messy_bettie, posting in mock_the_stupid:

So, one day when I was about 16, my mother and I were driving by a local duck pond that she used to take my sister and I to when we were little. The pond was currently covered in ice seeing that it was winter and all. Conversation is as follows:

Mom: Krystie, you're smart. Can I ask you something?
Me: Uh, sure.
Mom: Where do the geese go? You know, in winter?
Me: Seriously?
Mom: Yeah! Do they like, tunnel under the water and hibernate?
Me: ... Mom. They fucking fly south for winter. It's called migration.
(After about five full minutes of silence and my mother looking like she's taking a Calculus exam...)
Mom: OH YEAH! Don't tell your sister I just asked you that.

chelonianmobile, posting in mock_the_stupid:
My mother has a friend who is a police officer. Let's call her Betty. She has a daughter who we'll call Deirdre. Deirdre is learning to drive, and Betty was helping her practice, sitting in the car with her while she drove around in a deserted area, drilling her on roadsigns and suchlike.

Suddenly, a very drunk man stepped out in front of the car, bounced off the bumper, and collapsed in the road. Deirdre, however, did not stop the car. Betty yelled at her that she had to stop the car, it's illegal to leave the scene of an accident especially when there's a police officer in the car, etc ...

"I can't stop here, there's a double yellow line!"

(Luckily Betty did persuade her that stopping was ever-so-slightly more important, they went back and checked on the guy, and he wasn't hurt, because they'd been going slowly and possibly because his drunkenness dulled any pain.)

EDIT: In case people don't know, we're in the UK, where a double yellow line down the side of the road means you aren't allowed to stop your car there. So it does make a kind of sense, but ...

ericavdg, posting in mock_the_stupid:
My daughter has sewing class for two hours every Saturday morning. I make use of the time by going to the nearest Safeway and doing at least part of the weekly grocery shopping. Today, soda was on sale, so I filled my cart with that and a few other things we needed and checked out. There was a guy bagging the groceries, so the checker handed my reusable shopping bags to him. We proceeded with the checkout, me staring blankly at the tabloid headlines while she scanned and then telling her how many of each kind of soda I had. Then I was busy paying. The soda went in the cart. Then the bags went in the cart, with all the groceries in disposable plastic bags inside the reusable bags.

Me: Why did you put the stuff in plastic bags? That's why I gave you reusable bags.

Bag boy: So your bags won't get dirty.

Me: That's stupid! There's nothing here that could get the bags dirty. Besides, they're washable. Why did you waste the plastic bags?

Bag boy: It's an extra service!

Me: It's stupid! The whole point of reusable bags is not to waste plastic bags!

Bag boy: (Duh expression)

I felt like punching the idiot in the mouth, but that would have upset the perfect ratio he had going between IQ points and teeth. The manager was busy actually checking out groceries, so I asked the clerk to pass on to him what had happened and how angry I was at the waste. I doubt it will do any good; this bag boy has obviously overreached the limit of his capabilities.

axoaxonic, posting in mock_the_stupid:
http://www.ktvb.com/community/blogs/maggie-omara/Boise-boy-who-stuck-his-tongue-to-the-pole-makes-national-news-78873887.html

'[Reporter] met up with 10-year-old Sam Nicholson after he was rescued by Boise firefighters. He was stuck for several minutes before the firefighters used a glass of water to free him from the pole. Fortunately, his tongue is A-OKAY. No damage to report!

'Amazingly, the same thing happened to a girl in Spokane yesterday!'

News is always so much better with exclamation marks.

dextradawn, posting in mock_the_stupid:
My sister Beth is a 23 year old walking ball of WTF. I love her dearly, but even she can't deny some of the insanely stupid things that come out of her mouth.

( I give you Beth, in three acts: )

morgaath, posting in mock_the_stupid:
I emailed a file to a customer. They need to print 50 copies of it for an upcoming event.
I got a reply asking me to fax it to them because their company is currently trying to cut down on the amount of printing they do... It's for the environment. I can't help but wonder if they have a fax/printer/scanner so they can print out the fax, scan it, and then print 50 copies all with the same machine.

It's not the only stupid 'Green' excuse I get at work. I have a customer who has me print and FedEx them materials as their company is trying to cut down on printing as part of their 'Green Initiative'. So this person thinks transporting them by truck and jet plane halfway across the US, is better for the environment then me sending an email.

bloodfyr, posting in mock_the_stupid:
Some of you may remember this entry. A couple of people asked for a followup, so this is it. Plus more stupid.

The Academic Dean finished reviewing the papers this week, and they were handed back to us today in Lab. They had us line up alphabetically, and one by one, we were called into the TA's office. He went over our grade, why we got it (a legitmate reason like, "I didn't think you fully answered the question here" or for stupid reasons like, "You cheated, dumbass."). Everyone who cheated on it received a letter from the Dean placed into their permanent file (no idea of the consequences of it, but I imagine that they look at that stuff when deciding scholarships and whatnot). The papers were also graded based on the relavance to the class in their arguments. Since the link that was passed around by people had NOTHING to do with our class, most people got Zeros.

We're watching another video in lecture tomorrow, meaning that there's going to be one last precis due next week. You'd think that the people in my class would learn their lesson after this debacle, right?

Yeahhh...no.

While lined up outside of the TA's office, someone mentioned that someone else had found information on the video online and posted it to the very same chatroom monitored by the TAs and the professor and because of that, there was no real need to actually go to the lecture and watch the video. Soon people in line were passing email addresses around, trying to get the person to send them that link. Oh...and people are talking about the link in the chatroom right now too.

EDIT - I should add that in the days since this entry was originally submitted, we had the video in class. Because the TAs knew that people were watching the video online with no plans to come to class, the precis was changed into an in-class assignment that you could only turn in IN class.