Discover the moments when grown-ups find themselves surprised by what others don’t know. In this collection, adults share stories that make you wonder, “How do you not know this?” These are the kind of moments that leave you astonished and laughing, as people recount encounters where fellow adults demonstrate unexpected gaps in their knowledge. From funny anecdotes to jaw-dropping realizations, get ready to explore the unbelievable stories that highlight just how diverse and fascinating our understanding of the world can be.
A co-worker announced she was pregnant, then immediately said she was sad that she couldn’t take a bath until the baby was born. I stared, confused, and asked “Why can’t you take a bath?” She looked at me as though I was stupid and said, “Because the baby will drown!” I had to walk away.
Years ago, I bought a friend an electric kettle as a gift. Her boyfriend (who I’m still friends with and who passed along this story) came home one night to find her running out the front door of their apartment with the flaming kettle, and she threw it into the street.
She was screaming about how it was a piece of junk because when she put it on the stove, over a flame, it caught fire and started to melt.
He was laughing uncontrollably when he asked, “What did you think the cord was for?”
Had a guy constantly asking what time it is…by the 6th time I said “Bro, there is a clock right there” he said ” I don’t know how to read it…grown a** man..
A couple of weeks later on Facebook, someone shared a picture of cursive writing he made fun of the people who couldn’t read it…I posted a picture of a clock and said what time does this say…he blocked me.
Gave him instructions and left him to it. Came back a while later to ask how it went.
“Fine in the end but it took a few attempts because the yolk kept breaking.” “What do you mean kept breaking?” “Well, I kept throwing them away because I thought breaking the yolk made it poisonous.”
A friend who was pushing 40 had never paid a bill before. She had gone from living with her parents to living in a dorm to living with her parents again until she got married, then she got divorced and was living on her own for the first time. Got a text from her asking if my power was out too, and then she realized it was just her. Her excuse was she never paid attention to the bills because she thought they were “receipts” and that the cost was included in her rent.
Her water was cut off a couple of weeks later and we had to talk about that, too.
Every few weeks I catch my roommate trying to put his metal tea strainer in the microwave.
This is in spite of the fact that during our first week living in this apartment, he destroyed the microwave and had to pay for a new one because he put a metal tea strainer in the microwave.
I had a roommate at university whose “cooking” method was to put baked beans in a Tupperware, seal the lid, and turn on the microwave when the lid pops and explodes beans everywhere they’re cooked.
I work as an EMT for a private company, so we mostly deal with nursing homes and the elderly. One day when I was about 6-8 months in, I got assigned a partner who was in my orientation class. He was a little older than me at the time, like mid 20’s, but he seemed a little childish. “Maybe he’s just sheltered, I think to myself.”
Anyways, we got a patient I’ve had a few times before. She was a sweet, little old lady with COPD and CHF living at an assisted living. The call was for pneumonia. She’s prone to this stuff so it wasn’t a huge deal, slap her on oxygen and keep her sitting up til we get to the hospital. The first red flag though, was this kid didn’t know anything. He didn’t know how to take blood pressure. He couldn’t find the medical history or medication on the paperwork (which is clearly labeled). He didn’t even push the stretcher, just walked next to it with a hand on it. When I asked him about all that, he said “My partners usually do that for me.”
So, I put her on an oxygen mask and sit her all the way up, mildly agitated. I tell myself it’s just one shift with this kid. He’s in the back with her and I tell him to just switch the oxygen from the bag (which is a small tank) to the main tank (which is huge) because with the amount of oxygen we’re giving her, the bag will run out not even halfway before the hospital. It’s about 25 minutes, which normally wouldn’t be a huge deal. But when we pull up to the hospital and I open the back doors, I’m shaking. The oxygen mask isn’t inflated (meaning she isn’t getting oxygen), she’s pale as sh*t, and I can literally see her accessory muscles moving, struggling to breathe. And this kid was sitting behind her, with a clueless half smile on his face, looks at me and says “The main tank is broken, so I left her on the bag.” This woman, who needs oxygen without pneumonia, was barely breathing for at LEAST 15 minutes. And this f*cking idiot didn’t even check. We take her to the hospital. I ask him to find an oxygen tank while explaining to this women’s daughter what happened. He says he doesn’t know where to look. I f*cking find it and told him to talk to the daughter.
