Gobsmacked People From Around The World Share The Dumbest Questions They've Ever Been Asked

We're fond of saying there's no such thing as a dumb question. But every now and then you hear someone ask something so silly that it makes you question everything about them. How did you not know that? What do you even mean?

These folks recently went online to share the dumbest things they've ever been asked, and oh boy -- there are some doozies.

Image by

45. Can't Assume

What nationality are you?

Canadian.

No, I mean, what nationality?

Ummm, do you mean heritage? Polish I guess.

No, no, listen, na-tional-ity,

I don’t know what you’re asking.

Nationality, like, are you white, black, etc?

Just look at me, I’m white as snow, and that’s not nationality.

Cool, I didn’t want to assume anything.

Image by

44. Unbelievable

“Do you see in panoramic view?”

I’m Chinese...

Image by

43. Now I'm Just Thirsty

"Is Cherry Vanilla Coke made with cherries and vanilla mixed together, or is it made with vanilla cherries?"

Vanilla cherries?

Image by

42. Maybe You Should Be The Boss

Boss: "Could you print out that file, scan it, and email it to me?"

Me: "I could just email it to you."

Boss: ...

Image by

41. Flirtation Over

When I moved back to Florida from Scotland a girl I was hitting on at a bar asked me how long a drive that was.

Image by

40. How Has No One Thought Of That?

My friend once asked, “What if they made a sea world but instead it’s centered around the land?”

I responded with “So basically, a zoo?”

Photo by Jared Rice on Unsplash

39. 8 Days A Week

Not me, but overheard someone asking a restaurant server: "Your coupon says it's valid 7 days a week, does this include weekends?"

Image by

38. Black Mirror

Someone asked me at work if a mirror was expired because it had a manufactured date on the back...

Photo by Roberto Delgado Webb on Unsplash

37. Hail To The Chief

“Don’t you find it stupid that Obama is the only president without a last name?”

Image by

36. Level Up

A guy asked me this on a ski lift.

"At what elevation do deer turn into elk?"

Image by

35. Not A Dealbreaker

I was having a conversation about traveling with this woman.

Me: I’ve always wanted to road trip up to Alaska and see the northern lights.

Her: (looking at me like I’m a moron) Oh yeah? How are you going to drive to Alaska?

Me: In my car...

Her: You can’t DRIVE there.

And then I realized she thought Alaska was an island. I had to explain to her that although Alaska and Hawaii were always in little boxes next to the mainland of USA maps that doesn’t mean they’re both islands.

10 years later I married her.

Image by

34. Glad Civics Is Working

"So Trump is our president, right? Does that mean he's in charge of our state or the whole world? Sorry but I've never understood this whole president thing..."

This was asked to me by a fellow high school senior... in civics class.

seal-president-of-the-united-states-1163420-300x300.png Image by

33. Tough Case

Was asked to a friend of mine who worked in a book shop.

"Excuse me. Do these stairs go up?"

Only at the bottom. At the top they go down.

Image by

32. Cruise Control

When PT Cruisers first came out, the very first one my mother saw was a black one.

She actually thought it was a hearse for children or little people. I'm not making this up.

Image by

31. Is This Hacking?

One of my good friends builds computers. He sold me the components of his old desktop and he brought it over to my house so he could transfer them to a new case for me and then build his new computer. It was taking a while and my mom was agitated that he was there so long. So she asked, "Is what you're doing even legal?"

Image by

30. Right There In The Name

I once had an argument with a friend over whether or not a milkshake is a dairy product. She was in her second year of culinary school.

Image by

29. Nice Try

When I used to work at a bakery, a customer once asked me:

"When the bread isn't warm anymore, that means it's not fresh anymore, so I can have it for free right?"

Image by

28. The Compass

My cousin bought a map from a nearby fancy store for tourists. After perusing it for no less than two hours, she asked me, "How does this north-south stuff work? The side I'm facing is north, right? And if I turn right, north also turns right, no?"

She was 20.

Image by

27. Actually Kind Of Poetic

"If you had a heart transplant, would your memories go away?"

