I work at an escape room that has lots of different themed rooms. One of our most common is a jail room that has three sections to it. The first requires some math in order to get to the next one, but the only thing you need is a number on a wall and basic multiplication/addition skills.

A couple had started their day here not only by not completing the waivers that are legally required, but had us scrambling to find them since they somehow SNUCK INTO THE ESCAPE ROOM via a secondary entrance, which has a big and obvious sign to not use said entrance. After my coworker hunts them down and has them fill out the waivers, he starts their hour in the room.

The man proceeds to spend two minutes finding the pieces needed, and the other fifty-eight doing complex problems that would be at a high school/college level, in order to find a number he does not even know.

Despite several pushes to use a hint, he ignores my coworker along with his wife and persists in using things like perfect triangles and calculus for… one number on a wall.

They did not complete the escape room.

I worked as a game master in an escape room for a few years. In our western-themed room, we had a puzzle where players had to smell a series of spittoons and match their smells to info presented on Wanted posters around the room. 

One of the posters mentioned a cowboy who was in charge of dealing with cow manure. Of course, we didn’t have a spittoon that smelled like manure, because it’s no fun being stuck in a room for an hour with something that smelled like manure. 

Chatting in the operations room one day, I mentioned to my coworkers:

Me: “I’m so thankful that none of our spittoons smell like manure.”

One of my coworkers, a self-indulgent king of mansplaining, chimes in:

Coworker: “A manure spittoon wouldn’t be that bad. It’s used in tons of different types of foods.”

Not exactly sure what he meant, I decided to do some research just in case there was something I didn’t know. It was no surprise that I found nothing to support his claim. Later, he adds:

Coworker: “Manure has a sweet smell.”

At this point, I had to say something:

Me: “You do know that manure is cow dung, and it would stink up the room?”

He argued for a minute or two, his confidence completely unshaken, then pulled back in thought. He then admitted:

Coworker: “I was thinking of molasses, not manure.”

This idiot literally didn’t know the difference between s*** and sugar.

I briefly worked at an escape room, but I often tell people that job significantly lowered my faith in the average person’s critical thinking abilities. I’m not talking about being able to solve puzzles, either.

In one of the rooms, there was a lamp. The lamp was part of a puzzle (if you held several different pieces of paper together in the correct order up to the light, you’d get the code to a lock), and in the opening spiel to going into this particular room we’d tell people that they were welcome to turn any lights on and off, but please don’t unscrew the lightbulbs because we don’t want any broken glass, someone getting electrocuted, etc.

Picture this: me, barely five minutes after giving a group the rules and getting them into the game in a back office, wearing a headset and watching the group in the room over the monitors. Four of five people are huddled around the first clue. The fifth? Goes straight for the lamp, takes the lampshade off, and goes for the lightbulb.

Me: *Over the speaker system.* “Quick reminder, please don’t unscrew any lightbulbs! No puzzle will require you to do so.”

Dude: “Okay!”

Five minutes later, the same guy goes to unscrew the lightbulb again.

Me: “Again, for safety reasons, please don’t unscrew the lightbulbs. No puzzle will require a lightbulb to be unscrewed.”

Dude: “Yeah, sorry!”

Guess what he does again, ten minutes later.

Me: “Do not unscrew the lightbulbs. If we have to warn you again, we are going to have to stop the experience due to safety protocol being ignored.”

Different Player: “[Dude’s Name], sit the f*** down before you get us kicked out.”

Dude: *Backs up with his hands in the air.*

Dude doesn’t mess with the lightbulbs again, but as they’re walking out, he looks at me and goes:

Dude: “Sorry about the lightbulb thing, I thought you were telling us not to unscrew them as a red herring!”