We are all flawed and incapable of perfection. Even the most intelligent people will have occasional “dumb” moments, and that’s okay. 

However, some of these blunders recently became a topic of discussion on Reddit when someone asked, “What’s the dumbest thing you’ve seen an intelligent person do?” 

One story involved a microwaved fork at a research institute. Another was about a doctor who placed his hand under a lawnmower while it was still running. 

You may laugh at some of these responses and feel bad for a few others. But if there’s a key takeaway, no human is superior to another because each one’s skills and traits tend to balance out somehow. 

#1

Just this week someone microwaved a fork in the office kitchen. I work at a research institute. Everyone in here has at least a master’s in engineering.

Image credits: throughalfanoir

#2

He coded a full on website in his notepad, then when he tried to copy it, he deleted everything by accident. guess he was shocked so he immediately closed notepad. then he realized he just ruined his last chance of undoing it.

Image credits: Bokajako

#3

I saw a doctor walk right into a window at Panera Bread one time. I guess he thought it was an open door.

Image credits: anon

#4

Last week I couldn’t find my phone, so I looked down to the phone in my hand and started to try the Find My Phone thing when… oh.

(I swear I’m at least reasonably intelligent.).

Image credits: Pyran

#5

My cousin (21) got the highest marks in his A levels and GCSE’s in england, he’s now in scotland studying at one of the hardest university’s to get into, one day he decided to hoover the lounge this is how it went:

*me walks in*

“what are you doing?”

him- “hoovering the lounge?”

me- “you need to plug it in first?”

he was pushing the hoover around the room without plugging it in and turning it on.

Image credits: DOORFORAKNOB

#6

Bought balloons for a house warming party, blew them up by mouth, and didn’t understand why they didn’t float.

Granted, she grew up a Jehovah’s Witness and wasn’t around balloons a lot.

Image credits: jtho78

#7

Someone with a Harvard PhD in biochemistry told me that it never occurred to them that different colors of Nespresso pods in their office meant different types or blends of coffee. It was just all coffee and sometimes the coffee was good, sometimes it was off, and sometimes it felt like it did nothing. It wasn’t until they mentioned the last point to a co-worker, that the co-worker pointed out that this person was in the process of loading a decaf pod into the machines.

Image credits: BS_Creative

#8

My mom, who was multilingual, said to me, “Watch out for that ice. It might be frozen.”.

Image credits: anon

#9

Physician got a flat on his high end Mercedes.

Mr Fixit decided to take things into his own hands, dismounted the wheel and got a ride to the tire store.

“I need a tire for my Mercedes.”

“Where’s the flat one?” They asked, presuming they could either repair it or get the specs.

“I threw it away, it was flat.”

Dumb**s threw the entire wheel and tire into a dumpster and it was gone when he returned. Car had to be towed, new OEM wheel ordered.

What may have been a $10 flat repair put his car out of commission for over a week and cost more than $1,000. This was in the ‘80s.

Image credits: RationalDB8

#10

Try to sand the underside of a fan belt while the engine was running. His index and pinkie finger are the same length now.

Image credits: Pyrochazm

#11

This week I had to explain gravity to a group of people and they didn’t believe me.?.

Image credits: Leonetta852

#12

My friend was dropping me off home after a day of hanging out, and he tried to argue with me on which street that I live on.

Dude is an engineer.

Image credits: synchrei

#13

I had the most amazing friend he was super smart talented and rich. But was he a soft touch 3 times he married the same women each time with no pre nup because this is true love this time.

Image credits: Plus_Data_1099

#14

My eye doctor walked into the wall once during an exam. My EYE DOCTOR ?.

Image credits: Nunya_biz_nas

#15

I once had the great pleasure of getting to ask our very experienced master electrician who had decades in powering giant events but one day couldn’t get his computer to boot:.

“Uh, Mike? Are you sure it’s plugged in?”(it was not).

Image credits: defenestrayed

#16

My grandmother infamously tried to make an ice cream cake back when those were a new thing in the early 80s. She put ice cream on the cake batter…and put it in the oven.

My grandfather said it was tasty though.

