It can be quite easy to misuse objects if you're not familiar with the design. Even things that are obvious in hindsight – for example, the tab on a soda can being used to hold a straw, are rarely known until they are pointed out.
However, some things are obvious full stop. Like chucking your clothes in a microwave to dry, or ironing a cheese sandwich. This list, compiled by Bored Panda, is a series of times when people totally misused common household objects, either knowingly or not, with hilarious consequences. Scroll down below to check out what we mean, and tell us your own stories in the comments!
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I once had a friend casually say “you know how when you run out of toilet paper, so you just use a sock or whatever?” No the f**k I do not, Sandra, Jesus Christ.
Coworker decided to boil her sausages (her lunch) in the office's electric kettle, therefore causing it to overflow, to leak on the electrical outlet and to cause a blackout for our whole entire floor (150 people). Not to mention the murder / baptism (?) of our brand new carpet.
I was doing a internship in a small office and the engineer (yeah he is engineer) needed to take out the trash from the trash bin (it had a plastic bag with the trash) . He open a new plastic bag (I though it was to replace the old full one) and asked my help to hold it while he threw all the trash from the bin to the new plastic bag instead of just take the trash from the old plastic bag and replace for the new one. I was so confused...
I did not witness it but my grandma had used a vibrator as a massaging stick for her back pain because the box had stated 'massage stick'. The way we found out was hilarious though.
When we visited her one day she started telling how she went to the shop where she bought her massage stick and asked the boy to change the batteries. She did not understand why the boy had refused and why he acted weird. Then she asked my mom if she could change the batteries and gave my mom the vibrator. I still feel sorry for the kid behind the counter at the shop.
Walked into my sister's room and she had maxi pads laying everywhere with Barbie's on top. She's like, look at all these Barbie sleeping bags I found.
I caught a friend of mine rubbing one of the antibacterial hand wipes from KFC all over his friends chicken. The little packet said 'a hint of lemon' on it, and he thought that he was meant to flavour the chicken with it...
Using my fabric shears to cut wire and plastic packaging. And now he's butthurt that my new fabric shears have a padlock through the handles.
When I was a kid, my mother used a pasta spoon to clean the cat litter box. I thought this was normal because it was the only way I'd ever seen it used. Then, years after our cat died, I was eating dinner at a friend's house when the mom grabbed the same kind of utensil to serve spaghetti. I freaked out and shouted "why are you serving food with a poop scoop?!" They were so confused and I couldn't eat my dinner because I was so disturbed.
I caught a roommate cleaning our bathroom counter top with the toilet brush.
He's a doctor now.
Man, I threw a major fit when I saw a visiting relative get my $100 chefs knife to screw a screw.
What's the big deal? - he asked. Well... if you gotta ask...
Ye. Get this. Been married twice, and both husbands twisted the sharp pointy ends of ALL my best sharp kitchen knives. I know I am not alone here. We did have toolkits, but they had to go to the shed. ALL THE WAY TO THE SHED. Lol. Memories eh?
My wife once watched a girl at work stick a ball of aluminum into a microwave with her instant ramen during a break. She said, "the Sparks are just because it's heating up faster," as if it were common knowledge.
My mom's coworker (or maybe even her ex boss) used the plastic page protectors for office binders in a wrong way. The page protectors have only one opening on top as everyone knows, but she would always turn them upside down and then used a billion of paperclips on the bottom to prevent papers from falling out.
Girlfriends brother using my $125 chef's knife to chop ice.
I did make a scene.
got rid of both.
I'm imagining a gruesome kitchen knife murder now. Was this written from prison?
This was a story that a colleague told me that happened on the day I was off back in the day I used to work for a hotel.
Apparently some Chinese guests came to reception to complain that the microwave wasn't working. We didn't have microwaves in the room, so when coming to inspect the problem, she found out that they were trying to microwave a pizza... in the room's safe.
Not really an everyday thing unless youre a tradesman, but ive seen wayyy too many people try to pound screws in with a hammer.