Image by

26. Like Lillypads

My stepmom once asked if islands float around in the ocean.

My brother burst out laughing, and I just looked flatly at my dad and said, "You married this woman." We still give her grief about it.

Image by

25. Baker's Dozen

I used to work at a bakery. Once I was boxing up donuts for a customer when they asked how many were in the box.

Me: Six.

Them: Oh, okay. How many left to make it a dozen?

Me: Six.

Them: Yes, I know. How many more do I need to make it a dozen ??

Me: Sigh

To be clear, this person wasn't asking about a baker's dozen. I know what they are. It's literally a medieval practice that 99% of places don't follow today. And don't tell me about the one place you know that does, I don't care.

Image by

24. Trick Or Treat

“Does Halloween ever fall on Friday the 13th?”

Took my buddy a few seconds combined with our WTF stares to realize what he had just asked.

Image by

23. Why Don't People Understand Canada?!

Going through the border -- from Canada into the U.S.:

Border Guard: "What's your citizenship?"

Me: [hands over passport, which notes my birthplace as Vancouver, British Columbia] "Canadian."

Border Guard: "No, what's your citizenship?"

Me: louder "I'm Canadian."

Border Guard: yelling "What's your citizenship?!"

Me: "I don't know what you're asking me!"

Border Guard: "Where were you born? Was it Colombia?"

Me: "British Columbia is a province in Canada."

Border Guard: waves me through.

Image by

22. Health Class Is So Important

A friend of my daughter's when they were 15 or 16 was staying at our home one weekend, as she did most weekends. She was crying. My daughter was laughing and told her to ask me.

This girl was scared that she may be pregnant because she had hooked up unprotected... with another girl.

I had to explain to her that that wasn't how it worked.

She thought that because she climaxed that meant she was pregnant.

Image by

21. Never Forget

"Wasn't that building destroyed on 9-11?" She was pointing to the Prudential Center in Boston.

Image by

20. Narwhals Are Real

"Isn’t it a shame unicorns went extinct?" This person was an adult and thought unicorns existed during medieval times.

Image by

19. You Are Overheating

I was weighing a patient, and she asked me if it measured in Celsius.

Image by

18. Poor Buffalo Bill

My wife at the time saw the headline “Buffalo buried in 5 feet of snow” (I don’t remember the exact measurement). She asked “Why don’t they just dig the poor guy out?” There was a picture of the city under the headline.

On a related note, I remember a friend asking me during the days of Hurricane Katrina if the original Orleans was destroyed by a hurricane too. He thought that New Orleans was built to replace Old Orleans.

I notified him of the existence of this little thing called France.

Image by

17. Cash Money Caller

Had a customer ask if she could pay her bill over the phone. I asked what kind of credit card.... cash. She wanted to pay cash over the phone.

dollar_money_cash_money_business_currency_finances_crisis_income-629813-1551767832602-300x200.jpg

16. Jurassic Photoshoots

Watching a documentary on dinosaurs in class once. Girl sitting at table in front of me turns around as the documentary is playing.

“Hey... they didn’t have cameras around when there were dinosaurs... right?”

I just turned to my friend and we both started laughing. Good times, I miss geology.

Image by

15. Now In 3D

My eyes are two different colors, and the question I'm most often asked about them is , "Did you know your eyes are two different colors?" I'm amused when someone asks me whether I see different colors out of each eye, or - even better - whether I "see in 3D."

Image by

14. There Is No Why

“Are you gay?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Hm, I don’t know Jerry, just not feelin’ it today.

Image by

13. You're Not A Volunteer?

One day one of my students said “Ew, I have to work today.” To which I replied, “So do I.”

He looked at me and asked, honestly, “Oh really? Where do you work?”

“Here... I work here... right where I am standing. I don’t do this as a service to your parents.”

Image by

12. No, It's Fake

While walking on a trail to the peak of a snow covered mountain in Alaska in early summer:

Is that real snow?

Didn't even know how to answer that one.

Image by

11. How Do You Ask Something Like That?

“Are you Korean?”

No, why?

