20 People Share Things They Can't Believe They Had to Explain to Another Adult

We all have gaps in our knowledge. It's reasonable to have blindspots. But some people are severely lacking in inexcusable ways. This AskReddit thread, which asked, "What's something you can't believe you had to explain to another adult?" is truly shocking. Some adults, apparently, are unforgivably dumb when it comes to certain things. If you want to feel better about your own intellect, keep reading because oh boy.

Camleep had a heck of a time trying to explain how to make change when they were tipped with a $20 bill. "Was tipped a twenty-dollar bill to be split between myself and a coworker," they wrote. "I handed her $10 I had in my pocket and took the $20. She said it wasn't fair that I had $20 and she only had $10." 

They could not successfully explain to her that, since they gave her the $10 they had, they both got the same amount of money out of that $20 bill. She gave him the $10 back, took the $20 to the register, and exchanged it for two $10 bills to distribute them. She never got it. 

For some reason, mizboring has had to explain to someone that neither the North Pole or the South Pole is "the one that is always hot." Spoiler alert: They're both very cold. It's the equator that's the hot spot. 

Someone, unfortunately, wanted to paint their wall with a camo pattern. MeddlingDragon had to explain to this person that they don't sell "camo-patterned paint." In fact, that couldn't really exist. They'd have to buy several cans of different colors of paint and make the pattern themselves. I think maybe they were thinking of wallpaper? 

I cannot imagine JustSomeGirl31718's frustration as they tried to explain to someone "why a room below sea level on a cruise ship would not have a balcony." Although, another commenter wrote, it would be "cool/terrifying" if there was a balcony bubble hanging off the side of the boat.

Antares25 had to explain to someone that the Earth wasn't 2,019 years old. I just don't know. I just don't know how someone believes this. What about dinosaurs? They were around 65 million years ago? If the Earth didn't exist back then, where did the dinosaurs live?

Some people, it turns out, are very confused by the phases of the moon. Frugal_Midwestern said they had to explain to someone that the Earth has only one moon. "The new moon on the calendar every month confused her," they wrote. 

Brownale78 had to explain to his wife that pickles are made of cucumbers. I don't know what she thought they were made of. I don't know what she thought "pickling" was. Apparently, she didn't believe him, and still might not. 

Theawkwardmermaid had trouble explaining to their own mom that "Halloween has never and will never fall on Friday the 13th." This one is a little understandable because it would be so cool if that happened, but alas, Halloween is on the 31st of October every year. 

Poor chickenlaaag had to explain "to a teacher, in front of her class, that a penguin was a bird. I didn't want to be like that but she was adamant that if it didn't fly, it wasn't a bird." This was a teacher. That's very disheartening. Also, plenty of birds don't fly! What about ostriches?!

This one really made me mad. Mystyry had to explain to a woman that just because your dog weighs four pounds, it's not OK that for the dog to pee and poop all over the carpet at the office. Just because the poops and the pee puddles are tiny doesn't make them OK. I have a dog, and this is terrible dog ownership and terrible manners. 

I cannot even imagine what CommonCreator was thinking when they had to explain to someone that "there are more than six bones in the human body." I know. (She's off by exactly 200.) This woman thought the human body was made of only six bones: the head, the back, two arms, and two legs. I guess she never attended elementary school health class or saw a picture of a skeleton in her whole life.

When you are a restaurant server, you often have to deal with difficult customers and strange requests. Anon29485382 has had to, on multiple occasions, explain to people that "chicken can't be cooked 'medium rare.'" I worry for the state of humanity. Salmonella is real, people! Don't eat undercooked chicken!

This one is truly bonkers. Tsitsiripirsitsiri had to explain to someone that you have to "press up when you want to go up in the elevator and down if you want to go down. She thought you had to guess where the elevator was and if it was under you, let's say, you had to press up." It's hard to even wrap my head around this one. I don't know how this woman ever got anywhere.

Again, this one blows my mind. PracticalBrad had to explain to his neighbor, an adult woman, that their dog is part of their family and that they won't just let the neighbors have him. Yes. Apparently, the neighbors' kids wanted their dog, which they thought was cute and funny until the mom also decided that she wanted them to give her their dog every weekend since they get to have him all week. This woman clearly didn't understand how having pets works. Truly insane. 

Submarines are real. Yes, they really exist. They weren't just created for movies and Battleship. This fact is something that lacroixisbad had to explain to their old coworker once. I guess you don't really think about submarines often, so this one is kind of understandable.

Electro522 is out of their mind with frustration at having to repeatedly explain to people that New Mexico is a state in the United States of America and not a part of Mexico, which is a different country. I know it's confusing because "Mexico" is in the name, but there are 50 states in the union and New Mexico is one of them. 

Unfortunately, when you reenter the country from overseas, you can't bring fresh produce back. The_banana_standard explained to their friend that it's because you're not allowed to bring plants back when flying across borders. This conversation got much more complicated because "she thought it was absurd that I would consider a piece of produce (e.g. an avocado or mango) to be a plant. It became a pretty heated argument." Yeah, I can see why.  

Men need to be better educated when it comes to menstrual cycles and sex education. Csiddiqui's story proves this. She had to explain to a guy that she "couldn't just go to the bathroom and pee my period out to be done with it." Man, if we could do that, things would be very different. Very different, indeed.

Seahorses are incredible, bizarre, and very magical looking creatures, but they are, in fact, real, and not creatures made up by Disney. This is a fact that Maxmeow had to explain to their high school math teacher. Ouch. 

Get ready to cringe. Mranster's friend called his mom during the first week he was away at college to ask how to cook eggs. "He was having trouble working the shells in." Noooooooo! Please teach your children to cook an egg before they move out of your house!