Ah, the stupid things we do


February 18, 2003

Human beings are capable of amazing things.

Ponder that for a moment as you look at the moon, with the realization that humans developed the technology to go there and came back safely. Consider it as you look at a microchip, thinking about all that it can do. Contemplate it as you look at an amazing skyscraper, with the knowledge of all the planning, mathematics and manpower that went into erecting it.

Now, having pondered, considered and contemplated all that, think of how truly idiotic human beings can be.

I am not even talking about the big-picture stuff, like wars or corporate greed or environmental abuses or televangelists; these could also be classified as the works of evil or even evil genius. No, I am talking about the truly stupid, minor, head-up-one's-rear kind of things that each of us have done from time to time.

Of course, I am speaking from experience.

I write this one day after I broke a small piece off my car door because my mental processes decided to take a temporary holiday as I was putting something in the back seat. That's right: I broke a piece off my car door. It's a Saturn, with a fiberglassish exterior, and when I opened the driver's side rear door, I disregarded the fact that the post holding up the covered parking area was right next to it.

The edge of the door met the post, and got stuck. Instead of redeeming myself, brain-wise, by starting up the car and pulling ahead slightly to free the door, I forced the door away from the post. There was a cracking noise.

The rest of the story is obvious.

A dear friend of mine was the witness to this bonerhead maneuver. This friend of mine, one of the smartest people I know, is a brilliant computer programmer. He also heads up a large nonprofit; he is no slouch.

He's the same person who closed his garage door the other day when his car was only partially inside the garage, resulting in a door-on-car collision that was not good for the car or the door.

Dumb. Completely dumb.

And one more story: The other morning, as I was rushing to get ready for work, I hastily grabbed my spray-on deodorant and spritzed it under each pit, only to realize as I was putting down the bottle that I was a moron. It turned out I had actually just coated my underarms with my spray-on eyeglass cleaner.

So what if the deodorant bottle is twice the size as my eyeglass cleaner bottle? It's a freaking miracle I didn't try to deodorize my glasses by mistake.

But enough with these stories of stupidity. We've all done things like this. Admit it. You've ran around a room feverishly seeking an item that you were holding in your own hand. You've put inappropriate things in the refrigerator before, just as you've accidentally put the milk in the cabinet, only to discover your soured misdeed the following day. You've zoomed off in your vehicle as a bar of groceries rested on its top. You've gotten in a hurry and accidentally misspelled your own signature.

OK, maybe I am the only one who's done that.

The point is, it's amazing that creatures capable of such amazing intellectual works can unanimously be such mental midgets. I have no doubt that geniuses like Stephen Hawking, and Albert Einstein, and even the person who invented Windex wipes, also make a semi-regular habit of buttoning his shirt unevenly and not noticing until mid-afternoon.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go and super-glue my car door back together.

Jimmy Boegle is a fifth-generation Nevadan in exile in Arizona who has probably glued himself to his car door by now. Jimmy's column appears here Tuesdays, and he can be reached via e-mail at jiboegle@stanfordalumni.org. 1