Image credits: Ruffffian

#17

As a kid I saw my stepfather (a Doctor with several specialist qualifications who did two Masters in the same year on a whim) put his hand under the lawnmower to dislodge something….The lawnmower was still on. He didn’t lose fingers permanently but had several months of recovery and skin grafting surgeries. He was academically brilliant but lacked a lot of practical life skills, clearly.

Image credits: HipsterPicard

#18

My roommate’s best friend was an engineering major. He helped us move our furniture to our upstairs apartment in an old house. Obviously no elevator. VERY narrow staircase. This intelligent person got our couch stuck to the ceiling of the staircase. I was like “I don’t know what you study as an engineering major, but I don’t think this is right.”.

Image credits: unprogrammable_soda

#19

I’m an ocean lifeguard – I was driving a truck on a beach that has unstable cliff faces, so part of my job is telling people it’s unsafe to sit under them. I pulled up to a man that was comically sitting on a fallen rock, directly in front of a sign that said, “DANGER FALLING ROCKS.” Warned him it wasn’t a safe area, and he kinda smirked for a second before looking around, and seeing that I was right. He got very, very embarrassed – turned bright red, head in his hands, visibly upset and very apologetic. I told him it’s fine, and that a lot of people don’t think about things like that. He said, “No, you don’t get it. I should know better, out of anyone. It’s not fine. I’m a geologist.”.

Image credits: FalconTonguePunch

#20

A cardiologist I worked with was contacted by “Apple” about his computer security. He gave them access to his laptop and was working with the guy to set something up on there when I got suspicious and googled for him. I ran to his office to show him the apple website, saying they would never contact you by phone, and if you do, it’s a scam. He immediately ended the call and shut the computer down. He had to make many phone calls and change MANY passwords as it was his work laptop. Thankfully, no harm was done. Proof that even highly educated doctors can be scammed.

Image credits: Suspicious-Elk-3631

#21

Try and get toast out of a toaster with a metal knife.

Image credits: buddersausage

#22

My brother lit a firecracker, got distracted and put it in his pocket.

Image credits: luckykobold

#23

Buy a billion dollar platform and tell the main revenue stream to f**k off.

Image credits: venom121212

#24

My mother is a college professor and has a PhD but still believes in various kinds of pseudoscience.

Image credits: samara-the-justicar

#25

I have a close friend, super smart, always had the highest average at uni, won multiple awards and stuff, and in conversations generally just either knows a lot about any subject at hand, or knows enough from other subjects to draw a probable theory about it. She’s also kicking it in every other aspect in life- great girl, kind, humble, caring towards everyone, works out, eats healthy, is always learning a new language or skill, all in all an amazing girl. But I swear on my life, I have never seen anyone with a worste taste in men. Most of the guys she was attracted to/dated were losers, cocky bastards who think too highly of themselves, or just utter scum. I can’t even explain it, to me the guys were walking red flags, a waste of a bag for bones.

Luckily, she finally found a decent, smart, caring, well-spoken man. I damn near cried tears of joy when she told me about him. They’ve been together for a few years now.

Image credits: anon

#26

My Dad is super smart. Like… He’s a member of MENSA smart, has several patents he wrote when he was in his early 20’s, once asked a flight attendant a bunch of weird questions about the plane we were on so he could do some crazy math equations FOR FUN. You get the picture.

But his smarts were no match for little toddler me crying because my toy pony stopped making noise after I brought into the bathtub. Dad panicked, figured he could dry it out…. In the microwave. He did not seem to make the connection that in order to make those noises it had to have electronic (aka METAL) parta inside it. So pony goes in the microwave and a few seconds later it basically explodes into flames. We were both in shock for a few minutes. Surprisingly I stopped crying because it was so unexpected and then Dad taught me about how metal doesn’t go in the microwave.

Image credits: ThatKinkyLady

#27

Computer tech here, traveling for work, I checked into the hotel. My room is on the first floor. I get in the elevator and press 1. Nothing happened. I press it again a few times. The other guy in the elevator says “Hey buddy, you’re already on the first floor.”

“Oh… Yeah.”

I was really burned out.

Image credits: mike_e_mcgee

#28

Believed she could cure her ALS by having her fillings removed because they contained toxic metals that caused the disease. Spoiler: it didn’t work.

