Listen up, we’re going to let you in on a little secret: everybody has gaps in their knowledge! No matter how smart or experienced we are, there’s at least one thing that slips through the cracks. You know, that awakening moment or fact that is so painfully obvious, it catches us by surprise and makes us wonder how we managed to breezily move through life without acquiring such basic information.
But the good news is that it’s never too late to learn. Luckily for us, anonymous Redditors are setting out to teach us about these little things and life-changing bits of wisdom to save us from any future embarrassment. In several ‘Ask Reddit’ threads, thousands of people stepped forward to reveal the common things they realized at a hilariously late age, and they didn’t hold anything back.
We at Bored Panda have gone through the community to gather some of the best responses about obvious things that apparently were not evident enough. Enjoy reading through these illuminating stories and hit upvote on your favorite ones. Keep in mind that this is a shame-free and safe space, so if you have had any blind spots you recently discovered, be sure to let us know about them in the comments. We’d love to hear them!
Psst! If you’re in the mood for even more common things that people somehow missed, check out our previous pieces about them here, here, and here.
#1
I had two uncles when I was growing up who did everything together, both had YMCA-style moustaches, never had any girlfriends, and lived together with three cats.
Didn’t realise they weren’t just close friends until I was sixteen. “Oblivious” doesn’t even come close.
Image source: [deleted], Ricardas Brogys
#2
i couldn’t swallow pills until a month ago and when i finally did it my mom applauded me with tears in her eyes and wrote it down in my baby book. i’m 23.
Image source: [deleted], Christina Victoria Craft
#3
My dad once told me that the word “gullible” isn’t in the dictionary. 18 years later, I got the joke.
Image source: demolitiondubz, Houcine Ncib
#4
So a little back story first. I was a really annoying and persistent child. My mother used to tell me that I couldn’t accompany my parents out to dinner because “children aren’t allowed in restaurants.”
Fast forward 20 years and my girlfriend and I are out to eat. When a child runs by being a little shitball I say, “Remember when children weren’t allowed in restaurants?”
No…nobody does.
Image source: pooveyfarms, Rod Long
#5
I thought orgasm was a nice word for fart when I was 10. Told my mom I had so many orgasms that my stomach hurt.
Image source: [deleted], Keren Fedida
#6
I went to Catholic schools growing up. Other kids went to public schools. I thought there were two religions: Catholic and Public.
Image source: [deleted], Constanza S. Mora
#7
As a kid my uncle would play this joke where he would put his hand on your head and make like a jellyfish squeezing your head a little, and say “this is a brainsucker, know what it’s doing? Starving!”
I would always laugh but did not get it until I was like 25
Image source: patinaYouUgly, Henry Söderlund
#8
I don’t know why but whenever someone mentioned that a piece of furniture (or often the dashboard of a nice car) was walnut, I kind of thought they meant the nut and shells all crushed up and smoothened and I wondered how they did it. Then, in my thirties, I realised they probably make it from the tree. Felt like a right walnut that day.
Image source: livid54, YUSUF ARSLAN
#9
that I couldn’t drink my problems away and that drinking was the problem.
4 years sober
Image source: Feels2old, thom masat
#10
That setting boundaries is a necessary part of life and whoever calls you “rude” because of it has a problem.
Image source: tropicalzhu, John Bussell
#11
I always thought that if a guy didn’t hold his penis while he was peeing, that it would whip around like a fire hose.
Image source: [deleted], Tim Wildsmith
#12
That the opposite sex does not owe me anything for my kindness.
Image source: The_e-Detective, Sung Jin Cho
#13
There is a difference between “dish soap” and “dishwasher soap.”.
I was a rookie in the fire house and put the dishes into the dish washer after morning oats and lunch. I proceeded to the load the dish detergent tray with the same soap that I was using to scrub the dishes in the sink…poor choice.
We wind up running a few calls in the afternoon on the engine. When we finally get back to the station and I’m restocking/wiping the rig down, my captain walks out and asked if I started the dishwasher. I said yes. Then we proceeded to go into the kitchen where there was literally a three feet deep sea of bubbles in the kitchen. The engineer and firefighter on duty thought it was hilarious, as did my captain, but being the rookie, I was embarrassed as hell. I opened a door to the outside and used our ventilation fan to blow as much of the suds as I could out the door. After restarting the dishwasher, more of these bubbles started coming out of the dishwasher. I had to rinse that dishwasher out so many times to get rid of all of the residue from the dish soap. The crazy part is, I didn’t put that much soap into the machine.
And that, kids, is how I earned the nickname, “Bubbles.”
TLDR: Don’t put dish soap into a dishwasher…dishwasher soap only.
Edit: I was 21 when this happened.
Image source: fireslayer17, Mohammad Esmaili
#14
As a young child, I would tell my father, “Dad, I’m hungry.” He would stop whatever he was doing, extend his hand, and say, “I’m Bill.” It infuriated me. For years this went on.
One day, I say, “I’m tired.” He responds his usual response and I begin to say, “Daaaaa…..Oh! Oh my god! I GET IT!”