When it’s all said and done, I check to see what’s broken. He didn’t turn on the tank.
I worked at an on-campus store that sold a lot of essentials for students living in dorms. I had one girl ask me what laundry detergent was because she never did laundry. She asked if I could help her do her laundry but I declined as I couldn’t leave the register, which of course she was mad about. Sorry, I have to actually do my job lady.
My ex and I were cooking together and one of the pans got too hot, and we had a minor grease fire.
She grabbed a bag of flour.
As tempted as I was to slap it out of her hands, I didn’t want to aerate a bunch of flour next to a grease fire, so I grabbed it with both hands and forced it (and her, because she wouldn’t let go) over to the countertop, and then dropped the lid on the pan.
I asked her what her logic was, and she said “Well, you’re supposed to put baking soda on a grease fire and not water, right?”.
“Yes. Why did you try to use flour?”
“What’s the difference? They’re both white powder.”
This is going to sound weird but manage a budget. Or just in general being money smart.
One of my old roommates was really bright academically, but he was terrible with money. Each semester he would start off with a pile of cash from his parents and proceed to blow through it in about two months.
I first noticed it with his dining dollars on campus. Every day it seemed like he would buy the most expensive sushi option on campus every day. We’re talking maybe $18.00 which isn’t terrible if it’s once in a while, but this was every day. It’s also college dining hall sushi, so the quality was also just okay without even considering the money spent. Of course around midterms when his dining dollars would run out and he’d sort of panic and whine that he couldn’t afford anything. But what was so strange, is that when he would start to run low, he sort of laughed about not knowing any way we could avoid going broke while continuing to buy only the most expensive option. But he’d also get really defensive when people wanted to talk to him about this.
Eventually, when he moved off campus it was the same thing. For the first two months, he’d feast. He’d get delivery constantly, ordering just way too much food, and of course, he’d never share it. But then once he’d nearly run out of cash, he’d buy like an emergency 50-pack of hot dogs and only eat that for the rest of the semester, while telling everyone else that they were lucky they had money to spend, and how not everyone had it so easy when it comes to money. He’d never directly say it, but there were always a lot of implied insults.
One of my roommates in college would go through plastic spatulas like crazy. She’d melt them and wouldn’t say anything about it. She’d only tell me when I’d go to use it and wonder why it was messed up. She’d always say it was due to the spatula being made of cheap plastic. No. I finally caught her one day. She’d be cooking something and would walk away LEAVING THE PLASTIC SPATULA IN THE PAN WHILE IT WAS STILL ON!
My ex-best friend had told me that she needed to buy another new vacuum cleaner, 3rd that month. I asked her what was wrong with it and she said “It’s not picking things up anymore!” So I asked if she had dumped out the container… she didn’t know that was a thing.
I guess we were still in high school, but we were 18. Me and my buddy Ferris were just getting into going to the gym. We went with Ferris’s friend Tom. After working out, in the changing room during some small talk I saw Tom putting on a shirt. Tom put the shirt over his head but didn’t put his arms through the sleeves. He managed to pull the shirt over his torso so that it was adequately on before wiggling all about and bending his arms in odd ways to get them into the sleeves. I didn’t take much notice of it the first few times. But after a few months, it was apparent he did this every single time. Tom didn’t know how to put on a shirt. At least efficiently. Eventually, we asked Tom why he put his shirt on like that, and he said something along the lines of “Wait what, don’t I do it the same way you guys do?” I guess he had never really thought about it before then.
I was a drill sergeant in the US Army. The first time you have to show an adult man how to shave is a little shocking. The worst one was the 24-year-old male that didn’t know how to tie his boots. He had gotten through reception and pick-up day by tightly lacing his boots and tucking the laces in. As they would loosen up throughout the day, he would just pull them tight again. The first Sunday I noticed his boots were barely staying on as he was marching back from dinner. I asked him what was wrong with them as it’s common for privates to have the wrong size boots when they get to us. He didn’t know how to tie them. At all. Not a single knot. I spent an hour showing him how I tie my boots and different techniques if he gets hot spots or blisters. Then I assigned his bunkmate the task of making sure they were tied correctly when he left the bay.
