Whether you're a student or an employee, making sure you clearly understand the assignment is crucial.
Your success depends on it.
To ensure this, we're always told to ask questions if we're not confident about completing the task at hand and that we shouldn't be embarrassed as "There's no such thing as a dumb question."
Well... there are exceptions to that notion, and Redditor Isellkidsontemu got plenty of examples after asking strangers online:
"What's a stupid question that someone legitimately asked you?"
If only these individuals stopped to think before their inquiries...
Twinsies For Life
"How long have you been twins?"
– Opihi59
"We were womb mates."
– That-Shop-6736
"I’m a man and have a twin sister. On a number of occasions, I’ve had people ask me if my sister and I are identical twins."
– Actual_Environment_7
Serving Stupid
"What do you do for a living?"
"It was at a restaurant. I was their server."
– itsamatterofattitude
"After working in the service industry for 15yrs, I'm 100% convinced that you can be smart or you can be hungry, but you cannot be both."
– itsamtterofattitude
Presumptuous Customers
"I was selling a party tent 20ft x 20ft. Some rando on marketplace asked me if it would fit in their backyard. Lol I don't know, never been to your backyard maybe measure if you have a 20ft x 20ft space?"
"Another time I was selling a black dress also on marketplace and some woman asked me if it would meet the dress code for her new waitresses job at chili's. How da f'k I'm supposed to know that, lady??"
– PossessionFirst8197
In Good Hands
"My mother had dementia, and the Social Worker asked me, 'what relation are you to your mother?'"
– Sea_Pangolin3840
These individuals must've been way spaced out to be a part of our solar system.
Not All There
"I was showing a friend a telescope and pointing out all the constellations and planets I knew, and he legitimately asked me 'Where’s earth?'”
– Any_Blueberry_2453
"Lower the telescope a bit, lower, lower, keep going..."
– CoderJoe1
"When my cousin was like 18 he saw the moon out during the day (you know, like you see fairly often) and said 'that’s weird, that looks like the moon but that’s not possible.'"
"Someone explained that the moon can be seen during the day. It wasn’t the fact that it was out during the day, my cousin was confused because he thought the sun turned into the moon at night and didn’t know they were 2 separate things 😐"
– kodaa43
The Girl Who Loved Animals
"I took an astronomy course in college. During a class on the planets of our solar system, a girl sitting next to me put her hand up and asked what kinds of animals live on those planets. The prof laughed at first because he thought she was making a joke. She was not."
"She was very disappointed that the answer was no animals."
– Daumenschneider
Hydration Theory
"If penguins need water to survive, doesn't that means they're fish?"
– yourcoolxogirl
"If humans need water to survive, doesn’t that mean they’re fish?"
– Coke_fanta
Let the face-palming continue.
Once More With Feeling
"Someone asked me to repeat the pronunciation of my last name and followed it up with, 'Are you sure?'"
– shaidyn
"I had a teacher once that told me I was pronouncing my last name wrong. 🤦🏻♂️"
"Edit: My last name is an Eastern European place name. My family pronounces it the same as everyone else in the country my grandfather originally came from, and from what I’ve heard randomly pretty much everyone else. The teacher was just an idiot."
– DadsRGR8
Turning The Other Cheek
"'Can you turn him so we don't see the scratch on his cheek?' Asked of me as we were reviewing the portrait photography of her son.
"No ma'am, it's a picture. You should've asked this while we were in the camera room."
– Symnestra
"Dude, I came here to post a similar story. I'm a photographer for a cookie brand and I legit had someone in marketing ask if I could rotate the cookie in the image so they could see the other side of it."
– GTi337
The Gender Sequence
"My brother-in-law's girlfriend was amazed that I had two brothers and no sisters and asked me how that is possible because she thought that humans gave birth in a boy/girl/boy/girl sequence and couldn't wrap her mind around how someone could give birth to 3 boys and no girls."
"I'm not convinced that she is not some alien trying to pass off as a human and failing miserably."
– Chipdip88
All It's Cracked Up To Be
"I’m lactose intolerant 'so you can’t eat eggs'. Well, I can’t, actually, but that’s because I’m also allergic to eggs."
– Skinnybet
"I absolutely do NOT understand why people automatically think eggs are dairy?!?!?!?! Like, um, no. Where did you get that idea?"
– delra17
Pool Mystery
""If there's a deep end and a shallow end, how come the water is flat on top?"
– kingsizeslim420
"The gene pool has a deep end and a shallow end. They’re clearly drowning in the kiddie pool."
– Lugbor
It's always the tourists.
Rocks And Circles
"Used to be a whitewater raft guide. No end of dumb questions. One was 'Do the rocks (in the river) go all the way to the bottom?' No, they're those special floating rocks wtf."
"Also, 'do we get out where we started?' Implying the river goes in a circle, like an amusement park ride."
– emerald-cupcakes
Weak DNA
"How did they train all the dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park movies?"
– _AGuyInShades
National Parks Are Not Theme Parks
"I worked at Yellowstone National Park in the early 2010s and one of the tourists, a French lady, came up and asked me when the animals were going to be brought out for people to see."
– CapnPants666
"I worked at Yosemite and by late summer the waterfalls had mostly dried up, and yes, people asked what time they turn on the waterfalls."
– monkeyhind
"I remember that quote by the ranger at Yellowstone who said it was difficult designing the food lockers for campers because there is “significant overlap between the smartest bears and the dumbest tourists” or something like that."
– madamevanessa98
Going Over The Brink
"I was at Niagara Falls with my British sister-in-law. We were looking at the section of the river right where the water goes over the falls. She asked me 'Is the water very toxic, then?' I replied, 'No, the great lakes is where southern Ontario gets it's drinking water. Why would you think it's toxic?'"
"She replied, 'Well, everyone who falls in the river here, dies.' I had to explain that they died because they went over the Falls. This had never occurred to her."
– aethelberga
When I used to work at a certain theme park, I had to contain myself and not make the guests feel like idiots for their questions.
One of the commonly asked "stupid questions" was, "What time is the 3 o'clock parade?"
"Umm, at 3 o'clock."
"Okay, thanks!"
When visitors are in a highly stimulating environment and they're in a hyped-up state of excitement, all logic seems to go out the window.
Still, these interactions were always hilarious to experience.
@coyleray/Instagram