Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Anti-Idiocy Campaign

From the title of this post, you might think it’s a rant about people who have offended me or who I think are stupid. Unfortunately, the post is really about me. This post is my vow to change...

Yesterday, I came to the stark realization that I'm an idiot. Well, maybe not all the time, but I do some stuff that's really pretty stupid. This is upsetting because I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person. I even feel like I have a pretty decent amount of "common sense." For some reason I just choose to ignore it on occasion.

I'm not sure why this happens. Maybe it's a cry for attention or maybe it's because I like to make people laugh, or maybe it's because I read too much Guiness Book of World Records as a kid. Whatever the case, I end up being like that "one guy" everyone seems to know who will get really drunk and then accept all kinds of ridiculous challenges and make an ass of himself. Only I don't drink, so I have even less of an excuse than that guy.

Some examples of idiotic things I've done recently?

  • I ate fifteen cups of cold cereal with eight and a half cups (that's over half a gallon) of milk in under an hour. Why? It was a contest. What was the prize? Pride. Braggin’ rights. Being REALLY sick (read "having diarrhea") for the next three days.
  • I sprained my right ankle playing basketball (not idiotic), but then I sprained my left ankle two weeks later because I was playing way before my right ankle was better so I was favoring my left ankle a lot. Not only did I sprain my ankle, I completely bricked the lay-up I was driving to make. (very idiotic).
  • I ingested two double bacon cheeseburgers (each with a full pound of beef), a large plate of fries, a quarter pound of licorice, a blackberry shake, a slice of apple pie w/ ice cream, a bottle of Henry Weinhard's root beer, and about three glasses of water in around an hour. Why? Some guys I was with challenged me to. What did I get? A handshake from the incredulous owner of Ray's Tavern.
  • I gave myself three blisters trying to prove that I was good at rappelling despite the fact that I'd never done it before.

Trust me; the list could go on and on. These are just things I've done in the last month. If you know me, you can probably think of plenty of other examples. In fact, you're probably wondering why it took me so long to come to this realization. I have no answer for you.

I will still try and make people laugh, and I'll probably still be an attention whore, but from now on, I'm going to first ask myself the question: Is this a stupid thing to do?

4 comments:

StuTheWise said...

Here's the good news: If you keep playing basketball on your two bad ankles, your knees are next.

How is that good news? We'll all get a good laugh from it. BWAH HAHAHA!!!

Anonymous said...

You know what I think? If you ask that question about being a stupid thing to do, and answer it honestly, life would be a lot less fun.

Was it stupid for me to break a computer CRT by swinging it by the cord over my head? For sure.

Was is stupid to invent a new game of pool that you don't use pool cues for? For sure.

And on and on, life is more fun if at some level, people are out there saying, man, you're stupid. ;)

StuTheWise said...

Come to think of it, there wasn't a single person, save for my recruiter, that I can recall who DIDN'T tell me I was stupid for joining the military.

Heck, when I got to boot camp, even my drill instructors told me I was stupid for joining.

But hey, nothing's more fun than boot camp. HOORAH!

PS: Jer Pool's not stupid. It's GENIUS! I expect to see it in the Olympics in the next 20 years.

Anonymous said...

Clark without question, the events you listed is what makes you...you and without these breaks of clarkisms, who knows what one may do...especially if they have a fully automatic...I will just stop there and say hey life is a ride...so buy the ticket and take the ride.

-R-