You'd be amazed how many adults - and no, not just men - don't know that.
Reddit user KeepCalmAndBeCalm asked:
What fact did you learn at an embarrassingly late age?
Turns out, there's a lot of stuff that we don't learn until way later than we probably should have. For some people it's a clear failure of the education system. For others it's just a matter of "I never put any thought into it."
Whatever the reason, these people managed to make it pretty far in life without knowing the following stuff, and honestly we're a little bit alarmed. Like... these people are just out here adulting free-range with no supervision... just sayin'.
Mid-Flight
I thought toilet waste was just dropped out of airplanes mid flight and disintegrated in thin air.
Gobble
I had to explain to my friend last year (28YO) that the turkey we saw in the farm park was the same animal as the turkey dinner she was eating. She knew this about chicken, but... just never made that mental connection about turkey.
Ripe
That the different coloured capsicums (bell peppers) are the same thing just at different ripeness.
They're Real
GiphyWhen I was 28 I learned that flying fish are a real animal. I thought they were pretend, like unicorns!
An Innocent Idiot
I thought men had periods.
Hear me out, my parents and my school weren't great when it came to sex ed. When I turned 11 my nan of all people gave me a puberty book. It was really low quality looking back. It was aimed at girls but had a small section about boys' anatomy during sex. It said blood went to the penis and nothing else. I was an innocent idiot so my brain filled in the rest. So for the next 5+ years, I thought boys bleed after orgasm.
My current boyfriend was so confused when I told him why I didn't want to have sex. *facepalm*
A Different Kind Of Space
There was a big building called "The Space Center" that we'd always pass by and for the longest time I thought it was like a space camp sorta place. I was well into the teens when it finally clicked.
It's a storage facility. So yeah that was a major letdown on all fronts.
Puff Puff
Pufferfish puff up with water, not air. It's so obvious and it never even occurred to me. I only realized how stupid I was when I read a reddit comment about a year ago pointing the fact out.
The R
That the month is pronounced and spelled February and not 'Febuary' despite being born in that month.
I spotted the R when I was 26..
12 Days Of Christmas
The twelve days of Christmas are from Christmas to the Feast of the Epiphany sometimes called Three Kings Day on January 6th. I was raised Catholic. It's a holy day of obligation. I just never counted the days. I even wondered why it's 12 days in the song.
The fact that it's called epiphany stings a bit. I'm 45.
That Weird Buick
How rendezvous and dachshund are pronounced. I knew what the words were when spoken, obviously, but every time I'd see them written I'd get stuck. I'd try to sound them out.
I remember being stuck behind a Buick Rendezvous in traffic and sounding it out phonetically and thinking to myself "well that's a weird thing to name a car." ... In my mid 20s.
Adult Teeth
Not me, but I was talking to my best friend about how I have a lisp since the accident last year that left me without several teeth.
He replied with 'Wait, it's been a year? Why haven't they grown back?'
Me- WTF do you mean? Teeth don't grow back.
Him- No no they don't grow back, but wouldn't the new set have grown in yet or are they still coming in?
Me- New set? You only have one set of adult teeth.
Him- Wait what?
This man made it to 22 firmly believing you lose one set of teeth as a kid and then have TWO SETS of adult teeth
God, I wish, then I wouldn't be paying $4000 for replacement teeth.
Foil Fire
That you can't microwave foil. I somehow reached adulthood without learning this one. Went to reheat a fast food burger, and it caught on fire. You live, you learn.
A Different Teaching Method
I couldn't tie my shoes until i was like 12. In my defense, everybody insisted on teaching me in such a way that their hands blocked the actual process and nobody thought that was a problem and i was just being an idiot.
I only learned when my dad finally taught me by having me hold the strings and walking me through it.
- CLTalbot
Baby Horses
I'm 46, and only learned in the last 5 years or so that ponies aren't baby horses.
Female Anatomy
I'm a guy and lived 15 years of my life thinking that babies literally grew in the stomach of their mothers. I dont know what kind of logical sense that used to make to me but i just never questioned it. And it took another 2 years when i was 17 that i learned that women didn't pee out of their vaginas.
