JANUARY 12, 2023 – Today a reader-friend asked me:
- Are you accident prone?
- Are you a risk taker?
- Are you foolish?
These questions were prompted by yesterday’s post about the bite of a bungee cord. I answered “no” to the first two. To the third I responded that another reader often calls me after a post featuring a personal mishap. She always answers the third question: “For being a smart guy,” she says, “you can be pretty dumb.” I laugh at her mix of generous charity in the “smart” half of the remark and the unvarnished truth in the “dumb” half.
I’m impressed by friends who have no compunction about telling me I’m dumb, yet remain loyal friends.
Blunt honesty is the best policy. On the home front, I’ve been criticized for overstuffing the kitchen receptacle. “I’ve told you before,” I hear, when the overflow spills onto the floor, “that you can’t over-stuff the garbage.” What goes unmentioned is the cause for dereliction: avoidance of responsibility for 1. pulling a full bag out; 2. putting a new bag in; and 3. hauling the full bag out to the alley bin. I bristle at the criticism. I’d be more receptive to, “For being a fairly smart person, you’re sometimes pretty dumb.”
I see the tension in my preference for being labeled “dumb” versus criticized for a specific shortcoming. Especially when prefaced with “smart,” however gratuitous, “dumb” covers lots of faults and foibles without digging under the skin. I’d rather be caught in the large, soft net of generalization than have sharpened bamboo sticks of specifics shoved under my fingernails.
Today I took the “dumb” charge to heart. Without crawling into a shell (“bubble”?) of reactionary fear, I ventured out but with ample common . . . er, in my case, uncommon . . . sense. Despite mild temps, I gave myself special dispensation and drove the mile to “Little Switzerland,” thus avoiding debilitating “slips-and-falls” on icy alleyways and sidewalks. Moreover, I wore my running shoes for the short drive, instead of lacing up my x-c boots, which are greased banana peels when in contact with icy surfaces. Further, I bypassed my usual entry point—now treacherous—and drove to the “Little Switzerland” parking lot, which I found remarkably clear and dry.
Then, before jumping onto the course, I inspected its condition. As I did so, a proficient skier pulled up and told me he was quitting because of the bad, icy track. Cautious but not yet prepared to skip Day No. 46 of the current ski season, I walked farther to test a hunch: that the maintenance crew had groomed the downhill slopes and a 200-meter path from “Geneva” (the clubhouse during the golf season; the ski rental center during the winter) to the base of “St. Moritz.” They had! I returned to the car to fetch my gear, then hiked to “Geneva” and the top of the groomed path. Before the tows opened for the after-school crowd, I skied up and down the hill five times and the “path” another five times, all for a safe workout.
It might be a stretch to call me “smart” as a result of being less “dumb” today than I was yesterday, but perhaps it can now be said to me, “For being a dumb person, sometimes you can be smart.”
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