I kind of understood it. He came from a super poor neighborhood, a single mom that worked all the time, he didn’t have a lot of positive influences before joining the Army. I was a little worried about his comprehension skills since basic rifle marksmanship is kind of intense and takes some focus, but he did well. I was very happy that on family day he had his low quarters tied and was proud that he had learned so much.
In college, I had a friend named Mally, She was a couple of years younger than the rest of the people in our group and still lived at home with her parents due to their very strict culture and beliefs about how an unmarried woman should not live away from home. But her dad was a doctor and also had family money so they were quite wealthy for our area. The sort of wealthy where for her 16th birthday, they bought her a Porsche and when they didn’t think she thanked them adequately for it, they returned it.
Anyway, I remember when the group of us were at some of the guys’ on-campus apartments, their toilets were clogged. Mally, without really blinking, said we should call our plumber to get it fixed. Of course, the guys were like “Uh, no? It’s just clogged. Why would we call a plumber?” to which Mally, who was very confused replied, “Because that’s what plumbers do? Why would you do it yourself?”
So we then explained first, how expensive plumbers are, and second, how the average person does not call a plumber for a slightly clogged toilet.
Mally was confused and then asked, “Well, what do you do when a light bulb burns out? Change it yourself?” and obviously, we were all nodding and saying “Yeah, absolutely.”
So that was when we discovered just how sheltered and out of touch Mally was with how normal people do things. We specifically learned that she didn’t know how to do laundry, change a light bulb, plunge a toilet, cook literally anything, or put gas in her car all because either their maids did it for her (also worth noting: having maids is extremely rare in our area) or her dad did. It blew her mind when we explained that those are very normal things to know how to do and ended up showing her how to do all those things. She really hated it but it did a lot to make her a more self-reliant adult. Her parents really sheltered her so much so it wasn’t totally her fault.
For as long as I can remember, my father had red eyes after showering. I didn’t even think about it. One day as a teenager a friend slept over and in the morning she saw my dad dressed and ready for work, freshly showered, red-eyed. She asked him why his eyes were red and he simply said “Shampoo.” She then very carefully and as respectfully as she could muster asked him why he didn’t close his eyes, and he laughed and said “What do you think, I’m an idiot? Closing my eyes in the shower! Sheesh!”
My dad did a lot of things that embarrassed me… But that one was prettttty high up there.
I work the graveyard shift and I had to explain to a coworker that at midnight, 12:00 am/0000 hours, it is the start of a new day. She then had an anxiety attack because I was telling her that “Today is not Monday anymore, today is Tuesday now”
I had spent the night at my ex-boyfriend’s place and stayed a bit longer in the morning to help clean the house. I was folding some clothes when I noticed him go from one side of the bed to another without actually doing anything. I looked at him and he looked clueless. He said, “Can you please make the bed? I’ve never done this, no idea where to start”. I didn’t mean to have a strong reaction to it but man did it leave me speechless… he was 26 at the time. That day I realized his mother often visited his house to make the bed and clean… Yeah.
I have a buddy who I’m still good friends with but has some personal issues. Not like severe mental problems just an extreme lack of motivation. He dropped out of college, he lives at home and he’s never had a job for more than a few weeks. In his defense, the dude is one of the most shy people I have ever met in my life so he deserves some empathy for his inability to work. Anyways I couple of years ago me and my roommate were planning a kickback for us and some friends with a bonfire, beer, BBQ, and the whole 9 yards. Initially, we had planned on picking up our friend but he didn’t call us in time so we ended up just going home and starting drinking. Around 11 pm or so our friend calls us and apologizes for his lateness. We’re all like it’s cool but we can’t come get you because drinking so we suggest he gets an Uber. He says he’s never heard of Uber and we explain it’s like a taxi. He’s baffled but downloads the app. Some time passes and he texts us in confusion that the app wanted his debit card information to which we reply something along the lines of “Well yeah it’s a ride-sharing app of course it costs money”. He’s outraged that they would charge him for such a short ride and did not understand when we tried about a dozen times to explain that ride-sharing drivers deserve pay? He didn’t end up getting an Uber even after we agreed to PAY FOR IT (it was 12 dollars) and he just bows out at this point. Super weird because he was like 22 at the time but could not be convinced to take a f*cking Uber. Blew me away
I was tending a bar in LA when one of the cocktail waitresses, (an LA model type) asked me to burp her——like a baby. I’m certain she wasn’t flirting since she was waaaaay out of my league, but I’m convinced she was just desperate for attention. She told me she never learned how to burp like that was a normal thing to not know. She must have read the revulsion on my face because as she turned to leave she let out this deep belly burp that filled the bar. She turned beet red as I called out “You’re welcome.”
