Stories

Everyone does dumb things sometimes. Even the smartest people we know are capable of bouts of stupidity. Especially since intellectual aptitude doesn&#39;t necessarily equate to good common sense or life skills. But since exceptionally intelligent people can be intimidating, it&#39;s always a little satisfying to see them do something dumb. Geniuses: just like us!In a popular Reddit thread, someone <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/odxydt/think_of_the_smartest_person_you_know_what_is_the/" target="_blank">asked</a>: &quot;Think of the smartest person you know, what is the dumbest thing they&rsquo;ve ever done?&quot;<h2>Here are 21 hilarious stories of brilliant people doing something very, very dumb:</h2>1.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Ziriath/">Ziriath</a>:<blockquote> Guy with a PhD in chemistry. Had a problem with electric furnace, it kept switching off the circuit breakers. So he was told by someone to stick a wooden splinter in it to keep the switch up, but it was too weak and the gap in the breaker too narrow. So he took some strip of metal instead....Well, he still lives but he said he almost shat himself. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>2.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/massi95/">massi95</a>:<blockquote> My friend has a master&#39;s degree in mechanical engineering and robotics. He once made a potato salad with raw potatoes because he thought, since it&#39;s a salad, you&#39;re not supposed to cook it. </blockquote>3.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Comprehensive_Crab79/">Comprehensive_Crab79</a>:<blockquote> My brother was in uni in the UK And needed a toaster. He ordered on off of Amazon for &pound;3 and was surprised to find one so cheap. Turns out it was a kids toy, it came with plastic pieces of bread as well. </blockquote>4.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/momx3f/">momx3f</a>:<blockquote> My sister. My wonderful sister. So intelligent, educated&hellip; but dang. They had their house inspected and the inspector found an issue with their gas heat. Called in a repairman and it turns out the were having lower levels of carbon monoxide leaking into their home. When my mom asked her why she didn&rsquo;t have several working detectors she answered &ldquo;well I did, but one just wouldn&rsquo;t quit beeping&rdquo;. This was 10 years ago and we still bring it up all the time. Thankfully everyone turned out to be ok, but that wouldn&rsquo;t have been the case much longer. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>5.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/katierose0324/">katierose0324</a>:<blockquote> My dad is the smartest person I (and anyone who knows him) know and once when we were kids he tried to make us laugh by sticking peas in his nostrils and ended up accidentally snorting them up into his nasal passages. Best part: he&rsquo;s an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. One of the best in the region 😆 I can still hear him pleading with my mother to take them out because he couldn&rsquo;t face his colleagues with peas up his nose that he voluntarily put there. 😂 </blockquote>6.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Jmiller13202/">Jmiller13202</a>:<blockquote> I have a neighbor, he is by far the smartest person I know. A couple fourth of July&rsquo;s ago he got a quarter stick of dynamite, and strapped it to an rc boat with a detonate button and a timer. He sent it out on the lake at night, flipped the switch and it didn&rsquo;t go off. So he took it back into the house to fix it, but never turned the detonate button off. So when it was fixed the 7 second timer started going. It ended up going off in the house and blowing out all of the windows. Everyone was safe. TLDR: my neighbor blew up his house. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>7.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/dasUberSoldat/">dasUberSoldat</a>:<blockquote> Dad&#39;s an actuary. Basically a cross between a mathematician and an economist. Wrote a text book for his field, and has been CEO of several very large companies. I came home many years ago to hear Age of Empires blaring at a million dB. Thats odd. I wander downstairs to find him playing the game, with headphones on... but unplugged. He had the sound turned up on the speakers because he couldn&#39;t hear it over the dampening of the headphones. To top it off, he had the headphones on backwards. To this day makes me smirk. </blockquote>8.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/theroadlesstraveledd/">theroadlesstraveledd</a>:<blockquote> We were in a work conference that mentioned bulimia and she said I think I have ancestors from there. </blockquote>9.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/whydidyadothat/">whydidyadothat</a>:<div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> Brother in law is a pretty clever guy. Ran a bath for his kid, couldn&#39;t get the tap to turn off, mad panic, rang a plumber friend asking him to come round quick or the house is gonna flood. Friend was like, you could just pull the plug? Real nice, real clever guy. Zero common sense </blockquote>10.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/needsomevitaminstbh/">needsomevitaminstbh</a>:<blockquote> My brother has PhDs in bioengineering. We were on a call one day and he was saying &quot;i can&#39;t find my phone. Probably my kids took it.&quot; Didn&#39;t realize until i told him that he was using his phone to talk to me. </blockquote>11.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/oksothisonetime/">oksothisonetime</a>:<blockquote> I did my undergrad with a guy who got an almost perfect score on his MCAT but also ate a raw chicken breast because he thought it was a really bad hot pocket (he was sober) He&rsquo;s a surgeon now. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>12.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/cootbaybee/">cootbaybee</a>:<blockquote> My older brother was the highschool validictorian and decided to cut an apple with a large knife while holding it in his hand. He has a lovely scar from it. </blockquote>13.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/misspoopyloopy/">misspoopyloopy</a>:<blockquote> My dad, college professor. Got his mortgage down to $20,000 and had the opportunity to pay it all. Redrew and bought a brand new car. Totalled car. Bought another brand new car. Gave it to girlfriend at the time. Girlfriend left and kept car. Currently owes $250,000 on his same mortgage. </blockquote>14.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PeppermintFart/">PeppermintFart</a>:<blockquote> They used their bare hand to check if the stove was still hot by pressing it directly on the burner, and they had two doctorates. </blockquote>15.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/PsykoFlounder/">PsykoFlounder</a>:<div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> My older brother. Hands down one of the smartest people I&#39;ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Once got incredibly drunk, and wrote &quot;ASS&quot; in big black permanent marker on the right ass cheek of an acquaintance who was wearing a brand new pair of like $85 white jeans. Never seen him look so ashamed while giving money to a person for clothing. </blockquote>16.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/sizzlingmaniac69/">sizzlingmaniac69</a>:<blockquote> while applying for a job, he thought &ldquo;sick pay&rdquo; meant that the job paid really well </blockquote>17.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/t-h-e-d-u-d-e/">t-h-e-d-u-d-e</a>:<blockquote> My aunt. College professor. PhD in mathematics. Was blown away when watching my father cook rice without a rice cooker. </blockquote>18.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/El_Dentistador/">El_Dentistador</a>:<blockquote> I was picking up my date (future wife) when her valedictorian roommate turned quickly away from the TV and said in all seriousness &ldquo;don&rsquo;t look, they&rsquo;re welding! It will damage your eyes&rdquo;. She got more serious as I continued to look back and forth at the tv and her. She actually yelled &ldquo;it&rsquo;s going to blind you!&rdquo; I then asked her &ldquo;So when your tv is showing an image of the sun&hellip;&rdquo;. That&rsquo;s as far as I got. You could see the wave of embarrassment wash over her face, she immediately started laugh/crying and begged me not to tell anyone. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>19.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Jburyy/">Jburyy</a>:<blockquote> Told me that they believe sex scenes in movies were real and didn&rsquo;t understand how the actors significant others handled it&hellip;this person is a doctor. </blockquote>20.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/suitology/">suitology</a>:<blockquote> My one college professor had a double doctorate, several masters, and was literally was the head of the national magazine for his field and had a lot of respect in the science community. He didn&#39;t know electric eels were real. Like he argued with us. </blockquote>21.) From <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/bartz824/">bartz824</a>:<button></button><blockquote> My brothers friend was highschool valedictorian. In college, he gathered up deer turds to play a practical joke on his roommate by putting said deer turds into a box of coco puffs cereal. 2 days later he forgets about the deer turds and goes to pour himself a bowl of coco puffs. Instead of nice, sugary cereal, he gets a spoonful of deer turds. </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

21 people share the dumbest thing they've ever seen a smart person do.

Everyone does dumb things sometimes. Even the smartest people we know are capable of bouts of stupidity. Especially since intellectual aptitude doesn&#39;t necessarily equate to good common sense or life skills. But since exceptionally intelligent people can be intimidating, it&#39;s always a little satisfying to see them do something dumb. Geniuses: just like us!In a popular Reddit thread, someone asked: &quot;Think of the smartest person you know, what is the dumbest thing they&rsquo;ve ever done?&quot;Here are 21 hilarious stories of brilliant people doing something very, very dumb:1.) From Ziriath: Guy with a PhD in chemistry. Had a problem with electric furnace, it kept switching off the circuit breakers. So he was told by someone to stick a wooden splinter in it to keep the switch up, but it was too weak and the gap in the breaker too narrow. So he took some strip of metal instead....Well, he still lives but he said he almost shat himself. 2.) From massi95: My friend has a master&#39;s degree in mechanical engineering and robotics. He once made a potato salad with raw potatoes because he thought, since it&#39;s a salad, you&#39;re not supposed to cook it. 3.) From Comprehensive_Crab79: My brother was in uni in the UK And needed a toaster. He ordered on off of Amazon for &pound;3 and was surprised to find one so cheap. Turns out it was a kids toy, it came with plastic pieces of bread as well. 4.) From momx3f: My sister. My wonderful sister. So intelligent, educated&hellip; but dang. They had their house inspected and the inspector found an issue with their gas heat. Called in a repairman and it turns out the were having lower levels of carbon monoxide leaking into their home. When my mom asked her why she didn&rsquo;t have several working detectors she answered &ldquo;well I did, but one just wouldn&rsquo;t quit beeping&rdquo;. This was 10 years ago and we still bring it up all the time. Thankfully everyone turned out to be ok, but that wouldn&rsquo;t have been the case much longer. 