Ever tried to use a typical, everyday object and realize that somehow, you had a totally backwards idea of how it worked? These people saw the most hilarious examples!
[Source listed at the end of the article.]
One guy at a breakfast buffet got to the Bacon tray.
He took a pair of tongs and held them backwards, as in the part with which you are supposed to grab bacon, in his hand, pinched it closed so only a slit was left in between the two rods, trying to slide the bacon in between. I had to help him after watching this for 2 minutes. He was a grown man.
JitterJitter
I once saw someone trying to staple some pages together without a stapler. Just going at it with a single staple in hand.
macceronicheese
My family used a computer running Windows ’98 well into the mid-2000’s. When I got a new computer, I ‘upgraded’ the family with my old computer, which was still much more powerful than theirs.
My mother rang me 3 times in the next 2 weeks because she couldn’t find the power button. Why? Because the old computer had a big red power button and the new computer was ‘broken’ because it had a big blue power button IN THE EXACT SAME SPOT.
–VuDu–
Back in the 1990s when I tried to show my mother how to use my home PC she picked up the mouse and pointed it at the screen like a remote control.
boyforsale
My husband.
When we first moved in together, he decided to make mashed potatoes for dinner. Hed never before made mashed potatoes that didnt come out of a packet with just add water instructions, and all we had were real potatoes.
I come in from outside, and hes bashing the crap out of an uncooked potato with a rolling pin, ranting about how the stupid potato masher doesnt work.”
But it’s the thought that counts.
BrandNewOmelette
I worked with someone who genuinely did not know how to use paperclips. He would sort of bend them in half around pages. He was really embarrassed when someone called him out on not knowing and showed him how.
gardenmarauding
I once had a roommate who offered to help me make a fridge pie. We had both just moved in and didn’t have everything we needed yet, so I asked her to whip cream with a large fork, even showed her how to do it. I go to do something else for a few minutes, then turn to her to see if she’s done whipping the cream yet.
She was just moving the fork slowly back and forth an inch or so in each direction. In a straight line. When I turned to her, she complained that it’s not working, and that we really need an electric beater to whip cream. I giggled and said she has to do it really fast and larger strokes to incorporate the air and demonstrated again. She then threw the bowl and fork down in a huff and said, “Oh, I give up!” and stormed out of the kitchen.
It was the first warning sign, really…
yfunk3
I once watched someone try to light the base of a firecracker. As in, lighting the end without the fuse.
To be honest, its a bit of a miracle that the guy that did it is still in one piece.
phoenixgoldfire
I once dated a girl that was really sweet but just didn’t have much worldly experience. She had a sheltered upbringing that would occasionally result in hilarious misunderstandings. Anyways, I had cooked two or three times in a row so she decided that she would make her favorite recipe for dinner. She had forgotten a major ingredient so I drove to a store to get it.
Almost as soon as I pulled out onto the street I got a text: “Where’s the can opener?” I answered back, “Drawer with the spatulas and stuff. Red handle.” What I didn’t know is that she had only ever used an electric can opener. This was a manual can opener where you clamp it onto the rim of the can and twist a thing on the side.
When I got home, there had been a can massacre. Three cans had obvious battle scars where she had tried to figure out how how the can opener worked, one was face down on the ground with its contents everywhere, and the other appeared that it had been opened with a hammer. The reason I make this assumption is that there was a hammer in my utensil drawer covered in cream of mushroom soup.
She was crying in the bedroom. We ordered Chinese food or something that night.
Nevermind04
I once, as a child, thought that one of those long lighters for candles was a curling iron. Proceeded to burn the crap out of my ear and hair.
renegad3rogu3
Sometimes when I’m in a hurry I’ll start pulling my car door before I reach the handle and it sends me into a backwards stumble. Gotta look around to see if anyone was watching at those moments.
IGETPAIDFORTHAT
I remember sitting at a bus stop opposite a pair of escalators that were switched from the usual, with the left-hand one going up, and the right-hand one going down. Every third person went up the down escalator.
smileedude
At the pool, a friend of mine once picked up his towel, somehow got it stuck in the furniture, tore it in half lengthwise trying to get it free, then lost his balance and fell down the 3 steps from the deck to the ground.
thereally
A neighbor can’t figure out how to use his in-ground automatic sprinkler system.
He mows the sprinkler heads off with the lawnmower and wonders why there’s a “gusher” in the front yard when the system comes on.
Also, he can’t figure out how to cancel (or reset) the timer during periods of heavy rain. It’ll be pouring outside, and yet his sprinkler system keeps pumping out more water.
Back2Bach
My fiancee can’t use a toaster. It’s either lightly toasted or charcoal black. There is no in between. I’ve shown her numerous times. Same result.
