASH-NOW!!!”
"After getting a few verses in the orderlies stepped in and kindly requested they stop, which was kinda a shame since it sounded like they were all having a good time."
– MikeMars1225
Select Highlights
"I've worked in one for about 2 years now. The staff are just as crazy."
"Here's some highlights"
"Patient got into the ceiling, couldn't get them down for a while."
"Patient milked themself into their coffee. Did you know some anti-psychotics make you lactate?"
"The entire adolescent unit escaping because maintenence forgot to lock the gate. Don't worry. They all came back eventually."
"And myself getting a concussion from a patient trying to escape, they weren't successful, but at least I didn't work for 6 weeks."
– NeverlandEnding
Character Performance
"The funniest thing I ever saw (spent total of about three years in in my teens and early 20's): a kid in seclusion who was having a genuinely good time making staff's life a living nightmare while he was in there, took apart the plastic mattress, tore the foam inside into small pieces, donned the empty mattress and started yelling 'I'M GUMBY, DAMMIT!' while tossing the pieces of foam around like confetti. Even most of the staff were laughing about it."
– t_portch
Physical violence seemed to be a common occurrence.
He Had A Violent Streak
"Not a patient but an employee. Had a 16 year old kid come in who was about 6'2 220 pounds. Built like a linebacker. I found out since he was technically a child he somehow ended up at an autism school for children with very little security. He ended up inflicting a TBI on one of the teachers and got sent to us. The kid had a violent streak the likes I hadn't seen before, he knew he was stronger than most and liked to fight unprovoked and it always took 4 to 6 people to restrain him. I never seen a patient spend more time than him in the 'safety room' an incredibly small padded room with nothing in it. His parents wouldnt authorize his move somewhere else and they wouldn't take him home either. We were not equipt for someone with his level of violence. So there he sat... For one and a half years..."
"It wasn't like a single incident that was crazy, it was the entire situation."
– DisagreeableFool
David And Wendy
"I was in an adolescent inpatient facility for 30 days. One kid named David who was very tall for his age, I think he was only 13. He insisted on watching Friday the 13th movies on movie nights and everyone was afraid to disagree with him because of his violent nature and frequent homicidal fantasies. He hated taking his meds, and probably 2 or 3 times a week he'd brawl with the psych nurses over it. No joke, it took 5 to 6 large grown men to overcome this kid. He was scary."
– better-off-ted
A Mother's Experience
"My mother worked in an asylum in Ireland when she was about 15. This was in the early 60s. She loved working there, despite the fact that some of the patients would physically try and kill her. One patient always stuck out to her, every day he would tell my mum he was going to kill her when she finished work. She knew he loved music, so would tell him she was out dancing that night, and could he wait until the next day, which he agreed to. The next day he would forget what he had said, and would threaten her again, and she'd say the say thing again. This went on for a couple of years that she worked there."
– tiredandstupid82
Turns out some patients weren't seeing a change of scenery any time soon.
Fighting To Stay
"I work inpatient and we had someone who was in for 2 1/2 years. They would try to take him out but he would start fighting immediately and eventually said he preferred it."
– Deathdad
Simon
I was a social worker at an institution that had a hall for what we called 'lifers,' it was essentially for people who had no hopes of ever being released due to their conditions. Anyway, my hall had 14 beds and it was full. There was this one guy who was huge. He was 6’7 and about 350. His name was Simon. He suffered from drug-induced schizophrenia and had bipolar disorder. He talked to himself all day, but never talked to others. All the other men in the ward were scared of him."
"It was my day to do first shift. I got there early to start on some paperwork I needed to finish. When I got my keys in the door, I heard Simon hit the door with his fists. I looked through the tiny window on the door and he and the hall was covered in blood. I panicked and called security for backup because I thought he had killed somebody."
"Turns out, Simon was in the throes of an extreme manic episode and had managed to walk the literal soles of his feet off. Other medication he was on thinned his blood and led to him bleeding all over the place."
"We checked the camera footage and he had walked and talked all night. The orderly (who was fired that day) had slept through his whole shift and never heard Simon walking back and forth."
– CamillaCream02
Some of these examples sound like they could patients in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, without Nurse Ratched tormenting them.
But props to the real humans who are compassionate and look after those who can't function alone in society.