- Kuruan
Reddit user ColoTinMan asked:
"When were you blown away by your own stupidity?"
20.
One time I was out in the rain and I was really cold and my fingers were icy, but my feet were warm in their socks. I said, with so much confidence, "Man I really wish they made socks for your hands."
The look on my friends face was priceless. "Do you mean, gloves?" I was astonished.
19.
I walked around my apartment talking to my mom on the phone and continued getting more and more frustrated. My mom noticed and asked what was wrong and I said "I just can't seem to find my phone!".
It kicked in about 5 seconds later.
18.
The first time my husband took me to a fancy restaurant. I grew up on the U.S. / Mexico border so I'm used to the word "con" being "with" in food. Chile con carne, arroz con pollo...you get the drift.Husband takes me to a fancy restaurant when we're still dating (and I'm poor AF so prior to this for me fancy was Olive Garden). I pick something out for dinner and he says "Do you want an appetizer?" I said "I don't care, you pick one I've got to run to the restroom."
I come back and sit down and he says, "I ordered the duck con feet pastry appetizer."
All I can picture is the end of A Christmas Story with the goose with its head still on being served at dinner. I'm kind of horrified but don't say anything. But I'm expecting us to be handed a duck with the feet still attached.So the appetizer comes and it's these little pastry cups with cubes of (I presume) chopped up duck inside and I look at him and say, "So are the feet in there too?"
Yeeeeeah....It's duck confit. Not duck con feet. And I'm never living that down.
17.
I legitimately forgot the word "piano" a few years ago.
I was trying to describe a situation to someone, and I blanked. I tried to remember, but I kept saying "panio" instead. They corrected me and it all just fell into place in my head.
Weirdest sensation of my life, I don't know how to describe it. Felt hella dumb afterwards.
15.
I am old as you will see. When we first got personal computers in the Accounting Department, we had 100 employees and only 3 personal computers to share. Since we were all new to personal computers, we weren't so careful about backups yet.
I was re-formatting diskette. I used the DOS command "DEL star.star" I was on the C: Drive. I erased the work of hundreds of files from dozens of people, none of whom had backed up. Worst day ever.
13.
I got in my car after class one day and there was a note that said "you left your keys in car, and car on. Please be careful"
Luckily they turned it off for me and left the keys on the seat
12.
11.
I once was cooking mac and cheese and started squeezing the cheese sauce in before draining the water. When I realized the mistake I grabbed the cheese sauce with my hands and that just made everything worse in every way
10.
I live in a big city and used to own a car (have since sold it) and one night a friend was getting married pretty close to my apartment. There was a small pre-game going on on the other side of the city so I drove down to meet up with everyone and was going to just drive back to my place with everyone in my car, park it back at my apartment, then we'd all just walk down to the ceremony together.
We ended up running a bit late and there were more people than could fit in my car so we just grabbed an Uber so we wouldn't have to wait for parking. I left my car by my friends house in 2 hour parking but that ended like 30 minutes after I parked and didn't apply on Sunday, which was the next day.
Fast forward to 2 weeks later, since I usually walk to work and never had to use my car, I usually needed a minute to remember where it was parked when I needed it. After looking for it for around 5 minutes it hit me.
Conclusion, and TLDR: I left my car in TWO HOUR PARKING TWO WEEKS AGO.
9.
I live in Florida. During the 2004 hurricanes we lost power, so all the neighbors got together for a little cookout, so we could share and cook the food so it didn't go to waste.
It was starting to get dark, so I pointedly asked why no one had turned on the porch light. Every single one of them looked at me as if I were stupid. Then it hit me, oh, there's a reason why we can't turn on the porch light.
8.
During the holidays I walked through an arts & crafts store trying to find something very specific. After finding out they didn't have it I got in a long line to check out. It didn't hit me that I didn't have anything to buy until it was my turn. I just walked past the cashier, waved, and said, "have a nice day". It was night. FML
7.
I brewed an entire pot of hot coffee. Without the coffee pot. Took a long time to clean up that mess. I needed caffeine badly, so I brewed another pot. Again, I forgot to put the damn coffee pot under the drip.
Giphy6.
