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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/Material_Impact_5360 on 2026-03-08 16:37:39+00:00.
This actually happened years ago, but a recent Reddit post dug up a memory I hadn’t thought about in forever. Their prompt didn’t quite match my story but I wanted to share.
I was at a party and overheard someone say that the normal human body temperature is 98.6°C.
Without really thinking about it, I said, “You mean Fahrenheit.”
She immediately replied that it was Celsius and that she knew because she was a nurse and “deals with this all the time.”
I'm no professional but at the time I was working in a lab, so I knew pretty well that incubation temp 37°C = 98.6°F. I tried explaining that 98.6°C is basically the boiling point of water, which is 100°C, so that would… you know… cook a person.
She was completely unconvinced.
Instead, she doubled down and said, “I’ll bet you $20.”
Now, young and dumb me decided this was a good moment to casually say: “Why not make it $50?”
In my mind, I figured the instant raise might trigger some kind of warning bell. Like, why is this guy suddenly so confident?
Nope.
Apparently this just convinced her she was about to win even more money, so she happily agreed.
Then she tried to raise it again.
At that point I actually said, “No no, $50 is already too much for me.” What I meant was: I don’t really want to take more of your money over something this dumb.
What she apparently heard was: this sucker is getting nervous.
Honestly, she was so confident that I actually started to second-guess myself for a moment.
Eventually someone nearby pulled out their phone and googled it.
And there it was.
Normal body temperature: 98.6°F (37°C).
The moment of realization was… rough. She went kind of went quiet and she just had this look of absolute defeat.
She paid up, but honestly I felt kind of guilty. I wanted to use scientific reasoning to find the answer, not doubt herself as a nurse. I didn’t even see her again for the rest of the night.
To this day I still feel a little bad about it.
Also yes, I’m now fully aware the real missed opportunity was not betting $98.60.
TL;DR: I accidentally stumbled into the dumbest science argument of my life at a party. Somehow ended up walked away with $50 because someone was absolutely convinced the human body temperature is 98.6°C.
Edit: a few words