FrontDeskGuy95
Not so much hilarious, but a great example of humans using logic without understanding the true meaning.
It was in Portugal, in Lisbon at a better than decent hotel. My wife and I were standing on the ground floor, waiting for the elevator. There was a couple, a man and a woman, in front of the elevator looking up at the floor indicator in a way that we presumed this was a new thing for them.
The man saw the elevator was above us and pushed the down button, thinking that would bring it down to him. The elevator came (with the arrow pointing down), and they got on but we didnt.
As the elevator left for the parking garage I pushed the up button. I still remember the look of mild confusion on their faces when we met again.
It was flawless logic, just not how elevators work.
Stephen-JK
When a friend and I were in Rome, we were in a restroom and we couldnt figure out how to turn on the sink. We looked for handles. We checked if it had a motion sensor. Nothing. Just when we were about to give up hope, I saw a small rubber dome under each sink. I decided to step on it and, voila, water.
The best part was that there was a man waiting to wash his hands who probably thought we were the two biggest fools in the world.
Zilphar
I wouldn’t necessarily call this a fail but more of a success. Went to the beach with family and my cousin was on watermelon duty. So she starts cutting the watermelons and says “man it is so hard to cut this.” I turn around and she’s using the wrong side of the knife but she had already cut the watermelon in like 4 pieces. She is known as not being the brightest person out there but still surprised at her super human strength.
MR_DoubleT
I once witnessed someone put milk and a tea bag into a kettle before boiling it. I could have intervened. I did not.
Raphael-dh
I know someone who was running late to work and his polyester polo shirt was still wet from the washer. What did he do? Put it in the dryer for five minutes? Use a hairdryer? No… He whacked it into the microwave and put it on for a couple of minutes. Nice and warm when he got it out… A trip to the emergency department and 2nd degree burns later… He was a changed man.
CounterproductiveMud
A friend of mine revealed that, when he first stayed away from home without parents, he thought an iron worked just by being a heavy metal thing to flatten clothes. He didnt realize you could turn it on to heat it up or anything.
R9_280x
When I was a kid, we would laugh when my mom would try to play Mario Bros on Nintendo and she would try to jump lifting up the controller. Now I try to play Nintendo Wii with my son, and he laughs because I forget to jump by raising up the controller.
NotVerySmarts
I work as an IT technician. This conversation, over and over again:
“Reboot your computer.”
“What does that mean?”
“Just turn the computer off and turn it back on again.”
5 seconds later.
“Ok, done.”
“Wait: that was quick.”
“I pressed the power button, it turned off and it came back on.”
“Are you pressing the power button on the monitor?”
“You didn’t say monitor. What’s a monitor?!”
“You seen the screen? Not that button. Press the power button the box that screen connects to.”
“On the modem?!”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Ok windows has that startup screen.”
“Fantastic, that’s what we needed.”
“You jerk, why have you wasted my time? You should have used the right words. It’s working now. I thought you were IT.”
I have to resist the urge to school them on the most basic parts of a computer.
expletive-expletive
My 90 year old grandmother was peeved at some other 70 year olds cooking for a church because they were trying to peel hard-boiled eggs with a vegetable peeler.
Photeus5
I was at my local burger joint waiting for my order when I saw a middle aged gentleman walk up to the soda machine with cup in hand. The was the usual kind of machine with a bunch of different fountain drinks, each with its own lever underneath the logo, where you press your cup against the lever to make soda come out. He placed his cup under the spout and pressed the logo part on top. Nothing came out. He presses harder. No soda.
Undeterred, he changes spouts to try a different soda. Maybe this one was out? Nope. He comes back to the original spout and pressed the top portion so hard with his entire hand that somehow the entire machine gets tilted for long enough for a few drops of soda to dribble out. He takes his cup with a few drops of soda and leaves.
may_ask_questions
Not someone else, but myself. I consistently fail at ripping cling wrap/tin foil correctly. In the case of tin foil I always always always struggle to rip it in the first place and then when I do, I leave a weird tail on the end of the roll instead of a clean line. Same with cling wrap but then it proceeds to cling to itself and NOTHING ELSE, so I wind up with a bunch of awkward balls of it. I’m just trying to cover my soup.
GiraffesOnABun
A corkscrew. When we were dating, my husband thought you just drove it in and struggled until you pulled the cork out through sheer physical strength (he’s a big dude). He managed to knock several things off the counter trying to open the bottle of wine until I went on Youtube for an instructional video (I wasn’t a wine drinker and had no idea how to use the damn thing myself) and got it open.
As it turns out, a lot of guys have no idea how to use corkscrews in their early/mid 20s. It was always funny watching them flail around while they refused help.
Cortoro