Life is more fun when it's not so serious

On one of the many occasions I did something quite stupid, someone remarked about it, and I replied, “I don’t have to be smart because I went to college.”

I don’t know why I suddenly thought of that moment this long afterward. Maybe it just shows how my mind works (or doesn’t work).

Sometimes I think supposedly smart people could use a dose of common sense. I don’t know if I’m smart or not, but I certainly could use some common sense.

I’ve done some things in my life that put my mental ability at the level of a lemur with a lobotomy (no insult to the lemurs intended).

I recall a time I stepped into the shower with my socks on, but probably the dumbest thing I ever did was getting out of the draft by joining the Army. I still haven’t figured that one out.

Hoping I wasn’t so bad off I needed to rent a rubber room, I sought reassurance in numbers. I started asking college graduates in and around Portales about the dumbest thing each one ever did.

The most common reply was something like, “Gee, I don’t know. There are so many of them I can’t think of just one.”

That made me realize I was onto something. So I really started getting nosy. Some people ignored me. Some got a kick out of laughing at themselves. Here are some of the things these brave souls have confessed:

Sherilyn Battke said, “The dumbest thing I ever did was to try to narrow it down to one thing.”

Along similar lines, Jeff Burmeister quipped, “I have to think about that for awhile.” Now I was really off to a good start. When a person has to think about something dumb, there has to be a gold mine of material in the topic.

Mir Mortazavi said the dumbest thing he ever did was to marry his ex-wife, and Kathie Good said it was marrying her ex-husband. It’s nice to know men and women agree on something, isn’t it?

Here’s a real gem. Bill Andersen admits: “I made the mistake of getting ready to swim while thinking about quantum mechanics. I showered and strolled into the public area completely nude, holding my swim suit in my right hand ...”

Erin O’Neill tried to break into a stranger’s car thinking it was her own and tried to “revive” a sleeping hamster with a blow dryer. She said, “I could write the book on dumb.” I wouldn’t mind reading that book, Erin.

Christopher Stasheff mentions quitting his day job thinking he could make a living writing novels. Not everybody can be Stephen King or J. K. Rowling, Chris.

Richard Foster threw rocks in the air (to see how high he could toss them?), not thinking it could be quite painful to stand directly beneath them as they fell. I wonder if Richard majored in physics with Bill.

Yes, friends, smart people do dumb things — so much so I ran out of room here. I’ll have to continue this lunacy next week.

In the meantime, have some fun asking your friends about the dumb things they have done. Life is even more fun when we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Jim Lee is news director for KENW-FM radio. He also is an English instructor. He can be contacted at 359-2204. His e-mail:

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