My friends at uni told me that nose-picking causes brain damage
because it makes the soft tissue rub your brain. I believed them for years, because they were doing Science.

One of the same group also told me that Alternative 3 was a real plan. This was a hoax science-fiction TV program about how NASA was planning to start colonies on the Moon and Mars because the Earth was going to become uninhabitable due to pollution.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:59, Reply)

More childish crap
Aged "under 10" and found myself with no-one to play with on one memorable afternoon

Decided to play Blind Mans Buff.
With myself.
On the landing.

lasted about 3 mins before falling downstairs.

Being a billynomates hurts sometimes
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:46, Reply)

Not such an amazing display of ignorance
But I was recently rejected by London School of Economics to do Sociology as I was deemed to have shown insufficient interest in the course.

If only they knew how much I just want to learn about Sociology at what is a world class institution like LSE.

I'm 21 now and when I should have been going to university the first time round at 17/18 I chose partying and got into a horrible habit of drugs and whatnot.

It's not a sob story though, I sometimes feel like one of those off the X Factor telling the judges that they've made a big mistake and that I'll be a star etc. Then other times I feel that no, I really have the ability and enthusiasm to succeed there. I challenge anyone with an offer from there to show how they have more interest in the course than me.

Didums,

Apologises for no funnies etc.
(PassTheKhat, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:42, 5 replies)

Probably more childish naiviety than actual ignorance
One of my favourite places for my mum to drive us out to, for a spot of fresh air and a runaround to get rid of some of that youthful exuberance, involved the usual paths and bushes and nettles and broken glass.
But, this was my favourite place, because, well, it was *magic*.

The highlight of this country walk (all 10 mins of it) was a magic tunnel to walk through, where my voice would go echoey, and it was a bit dark and spooky in there too.
And then, abracadabra, I'd follow a little path at the other side of the ghost-tunnel and materialise on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROAD. Wow!! Every. Single. Time.

It took me far longer than it probably should to realise the tunnel went under the road, and in that time, my mum could totally capitalise on her dumbass youngest, who could be cheerfully taken for a 20 minute magic trip out to some wasteland and a tunnel, before finally managing to cement her spatial reasoning capacity
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:36, Reply)

About a year ago...
A woman came into my bar & ordered a latte. "Certainly Madam" said I, "I'll bring it over" a few seconds later, she came back "Oh, & before I forget, that latte... Can I have it milky please?"
(Dr Fishfinger Want's to see a fat man give a tit wank, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:33, 7 replies)

A conversation I had last Christmas:
"Mum, that can opener you got for me doesn't work. It's absolutlely useless."

"Are you sure you're using it right?"

"Mum, I'm nineteen. I'm doing a physics degree. I think I can use a can opener."

"OK. You DO know that it is deisgned to remove the entire top of the can, not just cut out a circle of the lid?"

"......."





She still hasn't stopped laughing at me, but to be fair, I deserved it.
( MatJ LOOK, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 2:08, Reply)

Bunnyhops
I didn't have a BMX, just a crappy old pushbike. Still didn't excuse the fact that I told a friend at school that to do bunnyhops, all you had to do was ride along for a bit, then put your feet underneath the pedals and jump up.
(Mr McKenzie Mr McKenzie, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 1:56, Reply)

Captain John H Miller's hand shook violently in the dark church.
It was an atmospheric, emotional scene that we were watching.

The soldiers were camping down for the night, to get some shut-eye before another day searching for Private Ryan.

We were enthralled by the scene, when our housemate P came into the living room and sat down.

We watched together for a few golden, silent minutes, before she asked

"Oh, is this the film with John Cleese in it?".

We were racking our brains for a WWII film that Mr Cleese starred in. One that she could have mistaken for Speilberg's epic.

"You know, the one where they're in a foreign country? Everybody is after him? Er... He's in a foreign country?"

she continued. Despite her accurate and descriptive questions, we were stumped. Until I asked

"Do you mean, 'The Life of Brian'?"

I'm fairly sure that Ryan was not a very naughty boy, and he was definitely not the Messiah.
(tarbin tarbis, tarbit, tarbamus, tarbimus, tarbant, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 1:43, Reply)

My mum
once believed that thunder was caused by 'clouds crashing together'

:/
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 1:10, 7 replies)

Tuba Mute
I play the tuba. I used to play in a youth orchestra.
There was a very ditsy (but very buff) oboe player, who was very easily convinced that the only people who could manufacture my tuba Mute were NASA, given its size and complexity.

A tuba mute is essentially an inverted metal bell.
....made by NASA.
(voodoo_economics, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 1:03, 2 replies)

Dog eggs
A girl I work with believed me when I said that the reason that supermarket own brand cakes are so cheap is that they use dog eggs to cut costs. “Oh my god, Really?? That's outrageous” she said. Wow.

