The newsroom idiot
She was one of those people that appear in every workplace/classroom/family/group of people. She took a pride in her ignorance and fought people on it, no matter how much she was proven wrong.

Scheffie (named for a schefflera plant by her mother, who received one right after giving birth and thought the name was pretty, so while under the influence of meds, she presciently named her only child after vegetable life) made herself a lightning rod for ridicule. It seemed sometimes that she spouted off simply because she wanted attention.

But she topped herself with an obviously serious question one day. Coming into the newsroom and sitting down to type a story, she suddenly looked up and asked of no-one in particular:

"Did the Germans fight in World War II"?

The gaping silence in the newsroom was finally broken by her asking, "well"? and the editor starting a beratement with, "Are you kidding me"?

Apparently, her newssource was a storyteller (liar), so she didn't believe him. As she fought as to why this wasn't a stupid question, the editor continued berating her, asking her if she paid attention in history in high school. Her excuse was that her father was into history, and she didn't like him, so she avoided it. So he asked if she paid attention during movies or television shows. He'd often berated her in biting sentences, but this time he couldn't just shake his head sadly and go on. He had to really tear into her.

Finally, she sulked into silence and got to work on the article, and I hoped that was the end of it.

No, she decided to come into work the next day, Sunday, when it was her day off. I was the only person in the newsroom who'd also been there Saturday, thus I was the only one who knew about the incident. Well, I was until she decided to share it with everyone to show how horribly she'd been treated.

She carried on and on about it to the whole newsroom, which was pretty much ignoring her. That bothered her more. So she got louder about it.

It finally came to an end when I decided to stop the misery and took a encyclopedia (pre-'net days) off the reference shefl, open to World War II and slam the open article on her desk.

Yes, this was a woman charged with making the public informed.
(ChiTown Guy Dating when 35+: sane, single, attractive - pick 2, Fri 19 Mar 2010, 17:15, 2 replies)

They weren't allowed to
because of the Treaty of Versailles, which had forbidden the Germans from fighting in any more world wars after World War I.

That's what someone should have told her.
(Honourable Member is upstanding, Sat 20 Mar 2010, 0:29, closed)

Damn
Wish I'd thought of it, but by this time we'd all grown tired of even having sport with her and usually just gave her disgusted looks.
(ChiTown Guy Dating when 35+: sane, single, attractive - pick 2, Sun 21 Mar 2010, 18:24, closed)