In high school, I woke up on a day where very icy weather was expected and couldn't find school closings on tv. I begrudgingly got ready for school, stepped out my front door, and immediately slipped on ice landing flat on my back. Got up, shook it off, and cursed the school for not being closed.
I had to crawl my way up a hill to the bus stop because I kept slipping down ice on the way there. Got to the bus stop and waited over half an hour for it to get there. Checked my watch repeatedly getting more and more angry each time. Finally decide that they must have cancelled school and slowly make it back home. Where I see a clock. It was now 2:30 am.
Checked. My. Watch. Repeatedly.
5.
I uninstalled wireless drivers on a computer I was working on remotely.
huh it just went offline... Wait sh*t I'm an idiot.
I've accidentally shutdown several remote servers instead of rebooting. Calling the data center to hit the power button always makes me feel like an idiot.
4.
I recently went to pick up an order of glasses. The optician asked me to try them on, to see if they fit well.
I told him this must be someone else's order, because everything was blurry!! He was surprised and started hunting through boxes, and I kept squinting and looking around at blurry shapes. We did this for 10 minutes before the optometrist walked in. He explained the issue and the optometrist paused and asked where I put the glasses I was wearing when I walked in. I said I was wearing contacts.
GiphyI was wearing contacts.
And I put the new glasses over my contacts.
I asked the optometrist if this gave me double the perfect vision and she replied, "if you mean double vision, sure."
3.
Birthday is March 12th.
In high school I saw that my birthday was going to fall on a Thursday. So I was like "oh wow, Thursday the 12th"
I proceeded to scan the next couple of decades on my iPod touch calendar to find out if my birthday would ever fall on Friday the 13th
To those curious, no, my March 12th bday doesn't ever fall on Friday the 13th lol
Not my proudest moments, not my worst :)
1.
In school one day my friend had a pen that lit up when you pressed it to paper or if you flicked a switch on the pen the lights would flash. He kept turning it on and waving it at me. This annoyed me so I took the batteries out in front of him. He stared at me for a second before trying to get the batteries back. In the midst of the struggle I decided the best way to stop him from getting them, so I popped them in my mouth, then proceeded to swallow them. My friend returned to staring at me, but with a panicked look on his face. I didn't think anything of it at first, but eventually I realised that I shouldn't have done that. I started feeling weird. I held my hand up and asked my teacher if I could go to the nurses office. Sceptical, she asked me why. I told her I had just eaten three small batteries and was feeling weird.
She stared in disbelief, I think, for a second, then told the class that she'll return in a moment and immediately seized my hand and practically dragged me along, sprinting to the nurses office. She threw me into the nurses office and screamed "he's f**king swallowed batteries!" The nurse jumped up out of her chair, "oh my god, oh sh*t, I'll ring the NHS and find out what we need to do", I immediately felt like the stupidest idiot alive, I asked if I was going to be okay, my teacher looked at me and smiled the fakest smile I've ever seen in my life, "of course you are boy".
Long story short, I had to be taken to A&E and had to be x-ray'd to see where the batteries were. They had reached my stomach, so I was at risk of the stomach acid melting the metal coating and the battery acid entering my stomach. I was given laxatives and a sieve, and kept overnight, of which I spent 75% of this sifting through my sludgy bowel movements like some crazed Wild West miner scouring for gold. Eventually found them and I've lived happily ever after since, thankfully.
I wish I still had them, a trophy, of the stupidest I've ever been.
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We all make mistakes in relationships. We all embarrass ourselves. Usually, it's something like an accidental fart - but every now and then it's something a bit more dramatic... like accidentally lighting your partner on fire.
Reddit user TheTinRam asked:
To the women in these stories, you are wonderfully forgiving creatures who seriously deserve awards or trophies; maybe a special vacation somewhere. We've made fools of ourselves before, but nothing quite like this.
Walking Distance
I insisted that everything in San Francisco was walking distance from everything else, and decided we should walk from Pier 39 to Golden Gate Park. It IS walkable, but not third-date walkable, or whatever-shoes-she-happened-to-be-wearing-that-day walkable.
As someone unfamiliar with San Francisco. I googled it. 6.5 miles apart, a two hour walk according to Google, and by the looks of it, a ton of hills. Google is giving me a warning I've never seen before that walking directions may not reflect real-world conditions, and it looks like the elevation changes back and forth a couple hundred feet more than once.
