Did something dumb? That's just plain stupid.

What is the dumbest thing you ever did? Think hard now. Did it result in a loss of money? Were you embarrassed? Were you injured? Did it kill you? If the answer to the last one is yes, then please tell me how are you reading this and is there a heaven? Is it Iowa? And does God really look like George Burns? But back to being dumb. Oh yes, I am not immune to the charms of doing something really stupid.

There was the time back in my CLC days (that is the College of Lake County for all of you non-northern Illinois burbers, or the College of Last Chance as it is more affectionately known), when I had made friends with a guy I saw in the lunch room all the time. We ate together, played video games together, lent each other quarters, bought each other sodas....yea, we were almost tight. Then the semester ended, and it was time to buy books for the next semester. I was in a long line, and he was way up ahead of me. He waved me over, and in a moment of sheer generosity, offered to buy my books when he got inside, thereby saving me 45 minutes of mind-numbing boredom. I gave him the list of books, gave him a blank check to pay for them, and then never saw him again. Yep, he was a con artist, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Pretty damn stupid of me.

Oh and then there were some lighter moments, like the time I was mixing a batch of wall patch. Non unlike mixing some cake batter or the like, I was day-dreaming of making a cake as I took the spatula, and promptly licked it, thinking for that one split second it was actually sweet, gooey batter. I think I scrubbed my tongue with an S.O.S. pad.

So go ahead laugh at my misgivings. I deserve it. But some folks don't, when a brain fart takes over, and in the end, pay for it with their lives. Like the article I read years back about the guy working the chipper (you know those massive machines where you throw a tree branch in one end and mulch flies out the other) when the offending branch got stuck, and yes, he decided one swift kick would dislodge it, which it did, taking his foot, leg, torso, and life with it. Absolute true story.

But the most recent case, the one that prompted my whole "Well I may have been temporarily afflicted with the stupid gene, but at least I am not dead," thing, can be attributed to "Being stupid because I got too drunk for my own good." The place, Palmer House Hilton, Chicago. The occasion, their annual Halloween Ball. The incident, a drunk party-goer can't resist sling down this staircase rail.

Who could resist? It's mother of all staircase rails, and yes, I have in my time, slid down a few of them. But some poor woman, in a moment of alcohol induced stupidity, had to let her inner child out, and went for a slide. And died.

Why do I bring it up? Tragic, yes, but the article made my blood boil. You see, I do imbibe from time to time, I am not immune to the charms of nice Pinot Noir, a Summer Shandy, or my good fried Mr. Jose Cuervo. But 2 years later, the still grieving parents of the dead woman feel the need to ease their pain by convincing themselves, and hopefully a judge or jury, that somehow it was the hotels fault. That it was "due to the negligence of the hotel and the companies who hosted the party" claiming that "the hotel and event hosts allowed people at the ball to 'consume unlimited amounts of alcoholic beverages' after they paid for a ticket and failed to provide security to protect the patrons of the ball." Protect them from who, themselves? If these people get one dime from the hotel, it is a miscarriage of justice. Why does someone else have to take the blame for another persons lack of common sense? If you can't control yourself when you are drunk, then, I dunno, maybe don't drink so much?

You can't teach stupid. It's in all of us, waiting to poke it's little head out at the most in-opportune times. I want to grab stupid by the ears, and bitch slap it's punk ass back into the bowels of my brain. I want to relegate it to obscurity, hoping to never see it's ugly face again. But at least I am alive to ward off its' advances in the future, a future that I am pretty sure won't include a wood chipper, or the staircase at the Palmer House in Chicago.