In my early 20s, I was really poor. I lived across from a dollar general and would frequent it for odds and ends, frequently. There was an 18-22-year-old girl who worked the cash register who I assumed was on the spectrum of sorts. She couldn’t make eye contact and was very obviously socially awkward. She was also often very dirty and always smelled of BO. It was always weird to me because they sold deodorant. She also had one arm, a hand that was much smaller and less mobile than the other. I was always kind to her, despite her being the slowest at the cash register, part to her physical speed capabilities, part to her painful customer interactions. She constantly over-shared, uncomfortably. It was what it was. It didn’t bother me. I honestly felt bad for the girl, and would occasionally see bruises on her smaller hand/arm and wondered if she was abused.
One day I walked into the good ol’ DG, looking to pick up some cleaning supplies and shampoo, and saw they had a clothing sale. Before you judge, I was poor, and they didn’t have the worst clothing. The sale was that certain color-stickered items were $1. I browsed and actually found 5 things that weren’t too terrible- some pajamas, some leggings, a piece of athletic wear. I brought up all my items, waited for a while as the girl was at the register, and brought up my 5- $1 clothing items, a spray cleaner, and a bottle of shampoo- both of which were also $1. She scanned them in and said “$53.” I kind of anticipated this, so I pointed to the literal three signs about the sale right around the register. There must have been 25 signs throughout the small store. I wasn’t angry. She looked at me, and I explained the sticker color matches the sale and they need to be discounted. She thinks for a good long while, looking at the register, clearly in pain and not knowing what to do. Eventually, she scans the 7 items again, hits a bunch of buttons, and then says, “Ok! $24.” I was absolutely flabbergasted. I knew she was slower, but discovering that she couldn’t figure out 5+2 should be 7 (and tax), absolutely shocked me and truly bummed me out. Myself and the customer behind me just stared, not knowing what to do for far too long. I eventually asked if there was anyone else working who could help. She used the store phone to call another coworker back in from their break. I stopped seeing her after a while, which was to be expected. I think of her often. I hope she’s ok.
I was working in a bar. We had this kid who got hired as a barback and he apparently just couldn’t keep up. It was a pretty busy place, especially on the weekends, and barbacks had to be on top of sh*t constantly. After about three weeks, management decides he isn’t gonna cut it as a barback and pushes him into the kitchen with me. I was glad to have help because we always had issues with keeping cooks on for some reason.
Holy sh*t. This kid could not do anything. He lacked basic common sense for practically everything. We started him on fry station but he would f*ck up the most basic of tasks; he didn’t even know how to make fries. I told him how to do our catfish (3 planks tossed in corn mill and flour), he tossed the first two but then dropped the third in completely bare. I asked him why he did that and he had no answer. Then we tried putting him on the grill – he couldn’t make toast or toast buns; he would always burn them! Last we tried having him run center and call out tickets but it seemed like he could barely read. There were multiple times I had to kick him out of the kitchen because he was so slow or just completely zone out.
One of the servers was his cousin and she told me that both his dad and brother had to fire him from separate jobs because he wouldn’t do his sh*t or wouldn’t show up. Then of course one night, he was still out back after he clocked out and was talking to someone at length about doing mushrooms and acid; guess we know why he can’t hold down a job.
Told him to do something one night while I ran to the restroom; came back and he was gone. Good riddance. Brandon, if you’re reading this, I hate your guts.
