Thursday, May 10, 2007

Book Smart, Common-Sense Dumb

So, I fracked something up at work. I didn't commingle funds, or run off with a Senator's wife, or kill a man, so that's good, but I did fail to research somthing thoroughly enough, so I gave some bad advice.

This has sent me into a major spiral, like a Britney Spears visiting a barber shop, Rosie O'Donnell doing anything-level spiral.* I am worried that this is the confirmation I have long been awaiting that I am Book Smart, Common-Sense Dumb.

I started to worry about possibly being BS/CSD (sounds like an STD, dosen't it?) in high school, in part because people would often say to me, "T&A, you're book smart, common-sense dumb." My dumbness largely manifested itself in my wee driving problem. Between the ages of 16 and 18 I got into somewhere between 5 and 10 car accidents. With only one arguable exception, they were all the result of my failing to pay attention, and hence doing things like backing up in a driveway even though another car was parked behind me, or hitting the side of the garage while pulling the car out of it. Whoopsie.

I harbor no illusions that BS/CSD is a charming attribute. It was maybe funny when Reese Witherspoon did it in Legally Blonde, but by Legally Blonde 2 it had gotten quite old. And darlings, life is one long sequel.

Plus, really you could say that my Work Whoopsie is not so much common-sense dumb as it is book dumb, being as how it did involve looking (or not looking so much) at books. Which, then where does that leave me? Dumb/Dumb. Wahhh.

I can still congratulate myself that I'm not as dumb as Brooke on the Real World. In case you missed it, in the most recent episode she thought a jellyfish stung her foot, and she remembered that you should pee on it (which I guess is at least pamphlet-smart), but then she MADE HER ROOMMATES PEE ON HER FOOT. Which, dude, you can pee on YOUR OWN FOOT without trying AT ALL. But being less dumb than that is what they call cold comfort.

*Not really. Don't worry, Mom.

3 comments:

Olivia Hein said...

"Fraked" is spelled without a 'c'.

And the fact that I know that wipes out any care as to whether I'm book or common sense smart/dumb. It just lumps me in the category of Nerd.

So say we all.

TA said...

Omigod, you're right, and the horrible irony is that I Googled it to confirm the spelling, but I FAILED TO GOOGLE THOROUGHLY ENOUGH, and just found the correct spelling in the original Battlestar Galatica, not the current TV version. I'm cursed! Excuse me while I go try to find work as a line-stander while I still have the smarts for that.

mu-galto said...

I also had an accident with my garage as a teenager. I ripped the side view mirror right off my flashy aqua ford probe. So that makes me driving dumb, Jersey cool. (an aqua ford probe was a hot car in NJ in 1993).