I once caught my sister trying to hammer a screw into a wall using a plastic hair brush.
My friends kid decided to make a grilled cheese sandwich with an iron on the couch. Burned a nice iron shaped hole in the couch. Kid was 15 at the time.
When I was very young I used to think that you had to wedge your entire butt into the toilet seat when you have a s**t. Moment of learning came when we went on holiday somewhere and were exploring the house, I saw the toilet with a much smaller seat than ours and said "that's so small, how am I gonna fit in that to poop?" Needless to say it provided some enjoyment for my parents
A friend of mine was a first generation migrant to my country and her parents had a dishwasher in their house, but due to never having had one in their home country, saw it as a wasteful appliance to use. So they stored clean pots and pans in it, just like another cabinet.
My grandmother hated her dishwasher because it made so much noise, so she never used it and stored her clean pots and pans in it.
sometimes my husband uses it to air dry dishes and things
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I use mine as a dish drying rack. I even own a higher end one. Actually use it as a dishwasher about once every two months.
Our dishwasher broke but we never used it much anyway so now we use it as a drying rack.
Load More Replies... Not so unusual. Done it myself. Same as using oven to store stuff.
Funny they saw it as wasteful when dishwashers use around 3-5 times LESS water than doing dishes manually by hand.
Studies have shown that newer dishwasher actually use less water than hand washing.
And how much electricity? I don't use any electricity to do the washing up. Also, the soaps you need to use are extremely harmful for the environment AND they also destroy the plates, glasses and cups. You can't wash good stuff in the dishwasher.
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We currently do this with the dishwasher in our rented apartment since it doesn't work just like half the equipment. It's one of those dumb tiny dishwashers that stop working after 3-5 years if you are lucky. We decided that if we ever buy a dishwasher again, it would be from the large ones you turn on only once a day or so, since their producers seem to be more environmentally responsible and they don't make their products so that they crash after 6 months of use.
“Only“ once a day?! How many people live in your household? 10?
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My grandma came from Slovakia and put cleaning supplies in it along with zip-lock bags.
I mean, I guess not using it saves electricity and gives you more storage space
Yeah, but what little you save in electricity, you spend in water. Dishwashers actually use substantially less water than doing them manually...the last study I read, hand washing used about about 5 times the water that a dishwasher did.
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We mostly use ours as a rack to let the dishes dry. It's at least 15 years old - was in the house when we bought it - so is probably not the most energy efficient model. It takes 44 mins to do a regular wash. You can handwash all those dishes in 15-20 mins with a lot less electricity and water.
My friend's mother used theirs to store dirty laundry, before washing :)
My former brother in law did that too. It's no wonder he was in his mid 40's and still a bachelor.
I do that now- but mine died a gruesome death ages ago and i have never bothered to replace it..
My dad bought one for my mom, even though he hated them. At the time there was just the two of them and it took a week to fill it up, so they'd run out of utensils, dinnerware, cookware, etc. He started washing everything by hand and the dishwasher became a giant and very expensive place to store bread and snacks.
I let my dishes dry in my drier (drier being turned off, mind you) and let my cloths just air-dry. I have wet dishes everyday and a tiny kitchen, but only wash once a week or so.
My grandma used her freezer as cabinet. I think the toaster lived there.
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If you live alone, it pretty much is a wasteful appliance - yet perfect for a dish rack if you have limited storage. I give them a win. TONS of water used by these monsters.
My mom once used the top rack to dry big romaine leaves she’d washed. My husband walked into the kitchen, saw the open dishwasher with the leaves and thought she’d run the romaine through a wash cycle.
I once had one in a flat I rented. I used it twice in a year and a half as it was not worth it just for me. I'd have to wait about week before I had enough stuff to put in it and I'd rather have clean things.
I'd love a dishwasher but I would be afraid of the crusty food attracting bugs.
my mom still does that I asked her why recently and she says it wastes too much water I never thought about that now I use it for the same reason too except for when I cut myself some slack
My family does this with plastic bags in our dishwasher. Both my parents are from Mexico.