Flammable
GiphyI accidentally set her hair on fire with a match while lighting a cigarette. Not good. We are still married 29 years later. I don't smoke anymore.
"Stolen"
We drank a lot on our second date, Ubered home. Next day went back to get his car, and it wasn't there. He was so devastated. He just bought it recently and it was stolen. We filed a police report. Took forever and just generally sucked. We walked to his friend's house nearby, and there was his car, perfectly un-stolen. He drank so much he forgot he moved it before our date. Now, once in a while when we're trying to find our car in the grocery store parking lot or wherever, one of us will say "It's stolen. Call the police."
Pink Burger
I made myself a burger for dinner before heading over to her place to hang out. Unfortunately I'm not the best cook and left a little too much pink in that burger. While we were at her house I bet her I could fit through the doggy door and crawled right through. Then she immediately closed it behind me and we raced to the front door, she won and she locked it.
Now at this exact moment my bowels decided they had enough of that burger from earlier and I felt my stomach cramp. Luckily I held it all in and ran back to the back door with my cheeks clenched and starting knocking desperately in the door. She was laughing at first but when she saw my face go suddenly serious and I said very calmly "I need you to open the door.... Now please."
She unlocked the door and asked if I was okay, I told her to stay downstairs and turn the TV up loud. She agreed but was very confused. So I ran upstairs and then had one of the most violent poos of my whole life. I thought the worst was behind me until I went to wipe.... And of course no toilet paper. So she took my instructions really well and when I yelled to her, texted her, and called her I got no answer.
After probably like 10 missed calls she finally answered and I asked her to bring me some toilet paper and leave outside the door and try not to breathe on the way upstairs. She was great about it and immediately started making fun of me when I came back downstairs. Now quite a few years later a couple kids and cat, she's still making fun of me.
- Gnartian
Tackled!
I once spear-tackled my then-girlfriend out of misplaced enthusiasm in high school. I was excited to see her and handled it as badly as was possible. It was in front of a bunch of our friends and I ended up knocking the wind out of her and making her cry. That was about 17 years ago, and we're still together.
Already Rinsed
We were taking a shower together and she was soaping up while I was under the hot water rinsing off. She slipped and instead of grabbing/helping her I pulled away, thinking (for some reason) that I'd already rinsed off and didn't want to get soapy.
Thank God she caught herself on the shower curtain and didn't get hurt. She was, uh, not happy. My explanation of my faulty thinking didn't help at all, either. We laugh about it now but it took some serious smoothing over at the time.
- Birdamus
Oh yea, it's not like you are in the shower and can't just rinse again.
- Stoleee
A Sh*tty Studying Session
We had come back from class, her dorm was right next to the school so we walked over. Started as studying and then turned into kissing.
Once we were horizontal, I felt a shift in my guts. I was on top. I took a chance; most of my gas that day had been dry and silent so it felt safe. As soon as I let it go, I knew I was in trouble.
As I stood up and she repulsively sniffed the air. She asked if I let one rip. I simply said "I sh!t myself" and needed a ride home. We went to the movies as planned afterwards.
Pretty sure that's when I fell in love.
Too Weird
GiphyPlayed Weird Al CDs non-stop for a 6-hour car trip to the beach.
She didn't ditch me but haven't been allowed to play Weird Al in her presence for the past 24 years. Got tickets to see him this year on our anniversary and knew better than to ask her to join me so I took a couple of my kids that appreciate the finer things in life. Best anniversary gift ever. Great show.
- homepup
Tool Tattoos
On my first date with my wife, we got to talking about tattoos. I have a rule that if I have an idea for a tattoo, I sit on it for a while to see if I really would still want it. I mentioned this to her and explain how glad I am that I do this because otherwise I'd be covered in Tool (the band) tattoos or some "other dumb sh!t".
She rolled up her sleeve to show me that she had the lyrics to one of their songs tattooed across her arm. The lyrics are "All this pain is an illusion" from Parabola.
For the record, I don't really hate Tool. I just used to be super into them in high school and have since grown out of them. I still put them on once in a while.
