On Staggering Stupidity

Have you ever done something so monumentally stupid that it quite literally freezes you in place? Have you ever done something so crushingly idiotic that your brain has to refresh to make sure it didn’t imagine what just happened? Have you ever done something so unbelievably dumb that it makes you write a weekly essay so that everyone on the internet can laugh at your misfortune? BECAUSE I SURE HAVE!

A few weeks ago, I was sitting on the couch in my apartment watching some TV when I got a call from my girlfriend. She asked me to look inside a cardboard shipping envelope we had just received to see if she left a receipt in there. I looked inside and couldn’t see anything in there. I put my hand in and felt around but still no receipt. Instead of trusting my senses of sight and touch, I decided to flip the envelope over and let gravity be the final arbiter of whether it was empty or not. That’s when something incredibly stupid happened.

I guess I didn’t realize how long the envelope was… or maybe I just kind of lost focus for a second? Whatever happened, when I flipped that envelope over the corner of it went straight for my eyeball. Thank God, evolution is better at surviving than I am or I’d be sitting here with an eyepatch. Well, I blinked just in time to let that damn envelope cut my eyelid. I then stood there, dumbfounded for what felt like minutes.

I’m a grownup! I file my own taxes, I feed myself between 1 and 3 meals per day, and I navigate the DMV without tears (usually)! AND YET! I nearly put my own eye out like some kind of idiot baby! Of course, my eye was fine, although I had a little cut on my eyelid that stung like the dickens for about a week but let me tell you, the mental damage I did to myself is something I’ll carry with me for years!

This incident prompted me to have PTSD flashbacks of many of the insanely stupid things I’ve done that have stopped me in my tracks over the years. I’m talking about brain farts like pitting an avocado and throwing away the delicious green fruit instead of the pointless huge pit. I’m talking about dropping your phone in the toilet. I’m talking about pulling too far into a parking space and hearing your bumper scrape against the concrete barrier.

There’s that perfect level of tragedy (it feels terrible but in reality [and with a little space] is much funnier than it is sad) that turns your brain into a computer with too many programs running so it grinds to a halt and turns your cursor into that spinning wheel of death. One minute you’re cruising along and the next you’re looking at a sink full of spaghetti because you forgot to get out the colander. These are the types of situations that make you think, “Well, that about does it for today, time to pack it in and try again tomorrow.”

I KNOW you all have some funny stories of moments of staggering stupidity, so please share them so I can feel less dunce-like.