Oh, You Shouldn't Have!

I am really stupid. There's just no avoiding that fact.

When I say that I'm stupid I don't mean that I lack raw intelligence or even that I lack knowledge, it's that I lack common sense. A lot of people have this flaw, but I am so totally bereft of common sense that it overshadows everything else to the point that I am on the same intellectual level as those cute little mushrooms that grow next to my bathtub. I can string together enough semi-coherent sentences to make an "article", but as soon as I'm done doing that I am going to march proudly into my kitchen and French kiss my toaster for five minutes or until my heart stops.

It's a painful ordeal to live with a lack of common sense. People see us walking down the street trying to open our umbrella while it's shoved down the front of our pants and they just look away. Hey, we're not the same as the retarded; we don't go into some crazed cake-rage when you make eye contact. We might introduce ourselves as King Faggot or try to do a ghetto handshake with a Crip or something, but we're not going to tear your arms out of their sockets. We're normal, like you and yours, only we're slightly more prone to die in a mysterious bagel accident.

A lack of common sense is a disease that afflicts almost every American at some point in their life. For most it comes and goes and never is worse than "irritating", much like that recurring case of genital herpes I got when I ordered a used bus stop toilet seat from Thailand. You might decide to play Minesweeper instead of going to work one day or you might fail out of college because you got too fat eating Ding Dongs and you couldn't get out of your dorm room. Then they had to get the crane and break through the wall and lower you in a canvas sling to a flatbed truck. Boy, was that embarrassing or what? Most of you will recover from sudden bouts of profound stupidity like that, but an unlucky few will become like me and forever lose every last shred of common sense.

In the midst of another idiocy fugue state I hit upon the idea of compiling some of my most idiotic moments and providing alternative solutions to the problems that I failed to think of at the time. This way a select few of you might know what it's like to be a victim of common sense and maybe, just maybe, avoid the pitfalls that trapped me. Since I still don't have any sense in my giant pumpkin-like head I have also conjectured up some situations that you might run into. These are probably unlikely situations, and I'm probably offering bad advice, but at least I tried and that's a lot more than most people do in this day and age!

Scenario One: "Pie Panic"The Situation: Your next door neighbor is baking pies and she places one on her windowsill to let it cool. The aroma of the freshly baked pie wafts under your nose and levitates you out the window and to the pie. You are now faced with a dilemma. You really want to put the pie inside your stomach, but a faint voice in the back of your mind tells you that this is wrong.

Incorrect Solution: You eat the pie and then, feeling quite full, take a nap beneath the windowsill. Your neighbor finds the empty pie pan and looks out the window to see if a bear or coyote ate it. Then she sees you napping with pie dried to your cheeks and she arrests you and you go to jail for twenty years.

Correct Solution: You use your finger to scoop out the filling and put it between two slices of bread. This may hurt a little because the pie will be hot, but no pain, no gain. Eat the pie sandwich and then start picking handfuls of grass out of your neighbor's lawn. Chew up the grass and spit it back into the hollow pie crust until the pie is once again full. Your neighbor will think that they just made a really bad grass pie.

Scenario Two: "Astro Error"

The Situation: Your town elects you as astronaut and you are assigned to fly on the next space shuttle mission. When going through training you try to pay attention but the space suit they give you is really neat and it's hard to concentrate when things keep beeping. When you finally blast off into space you see a button on the console that is behind a plastic box. The button says "Self Destruct".

Incorrect Solution: You laugh because buttons are a lot of fun. You open the plastic box over the button when no one is looking and then you press the button as hard as you can. One of the other astronauts catches you pressing the button and he arrests you and you go to jail for twenty years.

Correct Solution: You sing lullabies to the astronaut sitting next to you until he falls asleep. Then, when the other astronauts aren't looking, you remove the plastic box and use the sleeping astronaut's hand to repeatedly press the button. The other astronaut notices the sleeping astronaut pressing the button and gets very angry. You scream "J'accuse!" and the sleeping astronaut gets arrested and sent to prison. When you return from your space mission you are given a medal by the president and you appear on the cover of magazines.

Scenario Three: "Dinner Dilemma"

The Situation: Your cousin has a family emergency and he calls and asks you to keep an eye on his five year old son while he rushes to the hospital. You are actually afraid of children but since your cousin seems so concerned you agree to help him and ride your special bicycle over to his house. He tells you that there is food in the freezer and his young son Connor might want something to eat for dinner in an hour. You are nearly ready to faint from worry!

Incorrect Solution: You frantically begin digging holes in the backyard trying to find something edible to give to Connor. While you are doing this Connor stands and watches in horror, occasionally asking "are you alright mister?!" to which you reply "SHUT UP I'M TRYING TO FEED YOU!" After two hours of this you give up and look in the freezer. You take out three packages of frozen vegetables and place the boxes in the oven. This starts a fire and burns down your cousin's house. When he gets home he arrests you and you go to jail for twenty years.

