| 'Stupid
Is Not Necessarily as Stupid Duhz' |
| I was listening to radio "therapist" Dr. Laura (not for
advice but rather hoping she would launch into a tirade at
one of her callers) while she was counseling a young girl
suffering from anorexia. Dr. Laura implored the girl to go
see a doctor because her lack of nutrition was surely destroying
her body. She described a specific blood test the girl needed
from her doctor. |
| "Don't worry, the blood test won't hurt a bit," Dr. Laura
said, "but you will need to fast the night before." |
| Fast? Like not eat? SHE'S ANOREXIC!!! Duh. |
| There's nothing more baffling than the incompatibility of
intelligence and common sense. Have you ever noticed that
some people are smart as a whip (although I've never understood
that analogy, or is it a metaphor?) but can't figure out how
to get the safety cap off a bottle of aspirin? That's the
essence of what experts call commonus sensicus interruptus,
which is Latin for "duh." And there's certainly no shortage
of duh in our world. |
| My friend Shirley is a brilliant engineer but is famous
for her uncommon sense. Once she took her cat whitewater rafting
only to discover that when the raft pulled ashore for their
first time that day, the cat shot off into the woods like…well…a
cat out of water. The cat was never seen again. Apparently
exposure to the elements, ferocious forest animals and no
ability to survive in the wild was a better option for "Kitty
Bee" than getting back into that flippin' boat. Duh. |
| We saw Shirley recently. She's older and wiser and we assumed
that her common sense gland had now fully developed. Wrong.
She explained to us that she had hired someone to clean her
house. Problem was she could never get the house "ready" for
the cleaning person. So, she hired another cleaning person
to straighten up the house the day before the real cleaning
person arrived. Apparently she got the idea from the pre-heat
button on the stove. Duh. |
| I met a federal employee at a convention who had driven
two colleagues to the conference in a government car. As is
often the case with unfamiliar cars, she pulled up to the
gas pump only to discover that the tank was not on the driver's
side, as she had assumed, but was on the passenger side instead.
So, she pulled out, did a left hand U-turn and eased back
up next to the pumps…on the same side of the car! What's worse,
she didn't discover her error until she was out of the car
with the gas pump in hand looking for the tank. Duh. |
| Sometimes, especially if they're really talented, these
duh-ites can slip up on you unless you're paying close attention.
I was listening to WINC radio in Winchester, Va., when the
disc jockey said, "The high today will be 38. It's currently
40 in the WINC listening area." I thought maybe he was using
the metric system. But alas it was just another example of
the destructive power of duh. |
| Then there was the state trooper who pulled over a drunk
driver early one morning because he was driving erratically.
Since it was the end of the shift and the trooper didn't want
to do a lot of paperwork, he asked the female passenger if
she could drive the drunk man home. She readily agreed, stepped
onto the shoulder, walked around the car and got into the
back seat. Apparently, she was drunker than the driver. They
both went to jail. Double duh. |
| I wonder how some people survive when their duh-ness is
so overwhelming. I guess if it wasn't for those of us with
intelligence and common sense, the world would be in chaos. |
| Yesterday, my son called from school. |
| "Dad, I left my backpack at home. Can you bring it to school?" |
| After explaining to him that he needs to be more responsible
and that I won't always be around to bring him his backpack
(which by the way is the required parental response), I put
the breakfast dishes away, brushed my teeth and gathered my
things so that I could drop off his backpack on my way to
a meeting. |
| Just as I pulled into the elementary school parking lot,
I was struck by a sudden moment of enlightenment. My son goes
to middle school. |
| Duh. |
| Until next time, just humor me. |
