25 People Confess The Most Ridiculous Things They’ve Had to Explain To a Grown Adult

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When you were a young ridiculously stupid child, you probably thought that your parents (and all adults for that matter) knew absolutely everything. They basically told you that they did, after all. But as we got older, less ignorant, and more hung up about learning every single thing we could about everything on Wikipedia — we slowly began to realize that some grown ups are completely f*cking full of it and that they don’t really know everything (duh). I mean, who else is going to call out their coworker who thinks the Civil War was fought between North and South America? *smugly points thumb to my chest*

Blame our sh*tty American education system. Blame fake news. And definitely blame your dumb uncle who kept telling you that fish were mammals for all of your youth. Not sure if Uncle Billy was as dumb as a sack of rocks, or if he was just the biggest troll of all time. If it was the latter, hats off to you, sir. But now we have to live in a world where some guy in the midwest gets in arguments with his friends about “facts” about creatures in the ocean that are blatantly false. Fish deserve better, bro.

So whether you’re doing the world a favor by explaining to some putz that Alaska isn’t really a big island off the coast of Hawaii, or letting someone know that babies don’t have their eyes closed the first weeks of their lives like kittens (whut) — just remember to breathe. It’s hard when people around you are complete and utter idiots, but it’s up to the rest of us to enlighten. Like, you’re doing Beyoncé’s the lord’s work when calmly showing that 19 year old girl that letters do in fact need stamps in order to be sent. You just postmarked that girl’s brain straight to Smarter City. Hoorah!

These 25 people confess the most ridiculous things they ever had to explain to grown adults:


1.

That girls have 3 holes. I’m a nurse and had to collect urine via a catheter but spent over an hour telling the dad that I would not be taking his daughters virginity by doing this. I drew pictures and he still wasn’t convinced.

2.

My mom told me I couldn’t text while driving in a school zone. I had to explain to her that only applies to the actual driver as I texted away in the passenger seat.

3.

You can open the photocopier to get blank paper out of it, you know. You don’t have to keep photocopying that one blank page you keep carrying around with you.

4.

That United Kingdom and United States of America is not the same place just because it has United in front of it.

5.

That the civil war wasn’t fought between North America and South America.

6.

I was flying to Australia and a girl I met in the airport asked me if I was worried about crossing the equator. I said “no why” and she said well the plane flips upside down aren’t you concerned it will crash? I couldn’t even begin to explain.

7.

I had to explain to someone on our flight that there wasn’t another littler plane trailing us with our luggage when they looked out the window looking for said little plane.

8.

Alaska isn’t a giant island next to Hawaii.

9.

How a loan works. Customers are sitting in my office trying to buy a vehicle and can’t understand why their 120 payments of X add up to more than the cost of the vehicle. It took about an hour to get them through it. They had bought things before, cars, a house, and somehow in their mid-50s had no idea how interest worked.

10.

When you return a single item from a purchase of 13 items, you will not get refunded the entire amount of the purchase, just the amount + tax of the returned item.

11.

That the sun wasn’t extra bright on the day of the eclipse. I was told to stay inside and not go outside, since the sun was too bright to look at. They still didn’t believe me, even after I explained what the danger was with the eclipse.

12.

To my boss: You can’t make a color copy of a black and white document. You especially cannot make a color copy of a black and white document while using a copier that only has black toner. He is 60 yo. He’s worked in offices for the last 30 years.

13.

A baby’s umbilical cord is not attached to the inside of my belly button.

14.

I have repeatedly tried and failed to explain to my coworker to not eat rotting meat. She’ll a) leave chicken out on the counter all day to defrost. b) cook the chicken and then leave the cooked chicken out on the counter for a week and “pick at it” here and there. She is out with food poisoning at least once a week. I’ve never met someone who throws up as much as her and wasn’t bullemic. She will eat her breakfast at 4pm after it’s sitting on her desk all day. Eggs with cheese and mayo that she picked up at 7 in the morning. Then she’ll call in sick the next day. I have shown her youtube videos of bacteria growing, sent her articles about the dangers of ecoli. She won’t listen.

15.

That his false advertisement suit vs Time Warner wouldn’t hold up, because they’re not the ones that told him he was the millionth viewer to a website and promised him a prize.

16.

That if you want baby chicks, your hens will need to get together with a rooster. This guy was married with one child, I thought he would have figured some things out.

17.

I had a renter who was 19 and it was her first time living on her own. She didn’t get that when you send a letter in the mail; you had to put stamps on the letter. It came back due to no postage. I basically had to confirm to her that she had to do this. Her response; “It must be a Canada thing because I never had to do that back home”… She is Canadian from Quebec but her parents sheltered her so much that she couldn’t function on her own and thought Quebec and Canada were 2 different countries.

18.

That if they eat a large quantity of fast food it’s not unreasonable for them to feel full and bloated and that this doesn’t constitute a medical complaint requiring a doctors review.

19.

That trusting in the scientific method is not the same thing as being a Scientologist.

20.

That Tanzania and Tasmania are separate places and that our native Tasmanian Devils don’t actually look like Taz from Looney Tunes.

21.

You don’t save more money breaking transactions up into individual items and using a 20% coupon on each one rather than just taking 20% off the whole purchase. Seriously, one transaction, it’s simple math. Stop wasting our time.

22.

Have had to inform a few male patients that the condom only goes on the shaft and should not be pulled down to include covering of the testicles.

23.

“Why doesn’t the kite just fly away?” Um, the string?

24.

That human babies aren’t born with their eyes stuck shut like kittens. He asked me if my 3-week-old daughter’s eyes had opened yet.

25.

I once got into a screaming match with someone because she didn’t believe fish aren’t mammals.

Written by Laura McNairy

Laura is a freelance writer for TFLN. She likes to write about what she knows best — dating, sex, and being awkward, but usually in the opposite order. She is the Assistant Editor and videographer for Peach Fuzz, a sex-positive nudie magazine in ATX.