As someone in IT, we get a lot of this. I don’t know what it is about machines, but when a perfectly intelligent but non-IT person is in front of one, their brains just seem to turn off.
“I tried to close the window and it’s asking me if I’m sure if I want to close it! What do I do?”
or
“I have this green cable and have plugged it into the blue port. Why isn’t it working?”
and finally.
“The laptop doesn’t work anymore! It’s just blank, no matter what buttons I push.” A minute later of me fiddled with the machine and ‘fixing’ it. “Wait, there’s a power button?”
I dated a guy that would put conditioner first and then shampoo his hair. When I pointed out that it was the other way around he got really grumpy and said “How is one supposed to know that?”. I point to the instructions on the labels in the back. We never spoke about it again but his hair got softer.
I asked a friend to put a pot of pasta on while I showered after a long day. Had to run out of the shower dripping wet when the smoke alarm went off. He didn’t know you put pasta in boiling water. He didn’t know you put the pasta in the water at all. He just threw hard raw pasta into a pot and put it on the stove. Guy was 23 and a computer scientist. Pretty sure he’s at Microsoft now.
Thinking about it now, maybe it was my fault for giving a programmer bad instructions.
We weren’t adults at the time, but my friend I have known since we were 10, came over to my house when we were 16. He lived directly across the street and I saw him most days. Anyway, he comes over and while we were hanging out we decided to have a snack.
My mom used to buy cases of oranges and we could eat those at any time. So I grab a couple of oranges and throw one at him. He stares at it for a while and I know the guy pretty well. I ask him what’s the problem and he says “How do I do this?”
“What? Dude, I know you have eaten an orange before.”
“Yeah, but how do I get… into it?”
“What?! You mean peel it?”
“Yeah, my mom just cuts them in fourths.”
I laughed at him for a good 15 min and then taught him how to peel an orange.
I still being it up sometimes… to his kids. We’re 40 now.
It was pretty hilarious. I had a roommate once who had absolutely no understanding of how to cook. I came downstairs one morning and she was in the kitchen. I asked what she was doing and she said “Making a smoothie, do you want some?” I turn the corner to find that she has cut the skin off a mango and put the whole thing in a blender and was about to start it. I run over and grab the mango and then have to explain to her that they have pits and you can’t just pop an ENTIRE MANGO in a blender and expect to end up with a smoothie.
During a live cooking class a few years back, I watched a 35-year-old man exclaim ‘Woahh! this salt just made this soup taste more intense, like more flavorful! I thought salt just made things salty!’
I thought he was joking at first, my back was turned to him when he said it. I turned around and recognized the childlike wonder in his eyes and genuine expression of amazement.
I didn’t even have the heart to make fun of him. F*cking astounding. Homeboy literally didn’t know what salt does to food.
My little brother used to not know the months of the year. As an adult. Like if you went up to him and said, “It’s September, what month is next?” He would have no f*cking clue. His excuse is that he never had a reason to know them. I used to tease him for it all the time.
One day he invited me out to dinner, and I get to the restaurant and sit at a table waiting for him. So he shows up, and he looks me in the eye and very sternly says, “January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. F*ck you!”
And that was the most deserved “f*ck you” I ever felt. It shook me to my core, but God d*mn was I proud.
I worked at a luxury hotel in Scotland and a group of Texan ladies come through, “Real Housewives of Texas” types, I showed one to the room and she asked if we could bring her coffee in the morning. I said no as it was too early and no one would be working yet but there’s a kettle and coffee in your room.
When I told her it was French press she asked how that worked, so I explained and she still looked confused so I ran through it with her again step by step. I told her to boil the kettle, add the coffee, add the water, pushed the filter down and it’s done.
Then she asked me something along the lines of “So how do I use the kettle?” I was a little dumbfounded because how have you gone 45 years without switching on a kettle?? Anyway, I went through that step by step fill it with water, close the lid, press the button, and wait. Then she hits me with “How will I know the waters boiled” so I tell her it switches itself off and makes a loud click. She was quite impressed by that.
Tipped big, lovely lady, might be a sim that breached the gap into the real world.
