My Stupid Column

Micro Final

By Jack Edwards

This week’s Jocularious.com column takes on a very sensitive subject. A subject that many readers may lack the emotional fortitude to digest. No, the subject is not obesity. (I felt the need to point this out because I was concerned the word digest might mislead you in a gastrological direction.) This week’s topic is far more serious than obesity. This week’s column takes on a new epidemic that threatens our nation’s security: Stupid people.

Now, before you go getting all Oprah on me, consider this. Formal psychological IQ classifications before 1970 included, in increasing levels of intelligence: idiots, imbeciles and morons (to clarify, prior to 1970, if you called an idiot a moron, you were paying him a compliment). Nowhere on this list was the classification of “stupid.” Anyone can be stupid. You can be a genius and be stupid. Case in point, 43% of all Ivy League professors purchased the “Protection Plan” the last time they bought a television at Best Buy.

To protect you, the reader, from the danger of being traumatized, I have devised a simple test to determine whether you should read this week’s column.

A few months ago, I mentioned that the nutritional wave of the future might be roadkill. This may not have been exactly what I said, but please don’t expect me to keep track of all the intellectual gems I shower on you each week. Anyway, in my roadkill column, I mentioned a bumper sticker I plan to market. (My patent is still pending.) It reads: “I brake for small animals,” and then immediately beneath that line in smaller print it reads, “taller than my bumper.” Here’s the test. Ask yourself this question: If you came across this bumper sticker and considered buying it (not buy – just considered buying it), then you may safely proceed.

[Official beginning of this week’s column – PROCEED WITH CAUTION!]

We have all found ourselves sitting in a classroom or in meeting of some sort when the speaker ends his presentation by asking if anyone has a question. This is immediately followed up with, “Remember, there is no such thing as a stupid question.” And you immediately think, ‘Of course there is. And I think we’re about to hear a few.” This is obviously intended to encourage questions from the audience. Side note: You’d think the speaker would want to discourage questions. Wouldn’t a lack of questions mean that he had given a full and complete presentation? Covered all the bases so to speak? It should be a goal – an aspiration even – to give a presentation where no one in the audience had a single stupid question. But I digress.

My wife will tell you that I have dubbed this portion of any meeting: “Stupid Question Time.” She will say this in a mildly irritated voice. And she might also tell you that if you are unfortunate enough to be sitting next to me, I will feel the need to lean over and whisper, “Stupid Question Time.”

You can only imagine how I then feel when I inevitably ask a question during stupid question time. In my defense, my question is often prompted by a previous stupid question.

This is why I am leading a revolution to ban all meetings. Meetings became obsolete the day they invented the mimeograph machine. Remember mimeographs? Remember strapping the original to the drum and then hand cranking copies while getting high off that chemical it used? (Note to self – look up the name of that chemical and buy a bottle.) Now we have email. We even have group emails allowing people to ask stupid questions to their hearts galore. It’s a regular “reply all” nirvana.

This concludes my presentation for the week. If any of you have a question, I’d be happy to answer it. Just click on the “comment” button and send it to me. Remember, there’s no such thing….