My mother used her dishwasher to store bills, extra paper towels, napkins and who knows what else in there.
For a long time we couldn't afford a better dishwasher than the one that came with the house. It didn't clean very well so we never ran it. It was useful, however, as a dish drying rack, so we'd put wet, freshly rinsed dishes in it and they dry overnight and we'd put 'em away the next morning.
We store all kinds of things in our dishwasher. There are only two of us so I have never used it to actually wash dishes. Much better as a storage cabinet.
Mother in law do the same, while my wife can start the machine with just 2 cups in.
We only use ours a a dish drainer. Washing by hand gets the dishes clean every time. Not necessarily true with a dishwasher.
I used to live 2 doors down from the neighborhoods "crazy lady' and she would often vaccuum her grass after it was mowed.
I didn't witness this, but I read it in a newspaper article a few years ago.
It was this article about life-hacks, and such, and basically what happened was, there was this "hack" going around about how, if you put your toaster on its side, slide in two slices of bread with cheese on top and toast them, you get toast and grilled cheese all at once.
Apparently, this lady tried it and the melting cheese set her toaster on fire. The whole thing went up and nearly burned her entire house down.
My high school spanish teacher would use her computer’s disk tray as a shelf for her coffee mug
I once witnessed a dude washing out condoms and hanging them to dry.
My dad's old boss asked a dishwasher at work to wash his car. One hour later the boss goes to look at his brand new BMW and the guy had used a pot scourer ( that metal thing used to clean stuff dunno if that's right word "
Needless to say my dad's boss screamed and that guy ran so far he was never seen again.
Some people just don't know how to say "no" with words, so they find other ways.
Saw a woman using an Oyster card (it’s a London bus pass the same size and material as a credit card) as a sort of spoon to eat a lasagna out of a Tupperware on the bus
I have a tiny computer that is extraordinarily powerful, fits in my hand, and has access to the sum total of all human knowledge since the dawn of time, and I use it to watch funny animal videos.
That's a line from a comedian, but he said we using it to watch funny cat videos & porn.
My wife routinely uses butter knives as flat screwdrivers. I once caught her using an ice cream scoop as a hammer. We've talked about it, I bought her tools. Now she keeps an old shitty butter knife in the back of the drawer for fast easy battery changes and uses a hammer as a hammer.
Used to work in a hotel as well. Several times we had Asian guests hang their clothes to dry from the fire sprinklers hanging from their room ceilings... this sets the sprinklers off and caused thousands of dollars of damage to multiple rooms each time it happened. One family was mad at US and wanted compensation for all their wet clothes and electronics. Maybe not applicable here, but we also had a foreign guest call 911 because they were out of tea bags in their room.
"we also had a foreign guest call 911 because they were out of tea bags in their room" - here in the UK, that's totally acceptable. But the question is... Did he get his tea bags???
When was the last time you put gloves inside the gloves box of your car?
One time I saw someone eat Cheetos with a fork. Does that count?
I eat many things with silverware to avoid getting dirty fingers, even though most people wouldn't do so, so why not cheetos?
I've seen quite a few times people re-dip knives as spoons in a Nutella jar and obviously lick it. It always grosses me out and once I see it I start refusing invitations for meals.Not that uncommon but utterly yucky!
i ate several times at a friends house, she puts her dishes down for the dog to lick. i can handle that, but the day i saw her putting them back into the cabinate , telling me the dog had cleaned them. was the last day i ever ate there....you have GOT to be kidding??!!
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I used my boyfriend's razor to cut the pilling off my hoodies. The razor blunted and I had to get him a new one :)
When the only tool you own is a hammer, everything else begins to look like a nail.
When the only tool you own is a hammer, you need to get a few more tools. XD
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Sometimes I wonder why we have developed so slowly as a civilisation, then I see things like this and remember.
Not really a misuse of anything, just somewhat odd. We have a second bathroom downstairs with a closet in it. We store food in it. So whenever you're on the toilet, you can stare at bottles of salad dressing and cans of chick peas.