My oldest brother unironically has a Creed tattoo on his leg. There's always somebody out there who has it worse than you.
Who?
I forgot her name once when introducing her to a friend. This was maybe a month into our relationship. I was all like, "hey and by the way this is.... uhhh.... my girlfriend."
- RMBK
Surely, there can't be many more people out there quite as "accident prone" as I am, right? Otherwise how would humanity have survived.
Hehehe nope! I'm wrong. Humanity (or at least Reddit) is FULL of morons who hurt themselves in ways that make no sense. I'm not alone! And neither are you guys!
Reddit user AlbinoGorillaLover asked:
What is the stupidest way you hurt yourself?
Kick back (but not too far), relax, and enjoy the shenanigans folks. We're going in!
Some Funky Mexican
GiphyOnce ate some funky mexican food and had the ability to fart on command for like two days. My sister was in the kitchen and I thought it would be funny to run in and do one of those "Jump and click heels" maneuvers, but spice up the gumbo by letting a fart go at the moment of clicking.
Well, the up-jump went well, the heel clicking succeeded, and then I just straight up crapped my pants. The shock of crapping myself sort of threw off my mojo and I fell without catching myself properly.
This resulted in me hitting my head on the counter and three stitches. Awkward scar to explain to people. I poo'ed myself so hard I needed stitches.
- krunchlo
That Streak-Free Shine
Walked into a pane of glass so hard that I split my eyebrow open.
In my defense the glass was really, really, clean.
Brotherly Love
When I was around 5 or 6 years old my older brother, who was 7, stole my Red power ranger toy and straight up locked me in the living room as he ran away. The door he locked me in with was like half glass pane at the top and just wood towards the bottom. Through the glass pane I could see the key he'd left in the lock and I could also see his smug face holding my goddamn toy.
So what does my 5 yo mind think. Call for help? Nah. Tell him to unlock the door? Out of the question.
I friggin' smashed through the glass with my left arm to try and unlock it.
The moment my arm went through it got cut up bad and the glass obviously made a shattering sound. My brother was stood in shock just watched me cry and bleed, until he called my mum down. She was pretty panicked about the whole situation and asked what happened... to which both me and my brother couldn't explain because we were crying like mad.
From the incident I have two big parallel scars running on the underside of my arm, the rest are hardly visible because of my hairy arms.
This Skydiving Accident
Broke my arm skydiving. Fell outta the plane while it was still on the ground. Really.
Tomahawk Chop
Literally on the couch right now, hopped up on painkillers with my left hand wrapped up like Tutankhamen.
... turns out chopping firewood you're holding in one hand with a tomahawk you're holding in the other... whilst on your second beer is a pretty dumb idea.
Came within about a 16th of amputating my own pinky finger...
Sitting Too Hard
I sat down really hard and snapped my coccyx off and got a 4" vertical split up my tailbone. I can't watch videos of people landing on their tailbones without feeling like I'm going to pass out.
Scabstache
Fell asleep with facial hair removal cream on my upper lip.
Had a scab mustache for what felt like a year.
High school was hell.
The Carlton
GiphyI was doing the Carlton at a dance club during the winter and slipped on some water, tumbled down a short set of stairs, and sprained my knee.
A Walking Disaster
Finally, my time to shine!
-Rolled into a wall in my sleep and broke my nose
-turned too quickly to try and grab something and took the corner of a mirror frame straight in the eye. Could see properly for a few day and had a Hella concussion
-walked into a speaker in a bar and split my nose open
-went through a phase (It took about 6 months for me to figure out what I was doing wrong) of slicing my hand open every single time I sliced a bread bun.
-fell backwards checking on food in the oven (drunk) and my hand flew up into the heat source (turns out I had it on the grill setting) that caused a little nerve damage across a few fingers
-most recently (yesterday) I opened the bathroom cupboard door into my cheekbone which bounced my head into the wall behind me then back into the cupboard door.
Loads of other stuff too but these were the first to spring to mind
I'm a walking disaster.
Numb
Got diarrhea so bad, sat on the toilet so long, both of my legs fell asleep and went completely numb, then I fell down trying to walk out of the bathroom.