It's a fact of real life that there are some really stupid people. I suppose it's also a sad fact that we are sometimes them. It doesn't just happen to the best of us, but to all of us.

That said, it's almost worst when we happen to be the victim of a stupid person. I say almost only because if we are the perpetrator of stupid, that is worse. But being the victim runs a close second.

I was the victim recently. [What? You thought I might `fess up on myself?]

I was waiting on a man who had a small purchase to make, about $4. He decided to use a credit card. He's charging a $4 purchase? Well, such a small amount no longer carries the stigma it may have once. Lots of people do it, and really I suppose if they are fine with it why should I quibble.

It's standard to check the card of the purchaser, to make sure there isn't anything to be concerned about, protecting against fraud and such. So after HE swipes the card, I ask to see it, and HE hands it to me. [Emphasis mine.]

The name on the card is a woman's name. Not a name which might be a man's, like "Lee," but rather clearly a woman. And he was clearly a man.

Obviously he realized there would be some question about it, so he says, "Don't worry. It will go through. Trust me." As if he really was trying to perpetrate a fraud he would admit it?

To complicate matters, the card holder had written on the back, "Please ask for I.D.," which is a very smart thing to do on a credit card. Unfortunately many places no longer check these things, but some places and some cashiers do. And I did.

So I say something like, "I'm sorry sir, you're clearly not [the cardholder -- I don't even want to mention the real first name here for obvious reasons]. Is there a way we can contact the card holder by phone to see if she will approve the sale."

It would be an understatement to say that this was not quite the idea he had in mind. It was clear he was exerting an excessive amount of energy to restrain himself from freely cussing me out, and I do believe if he thought he could have taken a swing at me, he would have.

However, he obliged by taking out his cell phone and calling his "fiancee." She was very happy to grant her permission, and more than understanding about why we were asking. In fact, she was almost effusive in her thanks to me for checking.

I thanked her for her time, and handed him back the phone, which he disdainfully closed and put away. I finished the transaction, and processed it as a phone sale, which I wrote in the place where he would have signed had it been his card.

This prompted him to say, "What did you write there? How come you can write there and I can't." I calmly [and I hope politely] explained we simply processed the sale as a phone sale. And he didn't give a whit.

Then, as he's leaving, he pulls out another credit card from his wallet, saying, "See? This is a card from the same account. So it wouldn't have mattered if I had signed on her card."

Again, trying to be calm and polite, I asked the obvious question. "Then why didn't you simply use that card?"

As you might guess, this caused him to become even more rancorous and frankly mouthy as he left.

And as he left, all I could do is think, "How stupid can some people be?"

These sorts of things happen frequently enough in retail so that if you work in it long enough you run the risk of becoming cynical and calloused. It also serves as a healthy reminder that if you have any say in the matter, and you must be involved in an act of utter stupidity, you pray that the stupid happens to you, rather than you being the cause of it.

This all reminded me of some funny quotes I received in an email some time ago. Entitled "Brain cramps" it provided quotes by mostly well-known folks caught in some honest moments of perpetrating stupid on us all. The editorial comment for all of them was, "These are funny!," and so they are. For the sake of reprinting them here, I have removed the editorial comments which was also included on some of them. Far better for you to simply read them and draw your own conclusions.

Enjoy...
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Question: If you could live forever, would you and why?
 
Answer: "I would not live forever, because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever, then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever." -- Miss Alabama in the 1994 Miss USA contest.

"Whenever I watch TV and see those poor starving kids all over the world, I can't help but cry. I mean I'd love to be skinny like that, but not with all those flies and death and stuff." -- Mariah Carey
"Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life." -- Brooke Shields, during an interview to become Spokesperson for federal anti-smoking campaign.

"I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body." -- Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward.

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country." -- Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C..

"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." -- Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents.

"That lowdown scoundrel deserves to be kicked to death by a jackass, and I'm just the one to do it." -- A congressional candidate in Texas.

"Half this game is ninety percent mental." -- Philadelphia Phillies manager, Danny Ozark

"It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it." -- Al Gore, Vice President

"I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix." -- Dan Quayle [not sure when stated, if when he was Vice President, or before, or after]

"We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?" -- Lee Iacocca

"The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." -- Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback & sports analyst

"We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people." -- Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instrutor

"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure." -- Bill Clinton, President

"Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas." -- Keppel Enderbery

"Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances." -- Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina

"If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record." -- Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman 
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Now, doesn't that just help you fell a whole lot smarter than when you first surfed on in for a visit today? I know it helped me a whole lot!

Why not send it to your friends, so they can feel as brilliant as we do now?

For the record, to my knowledge, each of the above quotes is accurate. If you discover one which is not, or wrongly attributed, send me an email, and I will be happy to publish a correction in a future entry.

In the meantime -- and since the general theme of today's entry was stupidity, and we are in the early thick of primary season -- Segue, segue! -- I see where Mike Huckabee came in third in Michigan. This was not unexpected, so it can hardly be deemed a disappointment. I can't say he simply wrote-off Michigan, but he has been using his time and resources to concentrate on South Carolina, the next primary where he has good reason to believe he will do well. And if he does well it surely will be a whole new race.

I'm looking forward to him doing well, and to a whole new race.

Based on my last entry about Huckabee and my thoughts on his stands on the issues, I plan to do another more directly political entry in the very near future, one along the lines of "If I were a candidate for President, where would I stand?" I hope you'll be looking forward to it, won't be disappointed by any expectations about it I may have just raised in your mind, and I frankly hope you don't find it stupid.

I surely do appreciate you stopping by as much as you do. Thanks for coming in today for a visit. I trust we'll meet here again soon.

Until next time, my blessings to you,
Timotheous, a brother in Christ

P.S.: Since I usually don't get to the library more than once a week, I face a large number of emails and comments posted to my journal entries. Unfortunately, most of the emails are ads or spam, and most of the comments are, too. I am on the verge of having to make the decision to simply delete all comments without reading them.
 In an effort to allow comments still to my journal entries, if you want yours to be read and reviewed to be approved for submission, please sign the book with a first and last name. If you don't want your last name posted online, simply ask me to delete it in your comments. Since I review all comments before posting them, I will be more than happy to oblige.
 Hopefully, going forward this will make it easier for me to know which comments are legit and which are worse than spit -- especially the porn spam which regularly fills the comments in-box.
 I trust most of you understand my dilemma, and will honor my request. In the interest of "fairness" I plan to add this postscript to every entry I add for the time being, until I believe I have made myself clear. And even then I will still add it from time to time, just to reinforce the message.
 Thanks for your understanding and assistance in this. God bless!

We must be on the same wave length I wrote on "You can't fix stupid"
Love,
Denis and Marti

FROM BRO. TIM -- What's that about great minds...? Blessings!