Moments of Stupidity

We all have them. Moments where we think something or (heaven forbid!) say something truly stupid. And we should keep these moments to ourselves. But in honor of the fact that I just had one of these stupid moments, I'm going to share several from my life and from the lives of loved ones.


T-shirt

I was editing today and came across the word T-shirt. I thought to myself, "I need to double-check this. I can't remember if T-shirt is one of those words that always needs the capital letter..." Before I could reach for a dictionary, I looked at the word in a way that I had never seen it before. The "T" of T-shirt actually forms the shape of the shirt! The moment I realized it, I also realized that this is something that everyone else in the world has always known, and that I am waaaaay behind in figuring it out.


Magical Machine

A good friend was once washing dishes by hand at her sister's apartment in New York. At a moment of frustration, she thought, "Couldn't they, like, invent a machine that does all this for you? It could wash the dishes and then dry them, too?"


Sleep Deprivation

During my sophomore year, I pulled several all-nighters. In fact, I kept Mountain Dew in my apartment for these occasions. I knew that I hated Mountain Dew enough to never touch the stuff unless I needed it, so when I needed caffeine, it would be there for me. One morning, as I was walking to work at 7:45 a.m. and guzzling down a disgusting can of Mountain Dew (no such beverage should be consumed by anyone so early in the morning), I thought, "Couldn't someone invent a morning drink with caffeine in it? I can't believe no one has thought of this yet!" Then, seconds later, "Oh yeah... tea and coffee. The two beverages that everyone else in the world drinks every morning."


Not a Mind Reader

El Senor had a class several years ago where on the first day, the teacher was reminding all students to always put their names on their papers during the semester. He explained, "I'm not clairvoyant. Your TAs aren't clairvoyant. Please remember to put your names on your papers." A student at the front of the class raised her hand and asked, "Who is clairvoyant?" The teacher responded, "No one. I'm not. The TAs aren't." The student insisted, "No, but who is Clair Voyant?"

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here's my moment of stupidity for the day: I've missed a whole week of Cicada blogs because apparently my browser wasn't refreshing the page. That's right—I missed the last six entries.

Just now I was setting up Google Reader so I would know when people update their blogs, and I suddenly saw a wealth of new Cicada posts that I'd been missing. Duh.

Cicada said...

Yeah, unfortunately that happens with Mozilla. I don't know why. But lots of people complain to me about my not posting for days and days, and then I'll ask them what browser they're using, and it's always Mozilla. So I have to tell them to clear their cache to be able to get to my blog. It's annoying. Does anyone know how to fix that permanently?

Anonymous said...

I didn't have to clear the cache; the problem went away as soon as I hit Refresh.

However, I just did a search on the problem, and it appears that you can change the setting by going to about:config and setting the value of browser.cache.check_doc_frequency to 1 instead of 3. I'm going to try it out and see if it works.

Snow Whiteley said...

Thanks for another laugh out loud post! I need to get one of those new-fangled machines that does the washing and the drying of the dishes for you!

Michael Paul Bailey said...

I would venture say that those machines are not exactly new. They've been around for quite a long time. I mean, even Adam had a wife.

Cicada said...

I think you heard my dishwasher going last night, didn't you? (Geez... almost sounds dirty... What I mean is that The Boy was in the kitchen doing dishes.)

I guess it's a good thing I know how to dominate men...

daltongirl said...

You've been reading "Diaries of Adam and Eve" again, haven't you J. Paul? My favorite part is where he realizes things are going to get difficult now that they have to work. "I will supervise."

Unfortunately I never do anything stupid, so I have nothing personal to share. However, I can share one from DBJ on this, his eighteenth birthday, in which we celebrate his becoming a "man." This happened a couple of years ago, when he was still a boy:

"I saw it in one of those . . . you know, those big stacks of paper all glued together."

"Um. You mean . . . a book?"

"Uh . . . yeah . . . DOH!"

daltongirl said...

Oops! I mean M. Paul. I accidentally mixed J. Alfred and M. Paul together.

What was I saying about never doing anything stupid? I was about to delete the comment and start over when I realized it just had to stay. Perfect!

Cicada said...

Daltongirl:

Thanks for showing stupidity in action on my blog! You're the best.

daltongirl said...

I do what I can.

redlaw said...

Oh wow...stupidity - I totally have a PhD in that...

I never realized the T-shirt thing til you pointed it out...and I worked at Gap for seven years...gheesh....

Katya said...

The scene: It is a drizzly day and Melyngoch and I have just stopped off at Starbucks for sandwiches. Melyngoch is very tired. As we leave the coffee shop, she compains (very loudly) "Why don't they sell caffeine at Starbucks!"

Mrs. Hass-Bark said...

I do something stupid every day. It's sort of an achievable goal that I've set for myself. For example, today, I didn't open my blinds to look outside before getting dressed in my pants that are too long and shouldn't be worn when it's raining. Too bad it was raining this morning. I had to wear them all rolled up and dorky looking so as not to get all wet.

PS--You make me laugh outloud in the computer lab sometimes. You'd think I'd learn not to read you in there, but I just can't help myself.