That’s Just Dumb

People say dumb things all the time, but occasionally someone will drop a line on me that actually leaves me breathless, stunned and speechless at their level of ignoramusness.

Note #1: You may have just witnessed history, as I used the word ignoramusness in a sentence. That’s gotta be a first, people.

Note #2: I’m awesome.

I have heard several moronic comments my own self recently, so I shall pass these on to you thusly. Let us begin . . .

As many of you know, I have a son named Kip. He was born in Korea and is of Asian ancestry. I happened to be in Athens, Ohio at a basketball camp when the word came down that Kip had been born. When I got the news I was with a coaching friend of mine (I’ll withhold his name to save him from the embarrassment of looking like a complete buffoon). My friend knew nothing of the adoption, so naturally he had some questions. Here’s the conversation that followed:

Coach: “So your son was born? Where? How?”

Me: “He was just born in Korea. He’ll be here in a few weeks. I can’t wait to see him.”

Coach, puzzled: “He’s Korean?”

Me: “Yeah, just born. Isn’t it great?”

Coach, looking befuddled: “Aren’t you going to have trouble teaching him English?”

I just stared at him, dumbstruck. Then I walked away.

I had a kid on one of my AAU teams a couple years ago that ordered a salad with extra futons. The waiter looked at him as if he was looking at a talking marmoset.

Years ago I had a player on one of my basketball teams who wasn’t what you would call a Rhodes Scholar. Let’s call him Bryan. On our fast break he was supposed to go to a certain spot of the floor. In the PV gym that spot was where the Bearcat Paw was painted near mid-court. When we got the rebound Bryan was supposed to go to the Bearcat Paw and wait for the outlet pass. As a result I’d drilled that into his head in the pre-season:

“Bryan! Go to the Bearcat Paw!”

You get the idea. Anyway, we had our first scrimmage that year at Alexander HS. A couple minutes into the scrimmage Bryan came running over to me, wild-eyed, and yelled this:

“Coach! Where do I go? There’s no Bearcat Paw!”

Sigh.

When I was AD at Paint Valley I had a pretty well-known coach come up to me before a basketball game, just livid because there were only 12-chairs available on his bench and he had to sit 12-players plus coaches there. My response?

“Well. five of your players will be on the floor, correct?”

He just nodded, looked off into the distance, and sat down.

A couple years ago my basketball team went to a 5-team Shootout. After our fourth game I told the kids we were finished and it was time to go home. That led to this exchange:

“Coach, there are 5-teams here. We have another game left!”

“Uh, no. Because one of those teams are us. Let’s go.”

But onto more famous dumb people.

Here’s a quote from Brooke Shields during an interview to become spokesperson for a federal anti-smoking campaign:

“Smoking kills. If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”

So true. So very true.

Here’s a gem from former vice-president Dan Quayle:

“If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

And if we fail, we greatly reduce our chances of success, Dan. Just sayin’.

Noted brainiac and pop singer Mariah Carey had this to say about world hunger:

“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.”

I can only imagine what she means by “and stuff.” Good God.

When basketball player Jason Kidd was drafted by the Dallas Mavericks, he promised this:

“We’re going to turn this team around 360 degrees.”

See Jason, if you turn 360 degrees, you’re right back where you started. Ah, never mind.

Here’s one more for y’all. When I first started teaching back in the stone age, we used mimeograph machines to make copies. You actually turned the thing by hand. Anyway, copiers came along and made things easier, but not everyone got the hang of it right away. I walked into the office one day and there was a teacher making copies. She was doing this by hitting the “1” button over and over, and over, again. In other words, she needed 30-copies so she was hitting the button 30-times. I calmly showed her that you could hit “3” followed by an “0”, THEN hit copy and you’d get 30-copies. You’d have thought I’d given her the Secret of Life.

Dumb.

Note: While researching this blog I came to the realization that I write about dumb people a LOT. Just type “dumb” into the search box at the top left of Shoe: Untied to see what I mean.