There are very few times I’ve seen my dad laugh that hard. I was 18.
Image source: dianasaurusmex, Marcela Rogante
#15
Until i was 19 and away at college i did not know that milk curdles or bread molded. I grew up in a family of 8 and we went through that stuff so fast.
Image source: Trugem6, Helena Jacoba
#16
Tasmanian devils are not made up by Looney Tunes
Image source: [deleted], Lottie Corin
#17
Fruit Loops are all the same flavor. I was 27, and I still remember the shock of finding out Toucan Sam had been lying to me my whole life.
Image source: sfw8580, Etienne Girardet
#18
Octopuses have BEAKS
Edit: OK NERDS “OCTOPI” ISN’T THE ONLY TECHNICALLY CORRECT TERM AND I’M NOT CHANGING IT.
Image source: T33n_T1t4n5, Serena Repice Lentini
#19
when i was about 9 my mother told me that a slut is a woman who likes to have fun. i started describing myself as a slut and i did for about a year or 2
Image source: adhdgf, Timothy Meinberg
#20
That driving with the light on in the car was not illegal. I remember my mom saying that as a child.
Image source: knight_ofdoriath, Erik Odiin
#21
Oh this question was meant for me.
I was 16 years old when I learned “flooriting” was not a word.
I grew up watching a LOT of SpongeBob and it was my favorite show. In the show, SpongeBob always fails his driving test because he will always “floor it” instead of driving slowly. When I was little I thought that “floorit” was a single word that meant to go fast and always assumed that someone could be “flooriting” or going very fast.
Fast forward to driving school. I’m in the car with the instructor and another student. I’m driving slowly on the highway and someone aggressively passes me. I made some nervous comment like “man, he’s really flooriting!” And the car just gets really quiet for a second. Then the other student in the car goes, “flooriting? What?”
And that’s when I realized. It all crashed down on me at once. FLOOR IT. It was two different words. It meant putting the gas pedal on the floor. I was shook. I kinda gasped and couldn’t even respond because I was overwhelmed.
It’s been 8 years and I still have never had such a strong, sudden realization of anything. And secretly I still kinda use “flooriting” in my head sometimes.
Image source: greenoctopusink, JESHOOTS.com
#22
An old co worker was 21 or 22 when he discovered that Ponies aren’t just juvenile horses, but like another thing entirely. He spent an entire day walking up to anyone he could find going “Hey did you know” it was hilarious.
Image source: CGY-SS, Tim Green
#23
I was like 10 when I found out I’m Indian. From India. Little kid me always thought it meant I was Native American and I told people as much until around third grade when I found out that India is a country.
Image source: DimensionalNet, Prashanth Pinha
#24
It took me 10 years and $20,000 to figure out how credit cards were supposed to be used.
Image source: bangersnmash13, Anna Shvets
#25
That narwhals were real. I genuinely thought they were myth until I saw them on a David Attenborough documentary.
Mind. blown.
Image source: ArtemisArt, NOAA Photolib Library
#26
I just recently learned that when you buy a stick deodorant, you can remove the little plastic protective cover by just rotating the feed wheel at the bottom. You DON’T need to use your teeth like a fucking animal.
Image source: Captain_Hampockets, Charisse Kenion
#27
Black people don’t have an extra muscle in their leg that makes them better at sports. (I grew up in a very racist small Kansas town.) Was actually taught that by a fifth grade teacher. Found out in college when my ignorance made me look like a bigot.
Image source: Broncos_Fan, Philippa Rose-Tite
#28
At seven years old, I realized that the moon is not the back of the sun.
A few years later, it turns out that no matter how good you are to your cat, it doesn’t grow up to be a dog.
Image source: Sparky62075, Ganapathy Kumar
#29
I didn’t know how to write in print until my first year of college. Up to that point, I only learned cursive, and my teachers were so happy that someone willingly used cursive that they just went along with it.
Image source: Hugh_manateerian, RODNAE Productions
#30
I asked my senior year drama teacher if I could go to the nurse because I just queefed in the bathroom. Learned the hard way that’s not same as throwing up.
Image source: datboyEVZ, Adhy Savala
#31
Prima Donna is not Pre Madonna.
Image source: iremovebrains, chrisweger
#32
The meaning of birthday suit. I was 26 at the time.
Image source: the_meat_n_potatoes, Christian Bowen
#33
the end pieces of a loaf of bread keep the bread fresher, longer, so you should not eat them until the very end of the loaf.
This I learned at 52.
Image source: The_Patriot, Fredrik Rubensson
#34
I was deep into my teens when I realized it’s “make ends meet” instead of “make end’s meat”. I always visualized it as procuring the last bit of food you could in tough times. Wrong!
Image source: um8medoit, Chris-McKee
#35
That the delete key on the keyboard deletes to the right of the cursor. Backspace deletes to the left and I would always move the cursor to hit backspace instead of just hitting delete.
Image source: BetsyPeachBucket, Ujesh Krishnan
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