5.) From katierose0324: My dad is the smartest person I (and anyone who knows him) know and once when we were kids he tried to make us laugh by sticking peas in his nostrils and ended up accidentally snorting them up into his nasal passages. Best part: he&rsquo;s an ear, nose, and throat surgeon. One of the best in the region 😆 I can still hear him pleading with my mother to take them out because he couldn&rsquo;t face his colleagues with peas up his nose that he voluntarily put there. 😂 6.) From Jmiller13202: I have a neighbor, he is by far the smartest person I know. A couple fourth of July&rsquo;s ago he got a quarter stick of dynamite, and strapped it to an rc boat with a detonate button and a timer. He sent it out on the lake at night, flipped the switch and it didn&rsquo;t go off. So he took it back into the house to fix it, but never turned the detonate button off. So when it was fixed the 7 second timer started going. It ended up going off in the house and blowing out all of the windows. Everyone was safe. TLDR: my neighbor blew up his house. 7.) From dasUberSoldat: Dad&#39;s an actuary. Basically a cross between a mathematician and an economist. Wrote a text book for his field, and has been CEO of several very large companies. I came home many years ago to hear Age of Empires blaring at a million dB. Thats odd. I wander downstairs to find him playing the game, with headphones on... but unplugged. He had the sound turned up on the speakers because he couldn&#39;t hear it over the dampening of the headphones. To top it off, he had the headphones on backwards. To this day makes me smirk. 8.) From theroadlesstraveledd: We were in a work conference that mentioned bulimia and she said I think I have ancestors from there. 9.) From whydidyadothat: Brother in law is a pretty clever guy. Ran a bath for his kid, couldn&#39;t get the tap to turn off, mad panic, rang a plumber friend asking him to come round quick or the house is gonna flood. Friend was like, you could just pull the plug? Real nice, real clever guy. Zero common sense 10.) From needsomevitaminstbh: My brother has PhDs in bioengineering. We were on a call one day and he was saying &quot;i can&#39;t find my phone. Probably my kids took it.&quot; Didn&#39;t realize until i told him that he was using his phone to talk to me. 11.) From oksothisonetime: I did my undergrad with a guy who got an almost perfect score on his MCAT but also ate a raw chicken breast because he thought it was a really bad hot pocket (he was sober) He&rsquo;s a surgeon now. 12.) From cootbaybee: My older brother was the highschool validictorian and decided to cut an apple with a large knife while holding it in his hand. He has a lovely scar from it. 13.) From misspoopyloopy: My dad, college professor. Got his mortgage down to $20,000 and had the opportunity to pay it all. Redrew and bought a brand new car. Totalled car. Bought another brand new car. Gave it to girlfriend at the time. Girlfriend left and kept car. Currently owes $250,000 on his same mortgage. 14.) From PeppermintFart: They used their bare hand to check if the stove was still hot by pressing it directly on the burner, and they had two doctorates. 15.) From PsykoFlounder: My older brother. Hands down one of the smartest people I&#39;ve ever had the privilege of knowing. Once got incredibly drunk, and wrote &quot;ASS&quot; in big black permanent marker on the right ass cheek of an acquaintance who was wearing a brand new pair of like $85 white jeans. Never seen him look so ashamed while giving money to a person for clothing. 16.) From sizzlingmaniac69: while applying for a job, he thought &ldquo;sick pay&rdquo; meant that the job paid really well 17.) From t-h-e-d-u-d-e: My aunt. College professor. PhD in mathematics. Was blown away when watching my father cook rice without a rice cooker. 18.) From El_Dentistador: I was picking up my date (future wife) when her valedictorian roommate turned quickly away from the TV and said in all seriousness &ldquo;don&rsquo;t look, they&rsquo;re welding! It will damage your eyes&rdquo;. She got more serious as I continued to look back and forth at the tv and her. She actually yelled &ldquo;it&rsquo;s going to blind you!&rdquo; I then asked her &ldquo;So when your tv is showing an image of the sun&hellip;&rdquo;. That&rsquo;s as far as I got. You could see the wave of embarrassment wash over her face, she immediately started laugh/crying and begged me not to tell anyone. 19.) From Jburyy: Told me that they believe sex scenes in movies were real and didn&rsquo;t understand how the actors significant others handled it&hellip;this person is a doctor. 20.) From suitology: My one college professor had a double doctorate, several masters, and was literally was the head of the national magazine for his field and had a lot of respect in the science community. He didn&#39;t know electric eels were real. Like he argued with us. 21.) From bartz824: My brothers friend was highschool valedictorian. In college, he gathered up deer turds to play a practical joke on his roommate by putting said deer turds into a box of coco puffs cereal. 2 days later he forgets about the deer turds and goes to pour himself a bowl of coco puffs. Instead of nice, sugary cereal, he gets a spoonful of deer turds. 

Everyone does dumb things sometimes. Even the smartest people we know are capable of bouts of stupidity. Especially since intellectual aptitude doesn&#39;t necessarily equate to good common sense or life skills. But since exceptionally...