Also, on the day that Obama became president, I asked a girl I used to work with what she thought of him, but my question was met with a blank stare. “Who?” she said. I attempted to explain but she interrupted me quickly, clearly bored the mention of anything even vaguely political, meaningful or relevant by simply saying “hmm I don't really follow politics”. Ya don't say.
(prawninacage, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 0:44, 1 reply)

Wasp honey.
Neil a gentleman I used to work with, however worldly in a townie type of way completely believed me when I said that wasps make honey.
He's not the only person whom I have told this and has believed me. It would seem people want to believe that wasps are something more than just bastards!
Also i used to go to college with a right gullible fool who actually, took my word without any questioning, that i was using a clockwork lawnmower. Despite moments before, seeing me fill it up with petrol!
(burkyman, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:47, 4 replies)

My Granddad once told me a story which I can't allow myself to believe
about a guy he used to know in the pub. A week previous mankind had stepped foot on the moon for the first time, and this guy and my granddad were sat in the pub talking about it.

"What do you think about the moon landing then?" my Granddad enquired.

"I don't believe 'em" came the response "I mean look at it...it's only the size of a plate"
( Furness, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:46, Reply)

Confession
Up until I was 19 I really did believe that I could make toast by putting bread in the microwave.
But then microwave burgers came along and I saw the light (not the light in the microwave, that was and still is broken)
(stitched, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:34, 2 replies)

The missus works with one of the most amazingly thick women that has ever existed.
This woman, we will call Petra, for that is her name.
Here are her stunning displays of empty-headedness.

1 - Arguing with her husband. He yells at her to stop being so patronising. She replies with, "Yeah? Well stop being so Adrianising!"
She had not heard of the word, and still fails to grasp its concept.

2 - She works in banking support. Someone is put through to her to discuss their childs account. They mention their child is a "minor".
She then flies into a fury, telling them how terrible it is to send their child to mine for coal and how selfish child labour is. Oh yes.

3 - She called the manufacturers of her netbook because they'd built it wrong and it had no disc drive. She was also mentioning ethel cables. She was deadly serious.

4 - She believed, when in a dodgy foreign place, that the tattoo she was getting, with a tattoo gun, would wear off. 15 years later..

5 - When my missus mentioned she had gone to get a couple of ear piercings: "But they're so near your brain!"
(fantomex, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:31, 2 replies)

Nice but dim
Before I got a proper science job I worked at BT as a temp.  It was very much a noddy job but the folks were great, and I generally had a good time. Holly, one of the girls I worked with, was thick as two short planks, but in a nice way. Some of the belters she came away with were:

"If a cow licks a bald man's head, does his hair grow back?"

"dna_girl, you're a scientist. If global warming happens, will the ice caps float off into space?"

And my favourite Hollyism of all time:

We were sitting around talking about things that happened to us when we were kids when of the other girls said that for some reason or another she had been born with no skin on her neck.  You could hear the single braincell in Holly's head squeaking at this comment, and then she came out with:
"Is that fake skin then?"
To which the other girl replied:
"Yeah, it goes on all foamy, like" 
Holly: "Oh right"
And she couldn't understand why we were pissing ourselves laughing. 

Ah dear. Sometimes I wonder how the hell we became the dominant species. 
(dna_girl, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:23, 1 reply)

Jade Goody
A good friend of mine, currently a Masters student, very intelligent but occasionally lacking in common sense. Shortly before the well publicised demise of the above named reality TV star, we were discussing the fact that she was getting married. He didn't understand why anyone would get married when they knew they were about to die. I said I thought it was a nice gesture. He then asked me, "If you marry someone and then they die, do you have to get a divorce?"
( lrjlo, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:15, Reply)

Someone,
who nearly became my partners step-sister, only a couple of years ago, didn't realise that 9/11 had happened.
As in, at all.
She also thought that the World Trade Centre towers were in London, and visible from Dagenham.
Oh, yes.
It pained us all the more when we realised she wasn't taking the piss.
(fantomex, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:15, Reply)

birds and the bees
or maybe tbe wasps?

I'd always assumed that the difference between a bee and a wasp was pretty obvious, but listening to two old (i.e. 60+, I'm not that old) gents on the beach wondering which was which made me wonder 1) how could they not know and 2) what did others assume that I should know?

I still have no answer to question 2, but I'd be happy to know.
(mortisdead, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:10, 2 replies)

After she believed some tabloid bollocks
Me: It said in the times that the new edition of the oxford english dictionary next year will not include the word "gullible"
Dumb Colleague: what's gullible mean?
(champagnerocker, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 23:06, Reply)

My friend, at the Berlin Wall...
"So, it divided the Catholics and the Protestants, then?"
(Richard of York gained battles in vain, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 22:36, Reply)

Hard to believe, but true
Until I was well until my late 30s I hadn't realised that in this country cold water tends to come from the left hand tap and hot from the right. Until then I suppose I had imagined it was some sort of lottery.