My ex-gf in college grew up wealthy and privileged. She wasn’t allowed to do stuff for herself. She had nannies and sh*t to do everything. But she wanted to be independent, so going to college allowed her the opportunity to learn how to cook and stuff.
We both lived in the same dorm apartment building just a few doors down from my place. She left my place and said she was going to make some pizza for dinner. About five minutes later she knocked on my door in a frenzy. It seems she may have started a fire. I calmly follow her back to her place thinking it would be nothing crazy. I opened her door and there was a wall of white smoke.
It seems she put the box of digorno in the oven, cardboard and all. There were no flames but that sh*t was smoldering. I pulled it out of the oven and tossed it in the sink and everything was resolved in a matter of minutes. But yeah, she’s the reason why they put warnings on sh*t.
Now for what it’s worth, in the two years we were together, she grew into a fantastic cook. I gained at least 20 pounds because of her.
My fiance really wanted to get married and have children while we were in grad school. I told him it would be hard to have a baby and be able to breastfeed them because I am not sure if I could pump in class. He assured me that the baby would be fine because his mother could watch them and she had “big boobs”. After a series of very confused questions, I found out that he thought all women with big breasts had milk and the ability to breastfeed.
I had a roommate over 10 years ago in my mid-20s, he moved into my place with a waterbed. Eventually, he decided to get rid of said waterbed for a traditional mattress.
When draining the waterbed, instead of siphoning the water out, he decided to cut a slit in the bed to bail the water out with a bucket and I quote, “because I thought it would be faster”. He attempted this when I wasn’t home. Needless to say, you can guess what happened.
He had to replace the flooring, and the lower half of the drywall, and repaint. He was fortunate all of his electronics weren’t fried in the incident.
We were talking about things we hate, and she said that she hated the first 10-15 seconds of a shower, when the water was so cold. I asked why she didn’t just turn on the water from outside, then wait until it was warm to step inside. She got quiet for a while, then got all mad at me, like I was calling her stupid.
B*tch, what?
No, the relationship did not last long after that.
A couple of years ago, I had a roomie kindly offer to make me pancakes on my birthday. I’d never seen her make toast, let alone pancakes, but gladly accepted her offer.
After about half an hour of banging around in the kitchen, my roomie calls out to me:
“Uuuh, yo? I don’t think it’s all gonna fit?”
I stroll into the kitchen to find her attempting to pour the entire recipe’s worth of batter into my cast iron skillet looking straight up panicked.
I somehow managed to explain through my hysterical laughter that the recipe makes a dozen or so pancakes, not just one.
My roommate in grad school lost her apartment keys and had a total meltdown. She genuinely believed there was only a certain number of keys per home/apartment, and once one was lost, that’s it. How would she survive the rest of the year without a key?
I tried to calm her down by pointing out that it was a weekend and neither of us had anywhere to be, so she could just borrow my key and get it copied…
Roommate: you can do that? Me: yes Roommate (between sobs): WHERE!? Me: a lot of places. The Walmart down the road. Roommate: how much is it? Like $200? Me: no… It’s like $2
I blew her mind that day. And, in a different sense, she also blew my mind.
The first – and only – time I had Christmas dinner with my in-laws, my wife’s stepmother grilled the turkey.
I don’t mean she oven-cooked it and then grilled it; she just grilled it.
So this thing came out that was burned black on top but completely raw underneath. It turns out this is how she had always cooked turkey at Christmas.
Somehow – and she was in her 70s at this point – she was still alive. She’d been doing this for decades and evidently had an invincible immune system. But I would ask you to imagine the experience of sitting around a festive table, with general goodwill and all that, some nice potatoes, roasted vegetables, cranberry sauce etc, and then having literally raw turkey plopped onto your plate.
My stomach is rising just thinking about it. The incredible thing is: she knows how to cook a chicken. You put it in the f*cking oven. But for some reason, lost in the mists of time, she had grown up believing that a turkey – the smallest of which is double the size of a large chicken – is to be grilled.
It was the biggest ‘social obligation’ vs ‘please do not kill yourself’ experience of my life. I see that f*cking turkey in my sleep. Poor f*cker didn’t die in order to be grilled inedible by some septuagenarian with an iron stomach.