Image credits: Goldeverywhere

#29

A senior physicist trying to go his lab on the edge of an area with chemical hazard warning lights flashing. It turns out that it was a false alarm, but the readouts were a gaseous chemical leak of the “melt your face off” variety. The people he wanted to talk to had definitely already evacuated.

Image credits: gerkletoss

#30

One of my schools mates dad was a professor at a top university in economics. He did a lot of traveling giving speeches. Anyway, he decides to go walking on his own around a township in Johannesburg at some hour of night.

He was luckily picked up by a passing police car, and the officers were apparently having a meltdown at how stupid it was to be around that part of town and at that hour.

#31

Fall in love with the wrong person.

#32

One of the programmers at my work was trying to connect his computer to the projector in our conference room. He was trying to plug the HDMI cable into his Ethernet port and asked everybody in the room why he can’t connect to the projector.

#33

Read a horoscope.

#34

I knew a many of people completely ruin their future by storming the capitol. Totally smart people. I talked to one recently after avoiding contact with him and he told me about his life since then. He cannot get a job at all no matter what the job is he cannot get it. He recorded it all on his phone so of course the FBI found him pretty easily. Took his phone. But the weirdest thing: he no longer owns a phone. He has like this nokia looking government provided phone that does absolutely nothing but call and text. Of course all messages sent and received are monitored. I literally don’t know how he’s supposed to advance in life like I don’t know if he will ever find a job.

#35

My psych once asked me what caused my PTSD

As I was telling him, I started crying and shaking.

“Damn I didn’t think the question would make you cry” he responded.

THREE PHDS AND YOU DON’T THINK REMEMBERING THE CAUSE OF THEIR PTSD WILL MAKE SOMEONE CRY???

#36

Waiting hours in line for a store opening.

#37

I knew an orthopedic surgeon who fell for a pyramid scheme.

#38

Before banks were all electronic, my mom would write a check, knowing it wouldn’t clear before the welfare check rolled in. Always one day away from check fraud.

#39

Join a cult.

#40

In college, I saw a kid who, a year later was among the top recruits into PhD programs in his field, jump off the roof of our dorm building and break both of his legs. He celebrated getting his casts off by jumping off that same roof again.

#41

Go down the entire anti vax big pharma bad rabbit hole. Threw away the free bowl cancer screening kit our government sends out every two years once you turn 50.

Now, she is undergoing chemo for bowel cancer. (Fixed major typo).

#42

My brother is one of the smartest people I know, but he habitually eats the onion. Every now and then he comes at me with crazy storys, and then when he goes to show me his source, I can see him notice in real time that his source is the onion, and then he scrambles to find the real article the onion “spoofed” off it. Then he says “I can’t find it now, but this one was based on a real event that was slightly less weird!”.

#43

Support Trump. I’m not saying this in a cheeky way, necessarily, but I have friends and family that will do mental gymnastics to justify supporting Trump despite a *vast* amount of evidence piled up against him. They will then turn around and believe anything they hear about Biden and family without a shred of evidence to support their position. It’s baffling. I’m conservative, but the way Trump has hijacked my party with non-stop false claims is alarming. The way he is undermining trust in our electoral system just because his ego can’t handle losing is scary. Smart people in my life falling for it really confuses me. Like *how*?! Maybe my assumption that they are able to critically think is vastly inaccurate.

#44

NFTs and Cryptocurrency.

NFTs are 2/3 of a trading card: the silly picture and the monetary value. The missing part is the important bit of how they fit into their system, which is what gives the picture meaning and value.

Cryptourrency doesn’t have an important part of currency, which is someone legally guaranteeing its value by providing services for it. Faith is great but needs to be backed by reality in some way to be justified.

#45

Smoke.

Image credits: berkay_icc

#46

There’s a lot of guys who would never get laid if it wasn’t for intelligent women who make bad choices.

#47

Knew a guy who was a robotics enthusiast who was honestly on his way to working for a place like Boston Dynamics. However, he never seemed to realize that his GF was a manipulative psycho and stayed with her for years.

#48

Watch Fox News.

#49

Push on a pull door.

#50

Vote conservative.

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