With stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain. - Friedrich von Schiller

When I was in the second grade, autograph books were very popular. (Because second-graders have many pithy bits of wisdom to share with their peers.) I still have mine somewhere in the boxes I brought back from my mom’s house. It’s a little rectangular book with multicolored pastel pages, its cover pearlized white paper, “Autographs” embossed in gold script across the front.

My favorite entry, written by a boy on whom I harbored a secret crush right up until I graduated from high school, reads, “Dear BB: You are Dum. Love, Ray”
It probably says something revealing about my psyche that I found this swoon-worthy. But everyone else in my family thought it was howlingly funny and it soon passed into family legend; it became a phrase used with alarming frequency. When you did something – let’s say, not very bright - OR when someone gave you a backhanded compliment (because it did apply to either situation) - one of us would thoughtfully say, “Dear BB, You are dum. D-U-M, Dum.”

My father was especially fond of this little bon mot; I suspect he empathized with the well-meaning, if ill-spoken, young man.

I seem to have surpassed my usual stupidity quotient this week; I feel as if there should be voices in my head (other than the usual ones) saying, “Dear BB, You are dum.”

1. I sold a pile of clothes on eBay. While I fully intend to stop at three children, selling maternity clothes would be tempting fate in the worst way, but I felt comfortable with selling my nursing clothes. I had them priced too low to start, not having had great success in the past with eBay listings, and then I miscalculated the shipping costs so that the buyer paid me six dollars for shipping that cost me twelve bucks. So for all the hassle of washing, ironing, packing the stuff, then loading children into the car, getting them in and out of the post office, and then realizing that by packing them (the clothes, not the children) in a recycled priority mail box, I had to send the package priority mail unless I wanted to drag it back home and repack it – all minor things but put together, a colossal pain in the ass – I made a profit of seven dollars. Stupidity Evidence Number One. Next time I’ll just donate to Goodwill, and write it off my taxes.

2. I was out of bagels this morning and I NEED my carbs. I ran through the McDonald’s drive-through for an Egg McMuffin and a cup of coffee. Except I then had to park the car and go in because the wrapper said sausage and while I happily will eat the greaseball that is an Egg McMuffin, God forbid it have sausage on it. The counterperson pulled it out of the bag and patiently pointed out that all four different types of breakfast sandwiches were printed on the wrapper; I had only seen the sausage one. I indeed had an Egg McMuffin. So much for getting to work early enough to make up the hour I was missing due to early departure so I could get to Primo’s art night on time.

3. Despite being up since six to run, scrambling around like a loony as usual to get Primo to school and myself to work, working all day and then jumping in my car and driving home at breakneck speed to swoop up Primo and get to school, to run the cash register for the book fair for three hours, without dinner (OK, that’s dumb right there), I am writing this rather than sleeping.

4. You cannot trust men. Ever. In any way. Any man. And yet I continue to do so.

See?
“Dear BB, you are Dum. D-U-M.”