Mincey’s Musings
Year One, Week Twenty-One

With fondness and joy I watch certain episodes of one of my favorite childhood situation comedies (aka “sit coms”) Sanford and Son. Fred Sanford knew better than most—there are dummies, if not under your own roof, out there somewhere!

Once two gentlemen were running from a car into a building in the pouring rain. The wind blew their umbrella inside out, causing them to become drenched from head to toe in the wind-driven rain. One of the fellows says to the other, just as they reached the entrance to the building, “Uh, I think it’s going to come a storm.” What could possibly have clued him in?

Another gentleman spoke to me today who had visited a psychiatrist. He said the good doctor asked him a number of questions to determine his mental state. The doctor finally asked if he had considered suicide. When the man replied, “Yes,” the doctor asked if he had been successful.

This would seem to be one of those instances when the inmate is in charge of the asylum. I told the man he should have said something to the effect, “What in the !@#$% do you think?” I suppose if the man had reported success, he would have been declared insane, as obviously he couldn’t have been declared dead! The fact that the doctor asked the question at all leads me to think he, if not each of those in his profession, should be declared a lunatic.

This led me to wonder about other dumb questions that are often asked. My personal favorite (and I admit having asked this several times) occurs when a person calls someone on the phone and asks the person who answers the phone “Are you at home?” or “Where are you?” In the days of the almost now extinct land lines, the obvious answer would be, “Yes, fool, how could I have answered the phone if I weren’t home?”

However, now that significantly fewer people have land lines in their houses due to the prevalence of cell phones, this is no longer a dumb question, for a person answering by mobile device can indeed be anywhere that reception is available. It is now logical to ask a person when calling them on a cell phone, “Where are you?” An elusive answer might be, “Somewhere with reception. Where are you?”
Are people under arrest issued cell phones?

Regardless of the location of a person or the nature of the phone, a dumb question might be, “Are you asleep?” The obvious answer, “Definitely not now.” It would be considered dumb of a parent to ask their child, “Do you have your phone with you?” if the parent had called the child’s cellular phone and was speaking to her/him via the device called.

What are some other dumb questions? A Google search has revealed these as some of my very favorites:

Why do you have to “put your two cents in,” but it’s only a “penny for your thoughts”? Where does that extra penny go?

How can a woman be sure she’s the real mother of her child?

Why do your feet smell and your nose runs?

What if someone died in the living room?

Why do we have to pay a toll on “freeways”?

Why do they call them pepperoni if there is no pepper in it?

Whenever an adult is kidnapped why isn’t it called adultnapped?

How old does something have to be to become an antique?

Where do all the daylight savings hours go?

Why is it written “May contain traces of peanuts or other kind of nuts” on peanut butter jars. Are people stupid enough not to realize it themselves?

Can a cross-eyed teacher control his pupils?

Why when people ask you “what three things would you bring with you on a desert island?” no one ever replies, “A BOAT”?

Why are elderly people often called “old people”, but children are never called “new people”?

If teachers were to teach a younger grade than they were teaching before, would they be “degraded”?

Why is there no pine or apple in pineapple?

These questions (and you can find so many others by typing “dumb questions” into a Google search engine) not belie the statement that we so often tell those who say, “I have a question”—“There are no stupid questions!”

Fortunately, such questions are often asked in jest, just for fun—not in seriousness. Until next time, faithful reader, beware of humans asking stupid questions! Be very afraid if you find yourself responding with stupid answers!