Correction Solution: You wisely search the pantry and find cinnamon, hot chocolate mix, and a sack of russet potatoes. You beat the potatoes into a pulp with a claw hammer and then place them in a pan. You add the cinnamon and hot chocolate mix to the pan and then put it in the microwave. After five seconds in the microwave the oven begins to spark. You run screaming from the house and Connor follows you. Somehow you end up at your parent's house and, once they have calmed you down, your father takes you to see a movie while your mother watches Connor.

Scenario Four: "Prize Problem"

The Situation: A soda company is giving away a new car as a prize for their "under the cap" contest. When you open a bottle of your favorite soda you are amazed to find that you have won a new car. You immediately call the number and the next morning they bring your car over to you with a full tank of gas. As soon as the prize committee has left you begin driving randomly around the state. After a few hours of this you notice that your car is about to run out of gas and this might cause a catastrophe.

Incorrect Solution: You begin swerving wildly around the road and screaming "HELP!" as you watch the fuel meter gradually run down. You slam your car through the side of a house and it coasts to a stop in the living room completely out of gasoline. A family is sitting at a table eating dinner and the father leaps up with surprise. The father asks you if you are okay and then asks what happened. You explain that your car ran out of gasoline when you least expected it and the man nods knowingly. It is a dangerous situation, after all. The man says "I am the sheriff here and running out of gasoline is a serious offence". The father arrests you and you go to jail for twenty years.

Correct Solution: You realize that the car is running out of gasoline and calmly steer it towards the nearest lake or river. As the last bit of gasoline is burned in the engine the car coasts into the water and submerges completely. You take a deep breath, force the door open, and swim out to the gas tank. Carefully remembering not to breathe in any water you let the gas tank fill with the water and then surface. When the police come to question you about what happened tell them that you were testing your new submarine and if they want to check out your story they can look in the gas tank and see that it is not filled with gas. The police congratulate you and take you to the mayor who awards you nine patents and the title of "World's Greatest Inventor".

Scenario Five: "Romantic Relations"

The Situation: You finally manage to work up the nerve to ask out the doughy ape-faced girl who lives in the mud house in the tree outside. She hesitates, but you persist, and she accepts your offer to take her on a picnic. The two of you go to a nearby park and begin eating pickled eggs and marshmallows and admiring the scenery. Suddenly rain begins to fall, which is weird because Matlock didn't say anything about rain when he was solving his case on the news last night! You gather your wits and prepare to deal with this unexpected problem.

Incorrect Solution: You explain to your hooting date that she should calm down, the rain is just God crying. When she asks why God is crying you tell her it's because she is so beautiful, then you begin smearing mud on her face because you want God to stop crying. Your date mistakes your intentions and leaps astride you, unfastening your pants and elastic leg undergarment and riding you like one of those hilarious monkey rodeo clowns. As she approaches a screeching climax atop your muddy and wet body the mayor sees you. He shouts at you and gives you both a stern lecture about fornication, then he arrests you and you go to jail for twenty years.

Correct Solution: As soon as you feel the first raindrop you run screaming for your special bicycle and pedal madly back to your house. Once there you board up the windows and run down in the basement with a portable dynamo powered radio. You remain there in the basement for weeks, listening raptly to Art Bell's radio program and subsisting on canned beans and whatever burrowing grubs you can dig up in the unfinished walls. When you finally emerge to the ruins of civilization you find the monkey-faced girl half-crazed and surviving on dog meat. You share your beans with her and the two of you set down the long and happy path of repopulating the human race.

I hope these scenarios have helped those of you with no common sense. For the rest of you who only experience occasional lapses in judgment I hope they served as a clear warning message.

He Will Rape This Town and Everything In It!

Hey there folks, Taylor "Jester G" Bell here with a new review of a game that simply is not good! Today's game is known as Western Outlaw: Wanted Dead or Alive.

After the train stops, you end up talking to a woman named Polly, who makes a valiant attempt to explain the plot but fails miserably. Apparently the town they were going to is a mining town, and the train robbers were working for a guy named Creston. Not only that, but in her own words, “If you don’t do something about Creston, he’ll rape this town and everything in it!” Oh no! Town rape is certainly no laughing matter, so our slightly confused hero vows to take care of this Creston guy. Once he does that, Polly walks out of the room and all of a sudden the house is filled with enemies. They don’t come from anywhere, they just spontaneously appear in every single room in the house, and one of them appears five feet in front of you. I really don’t understand how the bandits pulled off that trick, but then again I’m dumb.

Click, click, click your sorrows away!

– Zack "Geist Editor" Parsons (@sexyfacts4u)