“They Were Being Serious”: 79 Times People Laughed Something Off And Got A Reality Check

Working a Govt IT/Comms project here in Australia.

A rate drop was about to be announced.

The kid in his late 20s who ran the project in my state (what kind in their 20s becomes a state manager???) says to us:

If our staff and contractors aren't willing to accept the new lower pay and TOW (ticket of work) rates, there are 1 billion people in India lining up.

That was in the early 2010s.

Here we are.

When someone in a history lesson asked if the Viet Cong thought it was racist that they were considered "gorilla" fighters.

Guerrilla.

You know when you laugh at something you shouldn't, and then if you try to say sorry you'd look like a really sarcastic [jerk]? It was one of those.

Should also say this wasn't like early on learning about Vietnam, this was a revision lesson about a month off from the exam.

I once came to my workingplace on a Monday at 7 o'clock and a colleague said: "Life is good"

He actually meant it.

My husband when he told me he wanted a divorce. Totally thought he was joking. I went to visit my family with the kids and the night I returned he said that. Weird thing is, his family was over and he did it in front of everyone. So surreal, I just didn't believe it.

My ex wife put fish sticks in one of her exs curtains fold. The smell got so bad he had to move out. Lost his entire deposit.
I thought she was making it up, but her sister confirmed.
Same woman also asked me if “the moon was the biggest planet in the galaxy, because it’s so big”.

I simply could not believe the Facebook medical advice during COVID.

An old coworker told me Obama was the antichrist. I thought she just didn't like him and was being hyperbolic. Nope, she was being completely literal about it.

I had to do community service for a school project in high school. I ended up doing it at a charity ran by multiple different faith churches that give furniture, and clothes to the needy for free.

It was during winter, and there was a lot of ice surrounding the building. The guy who ran the warehouse told me, and another guy to go get more sand from the dump because they ran out. While i was there for a school project, it was mainly adults doing court ordered community service for whatever crimes they committed.

The guy who i got paired with was an alcoholic that got a dui, and i could tell he wasn't all there. Didn't stop me from getting in a car with him against my better judgment though lol.

On the way to the dump, he started talking about a conspiracy he believed. The gist was basically our state government is hiding the fact that mountain lions exist in our state. He kept saying that the government was hiding their existence, and covering up mountain lion attacks.

I don't know why it mattered tbh, and why would the government hide it? It was one of the most insane things I've ever heard.

A woman stranger approached me in a supermarket, pointed to her temple and very seriously said, “Think about this - there’s an IF in life!” and then walked away.

Well, not sure if I didn't believe him, but I was in a mental hospital a year after getting off the streets where I was doing a ton of 4 dimensional math and there was this guy there who said he put his arm under a train to get SSD and retire in South America. I mean, he didn't have a left arm, so there was some evidence.

We were hiking in Lands End, San Francisco. One guy, late 50s, visiting from South California suddenly asked he group:

- What's that big red structure over there?
- Which one?
- There, those two large reddish towers.
- Ahah, good one Bob.
- (Annoyed) No, I'm serious, what are they?
- ... That's the Golden Gate Bridge, Bob.

I had a guy tell me oil is still being made. Like crude from plants buried before fungus and bacteria developed to eat them.

He thinks fossil fuels are renewable and being made inside the earth.

“We don’t teach our daughter to share. Her things are hers why should she have to share?”

Talking about a three year old.

"'Round here, we just call it Monday."

He was referring to Martin Luther King day.

I had only been in Florida for a couple of months by that time.

Gonverment causes earthquakes for money or something like that.

I had a patient in my ambulance one day that told me that half of mental illnesses was actual demonic possession and the cure was prayer, but that if the person praying didn't have "true faith" then it wouldn't work.
Later that night I had a young woman with no prior history that had shut down after a severe manic episode. She didn't respond to any attempts to communicate and just stared through you. She was sitting on the stretcher and I sat in the seat behind her doing paperwork. I don't know why but I started saying the Our Father. Halfway through she was flipped over facing me and said "They said don't do that."

At a dog park in LA few years ago. It was night time and there was just me and a guy with his puppy. My dog was like 2. The two dogs were playing and the guy walked to the middle of the park and my dog ran into his leg. He said "you should be more careful with your dog. He's dangerous." I laughed because I figured he must be joking about two puppies playing and running into him while he stood in the middle of the park looking at his phone. He started getting more and more irritated. He said I was "lying."

I basically just said he was being ridiculous. He started recording me and saying I was denying that my dog hurt him. I think he was trying to scam me somehow but I told him he was a stupid [jerk] and we left the park. Very bizarre interaction.

That they don’t clean up their cat puke. They always let their dog eat it, and when the dog got too old and blind and deaf to hear the cats puke, they’d lead the dog to the pile so it would eat it.

In the Marines a new guy to the unit told us he liked to watch his wife with other men.

He really was not kidding.