Parents don't have the easiest job in the world; they have to not only keep us alive for the first 18 years of our lives, but they also have to try to teach us to be decent and functional human beings. Unfortunately, they aren't immune to the same really bad decisions and dumb ideas that plague all of us, and that can make their job a heck of a lot harder along the way.
Reddit user SittingOnTheToilet82 asked:
"Kids, when did you realize your parents might be terminally stupid?"
This Hurts Me Physically
I asked my mom for Super Mario All Stars on the Super Nintendo for my 8th or 9th birthday. She had no idea what I was talking about, so I explained what the game was. For those who may not know, it had all the original NES Mario games, Super Mario World, and one other Mario game that I think was previously unreleased. The SNES was still new, so games were expensive, but that was literally all I had asked for so I was fairly confident.
A couple of weeks went by and I didn't think really think much about it. On my birthday, I came home from school to a big wrapped box, much bigger than the game. I tore into it and opened up the box to find an old Nintendo. Next to it were cartridges for the first 3 Mario games. I was so confused.
Mom: "It's exactly what you wanted!"
Me: "...it is?"
Mom: "Yes! I took your Super Nintendo and to the swap meet and traded it in for the games that you wanted!"
It's been over 20 years and she hasn't gotten any better.
Edit: Thank you kind stranger!
Wow
Finally a story I can tell. Every Friday my mother goes grocery shopping. It's a block away and she usually drives there. On this particular day after she finished shopping she decides to walk back.
The next morning she wakes me and my father up to let us know her car was stolen. Cops come, we fill out paperwork and in the meanwhile she gets a rental car.
That's not even the best part. The following Friday she drives again to the grocery market and parks right next to her "stolen" car which is a champagne colored Mitsubishi Diamante(not such a common car/color). She comments how similar the car looks like hers but makes nothing of it.
A few days later the cops call us to let us know the car is in the grocery store's parking lot 1 block away.
Yea...I got plenty of other stories but that's probably the best one.
This Teacher Gets It
When I was in 4th grade, my mother insisted helping with my homework for some reason. I was always a smart kid. I never needed help but she forced me to let her help. She proceeded to redo my math and spelling homework and I failed both assignments. I told her those answers were wrong and she fought me on it.
When I got to school I cried and told the teacher my mom made me put wrong answers and I told her I knew the right ones but my mom forced me to let her help.
The teacher laughed, took my paper and asked me the questions. after I got two right immediately she marked everything on the page wrong and gave it back to me. She told me not to worry she put 100% in the grade book she just wanted me to show that one to my mom.
¿Porque No Los Dos?
My dad crashed his car at 8am, on his way to work, because he was surprised at a naked woman streaking across the road.
When the police turned up and asked what happened, he explained that he ended up crashing as he wasn't sure if he REALLY just saw a naked women, or if he was still drunk from the night before.
And that is how he lost his drivers license, because oddly enough, there was a naked woman, AND he was still drunk!
Nice
In high school, grades were posted online. Dad wanted to check how poorly I was doing. I told him the internet is closed because it was after 5pm.
Getting It From Both Parents
My dad doesn't believe in carbon monoxide poisoning. My mom can't use the decimal point on a calculator.
Edit: Dad thinks carbon monoxide is a scam to sell detectors and appliances. I rented a place from my parents that had an old heater and it leaked the first time I used it. My roommates and I woke up feeling horrible. By sheer luck, I realized what it was. The fire department had to threaten my dad to get him to fix the problem.
Mom likes to do the calculator thing her way, if you ask why. I think she gets confused when the last zero disappears. But math without it is actually worse (obviously) and some of my most vivid childhood memories are her screaming at people on the phone because her numbers didn't match her balance. It was a monthly thing.
Edit 2: Today, my mom asked me how much a gram weighs.
Don't Mix Plasma With Accelerants!
Years ago I was building a potato cannon, which my father was uninterested in thinking it was just stupid... until he saw me working on it in the garage. I have the cannon in the vice and had just put in an electronic barbecue igniter and wired it to some bolts inside to get a good spark. Suddenly he's very interested. I had just managed to get a perfect gap with a strong arc and he says "wait, let go of the button for a second" and sprays Quik Start (basically aerosol ether) and goes "okay, hit it now!"
Nothing happened. Both ends of the cannon are open so it's just a tube and the quick start he sprayed just dissipated too quick. "Okay, hold the button for a sec", i'm not even thinking about what he's about to do at this moment, and he aims the spray right at the live arc and created a fireball that came straight for his face, singing his one eyebrow and corner of his moustache.
I can't imagine what he thought was going to happen.
Doesn't Google Own The Whole Internet?
My mom wanted to drive to the new Google office building to complain about her Yahoo email account. I barely managed to convince her that they are different companies.
Edit: thanks for the upvotes, comments & Silver. My mom is very smart but lacks common sense. I spend most of my time trying to convince her not to do stupid things. Perhaps I should just let her do it (and film it).
Sometimes There's No Helping Them
My mom got a large inheritance, used it to remodel her house she hadn't paid off then took a line of credit out on it months after the housing crash.
This is the single stupidest thing I have ever seen someone do with so much planning involved. It took months for this dumb plan to happen and I tried to dissuade her every step of the way. It's one thing to put a fork in an electrical socket, at a totally different thing to hire a carpenter to build a house, hire and electrician to wire it, go to target to buy a fork, then put it in the socket.
How Did She Not Notice The Styrofoam As Soon As It Hit Her Teeth?!
My mother is the living embodiment of the phrase "I reject your reality and substitute it with own".
She once proclaimed that she didn't have to file taxes because she was a widow. When we pointed out that she could get audited she then doubled-down and said that the IRS only audits businesses, not people.
I once hurt my hand and asked for some money to go to urgent care and she told to "just go to the emergency room, it's free".
She thinks passive-aggressive is a term I made up.
She also once ate almost an entire block of a candy over a period of a week that had a thin layer of styrofoam on it before realizing the styrofoam wasn't part of the candy.