And I'm still not sure about abroad.....
( electric_goat, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 22:16, 15 replies)

I blame the teachers....
I'm Irish, and lived in London for a few years. It's truly shocking how many times I was asked;

1. How come Ireland uses the euro and not sterling like the rest of Britain?

and

2. What do you mean there's an Irish Language? Is it not just English with a funny accent? I'd then explain how my name (one of those Irish ones with lots of superfluous vowels) makes sense when you speak the language, and I wouldn't just 'leave them out' to avoid confusing them.

I was also astonished that one girl was mortally offended when someone suggested jokingly that people with dark skin might be al quaeda terrorists, and ranted about racism and prejudice, then suggested I couldn't manage the photocopier because I'm Irish and Irish people are thick, innit?
(Duckeee Is nothing special, in fact, she's a bit of a bore, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 22:13, 1 reply)

i won't mention her name
that's how stupid she is, i wouldn't want to brand anyone with this level of thickness.
a friend of a friend, very pikey family, secondhand shop clothes and streaky false tan. got pregnant at 14 and had the baby taken off her as it was decided she was woefully unable to care for it.
at 16, she got pregnant again. when her parents asked her who the father was, she told them it was the lad next door, who just happened to be the brother of one of my best friends.
i was there for what happened next.
the girl's dad dragged her into my mate's house, screaming that this boy was a pervert, a bastard, he'd better do the right thing and marry her, etc.
to say he was shocked was an understatement. he insisted that there was no way he could be the father, as they'd never gone further than kissing.
"there you go, then!" yells the knocked-up dunce, "you kissed me, you must be the father!"
yes, despite having already given birth once, she actually believed that sex was only for pleasure and that kissing could make you pregnant. as i said, she was 16 at this point.
she's 23 now and has had 6 kids, all of which are now in care.
i really, REALLY wish i was making this up.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 22:07, 19 replies)

Thick bitch
Thankfully, she no longer works with us but I have never met anyone who is such a waste of organs, someone that I hate at a molecular level and whom I would never get tired of hitting repeatedly with a catering oven. She was a chavvy, loud-mouthed, odious little twat whose only interests in life were getting pissed and posing in her open top mini (yes, she was blonde and wore sunglasses, which seems to be the uniform of women that drive open top minis. Or Beetles. Or BMW sportsters...). As well as being all of these things, a complete affront to humanity, and someone that would actually turn a straight guy gay, she was thicker than a whale omelette, and actually delighted in being stupid.
One day, one of the lads was talking, for some reason, about Kazakhstan and this offensive little prick piped up "That's not a real country!". After five minutes of furious arguing and Google Proof, she finally came out with the line "I thought it was made up for that Borat film" Once berated for being such an unintelligent wanker, she then exclaimed that how was she to know, "I have a life and don't read encyclopaedias innit?"
No, it's called taking an interest in the world outside your fanny, you crass fucking slag...
(Ghostlight, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 21:18, 8 replies)

My old boss
I watched him walk down the warehouse aisles with a puzzled look on his face, the naturally curious nosey bastard that i am - i decided to slowly follow him in a bid to discoverthe source of his puzzlement.

He approached Mr Kwan (an english guy, but had chinese parents) and loudly asked 'What species are you?'
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 21:18, 1 reply)

Ah yes... in relation to what's below...
Totti Goldsmith, D-list celebrity in Australia, went to the premiere of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. On the way out she was crying... "I can't believe they both die!"
Yes dear, it's a tragedy innit?
( difficultchild, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 21:12, 1 reply)

amazing displays of ignorance
I'm from this relatively isolated country called the United States, and we pretty recently had this President, name of George W. Bush, don't know if you'd have heard of him or not? Can't think of any specific instances of the top of my head, but pretty ignorant all around.
(wretch, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 21:11, 1 reply)

NORTH of the Border
Being the good little boy that I was, I grew up in New Mexico. I can't count how many times I'd had to fix a phone bill because I called another U.S. state and was charged international rates. Or, when ordering some crap item from the back of a comic book I was told that they didn't ship internationally. Or, when I was away from home, trying to mail dear mom and was told I'd need an international stamp on my letter.

Add that to the comments, usually from people from the States (and sometimes from a visiting English-type-person) like, "You're from New Mexico? Gee, you speak good English!", or "I know a little Spanish - oh-luh" or "Did you have to get a visa to come to [Colorado, California, or some other loser state]?" A local magazine used to have a column "One of our 50 is Missing" to which people could send news articles in which the reporter thought New Mexico was not in the U.S.

Amazingly, I still get such brilliance, though I've learned to deal with it with a smile.

I do get annoyed by the people who say, "Santa Fe is soooo cool. I could feel the new age cosmic vibrations there." Idiotas!
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 21:08, 5 replies)