As the saying goes…
“Never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups.” But what about individuals?
Last Sunday, while at the gym, I see an older overweight woman drop off a kid to do laundry. I’m guessing he started the laundry, but then he came into the gym and lit up a cotton Q-Tip. Yes… a Q-Tip… as if he were smoking a cigarette. I have no idea if one end was soaked in something or not, but this is easily in the top 20 dumbest things I’ve ever seen. I asked him not to smoke it in the gym as I was in fact exercising and do appreciate clean air. He obliged, but came in to talk to me to make sure I wouldn’t nark. It turns out he’s 15 and figures smoking Q-Tips is better than “something else”.
That was certainly more than enough to satiate my humor for idiocy, however, yesterday I had the #1 dumbest experience ever while driving. While driving on a 4 lane divided road, traffic started merging left because of signs saying the right lane was closed ahead. Obviously, I followed suit. After a traffic light, we only got up to about 25mph, which is not unusual for construction areas. However, after the signs were gone (and the right lane had never actually closed) we were still only going 35 or so in an unmarked 45 (so legally a 55 in NC). Traffic started moving right to pass and so did I. It turns out there was an aging (55-65 year old) man in a gold car at the head of the pack who was simply going slow. After I passed him, I merged left again because I would have to turn left into work in a couple miles, but after a few seconds, I saw the gold car coming up rather quickly in my rear-view (I’m already speeding a bit myself). At the next traffic light, he gets caught behind a moving truck and seems rather anxious. What ever. After the light turns and I clear the truck, the older guy swerves between my rear-end and the front of the truck and as he is passing me is very animatedly gesturing at me and I swear I saw him mouth “you’re stupid”. He then proceeded to pass me, and the rest of the cars that passed him all the while flailing about like he did passing me. I am now thoroughly confused… and slightly amused. Anyway, at the light where I turn left into work, the man gets stopped in the left driving lane so for fun I pulled up next to him in the right, left turn lane. As I looked over, the man is grimacing at me quite intently, so I waved at him with a smile. To that, he stuck his thumb out the window at me downward to get me to put my window down. I’m never one to pass up a chance to observe humanity at its worst, so I lowered my passenger window and the man proceeded to lecture me on how the right lane is for driving and the left lane is for passing. Of course, when I tried to tell him that 35 in a 45 (in the left lane) was inappropriate, he just kept talking over me. His lecture continued even after his light turned green, and when he finally noticed he suggested that I meet him “on down the road”. The true irony is that he passed all of the people he was angry at… on the right.