“Because you’re skinny, and all Koreans are skinny.”

Well, I’m Filipino.

“But Filipinos are usually more chubby, aren’t they?”

Image by

10. Twins, Basil

"If I punched you, would your brother feel your pain?"

Said one idiot to me, a twin.

Image by

9. They Grow

I was a freshman in college sitting in biology class and had a girl raise her hand and ask, "This might be dumb but what do trees do?" The teacher had to ask her if she was being serious which she said yes and the look on his face was priceless. You could tell he was thinking how in the world are you even in college.

Image by

8. Cthulu

I was once asked by an ex’s (very religious) grandmother if I was in the “Cthulhu cult” because I read the “Cthulhu bible”. This was because I had a book called The Complete H.P. Lovecraft Fiction or something like that in my backpack.

And yes, she found it by snooping in my backpack.

Image by

7. Sad Day For You

I used to work for Bank of America as a teller. Someone gave me half a $20 bill and asked for $10. They did not understand that it’s either worth $20 or nothing.

Image by

6. Stay In School, Kids

Context: We were both 17-year-old girls at the time. I had never had a boyfriend and she’d had several.

Her: Can you get pregnant from swallowing?

Me: No, it just goes into your stomach and you digest it.

Her: But there’s a small chance right?

Me: No.

Her: But after your stomach it can go down there, right?

Me: No, the digestive system and reproductive system aren’t connected.

Yeah, that last bit is technically untrue but it was simple enough to get the point across to her. This is the sort of misunderstanding that happens because of abstinence-only ‘education’. The only reason I knew anything about relations was that I wanted to be a doctor and was obsessed with human biology.

Image by

5. Oranges Are Flat

About 25 years ago I was explaining time zones to a 20ish year old intern at a large scientific agency. She wasn't getting it, so I got an orange I brought for lunch and used it as the Earth.

Me: Ok, pretend this is the Earth. The sun only shines on one side, so it's day on approximately half at any given time. Now since the Earth rotates (as i spin the orange)...

Intern: So wait. Hold on. So you're saying the Earth is round?

I wish I was joking.

Image by

4. It Comes From Soy Boys

I was training a new colleague in the café I worked at. We have a number of plant-based milk substitutes, as I was trying to explain to her.

"Some people don't drink dairy, often because cow's milk contains lactose." "Alright, so what animal does soy milk come from?"

Image by

3. No Substitutions

Not anything super mind-boggling, but I worked as a server at an infamous "Italian" restaurant during college. Here's my interaction with a guest one evening:

G: "I'd like to order the spaghetti with marinara sauce, but can I get fettuccine noodles instead?"

M: "Sure thing."

G: "Oh, and I'd like to please substitute the marinara with Alfredo sauce. And please add chicken."

M: ".... I would have to charge you for the chicken Alfredo, then."

Note there was a few dollars in price difference between the two dishes, Alfredo being more expensive.

G: "But I ordered the spaghetti with marinara."

I legitimately had to argue with this person for few moments as to why I couldn't magically substitute out the entire entree for a different one with no price difference. Guest ended up being super crabby for the remainder of the meal and I'm fairly certain didn't tip at all.

Image by

2. Bad Heart?

I used to be a high school college prep teacher. One semester, I had quite a number of students who said they wanted to become surgeons. So one day I showed the class a neat video of a surgeon slicing open a grape with a scalpel and then stitching it back up with this new, technologically advanced pair of robotic arm things. The video was met with many oohs and aahs, and when it was over a hand shot up. I’ll never forget her question. “What was wrong with the grape?”

Image by

1. No, Not Really

Her: “So you don’t really think there is a God?”

Me: “No...I don’t think so.”

Her: “Hmm...so if you don’t believe in anything, are you like interested in Scientology then? Like would you consider yourself a Scientologist?”

Me: “Wait what?”

Her: “Isn’t that like Scientology?”

Me: “Hahaha.”

Her: “.....”

Me: “Wait, are you serious?”

This same friend also looked up at the constellations and was like “Wow! I think that’s O’Brians Belt!”

Image by