Unless it’s a reality TV show, the people you see on TV are all actors.

Their job is to play make believe all day and pretend to have jobs, lives, and families that are not their own.

This is obvious, right?

Not to the woman in this story.

She doesn’t seem to understand what an actor actually does.

Let’s read the whole story.

“He’s not a doctor.” “Yes he is, I saw him on TV.”

So I’ve had a friend since college who’s a great guy.

I love him to pieces, but I’ve occasionally considered ending the friendship because his wife is so jarringly dumb.

For the life of me I do not know what he gets from her.

Ok, I do, she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in real life.

But even still, I don’t know how he does it.

She’s sweet, she means well, but there are sandwiches more intellectually stimulating.

The dumb lady stopped by and met one of OP’s friends.

A while back I had a friend visiting, “Camden,” and she was dropping her kids by to hang out with mine.

I invited her to stay for a bite to eat because yes she’s exquisitely dumb, but she’s perfectly friendly.

Camden’s been trying to break into acting and he recently had a bit part on a TV medical drama.

So I brought it up, saying, “Camden just recently had a small role as a doctor on this show.”

She went “Ahhh, that’s so exciting! Congratulations! That must not be easy, to get a job there. So, what kind of doctor are you?”

And he explained, “Oh, it was a very minor role, I didn’t get a speciality or anything, I didn’t even get a name.”

They thought she was making a joke.

And she laughed and went, “Well, we all feel that way when we first start, regardless of what job. Just keep working hard, and you’ll get all that stuff over time. But don’t sell yourself short! It’s not easy to be a doctor.”

And he took the compliment and went into how he went about playing the role, the body language he tried to adopt for the intensive care unit, that sort of stuff.

Then she cut him off and went, “Actually, you know what, if you wouldn’t mind, my son has actually had this oblong cyst developing on the small of his back for a couple weeks now. I’d really appreciate if you could take a look.”

So we both laughed, thinking she was joking, and I was impressed with her uncharacteristically high level joke.

It’s getting awkward.

But then she actually started to call her son over.

It’s just like her to start a funny joke and then take it way too far.

Camden, confused and weirded out by the whole thing, started saying, “Oh, no, uh… heh… they didn’t teach us any medical stuff for the part. I can’t, like, help you with this.”

I jumped in and changed the subject, but she left shortly after.

It wasn’t a joke.

I’d long since given up on trying to explain to her why some jokes are funny and others are not, so I thought I’d let it be, even though she seemed kind of miffed when she left.

Later she came back to pick her kids up, and by then Camden had gone home.

As she was leaving she remarked, “You know, it was very rude of your friend not to at least look at my son’s cyst. It would have taken him, like, ten seconds. I hate how doctors think they’re above helping anyone unless they’re getting a check. Didn’t they take an oath to always help anyone who needs medical advice or something?”

So, as I processed the pure bitterness in her voice, I realized she genuinely and truly thought Camden was a medical doctor.

She tried to explain, but the lady still didn’t get it.

So, convinced I must be misunderstanding her, I further reiterated, “No, no, he’s an actor.

He played a doctor.

On that show. You’ve seen the show.”

(It’s not a small production, it’s like Grey’s Anatomy or House, everyone knows of it.)

And, even angrier now, she said “Of course I have, I know all about it. It’s one of the best hospitals in the country, why do you think they put it on TV? Being in the spotlight like that, you’d think he’d try and be a little more professional with people. That’s all I’m saying.”

The surreal mix of entitlement and delusion in her statement left me dumbstruck and I decided I must be misinterpreting this somehow, because there was no way any grown adult who votes, drives, works, and has kids of her own is that stupid, not even her, so I just let her leave rather than risk offending her or embarrassing myself.

Camden wasn’t too surprised.

As soon as she was gone I called my friend, her husband, to try and catch him before she was home. I relayed the whole series of events to him, and his response?

“Oh that. Yeah, it’s a problem. But it’s not entirely her fault. Often times those shows use stories ripped from the headlines of the actual news, you know? So you can see why she gets mixed up sometimes.”

She bumped into Camden at my anniversary party not too long later and asked him, with genuine concern, if a character on the show who’d been in an accident—again, on the show—was recovering well.

He tried telling her in plainer terms, “I don’t… work there. I’m not a doctor. I just played one that one time.”

He was not expecting this response.

And she said she was so sorry to hear he’d been let go, and where was he working now?

So, if you wonder how our country ended up where we are, know that she has a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college and holds a job with several subordinates and partial responsibility over our city’s water supply.

So.. advocate for education reform whenever you can, and enjoy these twilight years of the great American experiment.

If she ever gets the chance to visit the set of a TV show, her mind will be blown!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Say it’s not true!

This person believes people can be this dumb.

This person wouldn’t have been able to handle talking to her.

Definitely don’t let her homeschool!

This person shares a story about a similarly dumb girl.

Just because you saw it on TV doesn’t mean it’s real.

This is the weirdest story.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a rude customer who got exactly what they wanted in their pizza.