Flushing the toilet causes and aerosol effect, landing fecal matter up to six feet from the toilet. I hope you all always close your toilet before flushing and the food is far enough away to avoid contamination.
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I brought an electrical kettle at work. My only colleague (I really had only one person to work with) made a homegrown herbal tea (i.e. big herbal branches) directly inside it. Then, he left the tea there for the whole weekend. Did not even apologize.
I work in an ER, we have had patients call 911 to complain about the wait times
I was once a patient in an ER across from a guy in because he had two fishhooks in his hand. He had tried to remove the first fishhook with the second fishhook.
Load More Replies... I had a roommate in college who asked if you had to empty the water out of the toilet to clean it. I was so very tempted to say yes....
Funny how people use coca cola for all sorts of things other than drinking. There are products made for cleaning toilets and removing rust that work a lot better!
It probably makes u eat it slower too so it'd be more filling....I wish I had your level of self control Lol!
Load More Replies... I was horrified when I saw my mother-in-law put a live gecko in the sink disposal and flip the switch on. 😳😳😳
Alright. I got one that happened to me. I was at a street cafe, and I ordered a cappuccino. It must have been thousands of coffees before this one in hundreds of bars/restaurants from the worst to the most luxurious, but this time it was the first time I got served a glass of water. A tiny glass. And I think to myself " ah that's nice... So you can keep the tablespoon clean after you mix the coffee"....so I placed the tablespoon in the glass after mixing. Sorry...
in our house we call push pins pockieys, said poke ees, and once in 3rd grade I found a push pin and said to my teacher "I found a pockiey!" SO embarrassing
I got a new outfit on my 7th birthday, wore it to school and told everyone all day I was wearing my birthday suit! No one corrected me XD
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I used my boyfriend's razor to cut the pilling off my hoodies. The razor blunted and I had to get him a new one :)
When the only tool you own is a hammer, everything else begins to look like a nail.
When the only tool you own is a hammer, you need to get a few more tools. XD
Load More Replies... Sometimes I wonder why we have developed so slowly as a civilisation, then I see things like this and remember.
Not really a misuse of anything, just somewhat odd. We have a second bathroom downstairs with a closet in it. We store food in it. So whenever you're on the toilet, you can stare at bottles of salad dressing and cans of chick peas.
Flushing the toilet causes and aerosol effect, landing fecal matter up to six feet from the toilet. I hope you all always close your toilet before flushing and the food is far enough away to avoid contamination.
Load More Replies... I brought an electrical kettle at work. My only colleague (I really had only one person to work with) made a homegrown herbal tea (i.e. big herbal branches) directly inside it. Then, he left the tea there for the whole weekend. Did not even apologize.
I work in an ER, we have had patients call 911 to complain about the wait times
I was once a patient in an ER across from a guy in because he had two fishhooks in his hand. He had tried to remove the first fishhook with the second fishhook.
Load More Replies... I had a roommate in college who asked if you had to empty the water out of the toilet to clean it. I was so very tempted to say yes....
Funny how people use coca cola for all sorts of things other than drinking. There are products made for cleaning toilets and removing rust that work a lot better!
It probably makes u eat it slower too so it'd be more filling....I wish I had your level of self control Lol!
Load More Replies... I was horrified when I saw my mother-in-law put a live gecko in the sink disposal and flip the switch on. 😳😳😳
Alright. I got one that happened to me. I was at a street cafe, and I ordered a cappuccino. It must have been thousands of coffees before this one in hundreds of bars/restaurants from the worst to the most luxurious, but this time it was the first time I got served a glass of water. A tiny glass. And I think to myself " ah that's nice... So you can keep the tablespoon clean after you mix the coffee"....so I placed the tablespoon in the glass after mixing. Sorry...
in our house we call push pins pockieys, said poke ees, and once in 3rd grade I found a push pin and said to my teacher "I found a pockiey!" SO embarrassing
I got a new outfit on my 7th birthday, wore it to school and told everyone all day I was wearing my birthday suit! No one corrected me XD
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