“God grant me the serenity to accept stupid people,
the courage to not waste my time and energy on them,
and the wisdom to know that I can’t fix stupid.” ~~ Anonymous
I had an early doctor’s appointment Thursday after Tuesday’s presidential debate between Harris and Trump. The appointment was for 8 a.m., and I arrived a few minutes early as there are generally a few administrative tasks to complete before actually seeing the medical personnel.
My internist is very good about getting me back to an exam room on time although occasionally I have had to wait in there for the doctor after the nurse does her thing with vitals and nosy questions. Most of the other doctors I go to are not quite so prompt. This was the case Thursday morning.
I first noticed this pair of men as the elder of the two was going on about his new-fangled watch that tracked many of his vital signs and other statistics. I made the assumption from the conversation that they were father and son. I first thought the younger must be in his 50s, but he might have been in his 60s. The elder man was definitely in his 80s.
I was trying to read the news on my phone, but the two were talking loud enough that it was hard to ignore them. The father was explaining each of the watch’s functions to his patiently listening son.
After listening to several of them the son said, “you needed that watch when you were in the hospital and everyone thought you were dying.”
For some reason this tickled my funny bone and I laughed out loud. After apologizing for eavesdropping, we had a brief conversation about watches of this ilk. I then went back to reading the news. They continued to converse in rather loud voices.
Abruptly changing the conversation, the younger man stated emphatically, “win, lose, or draw the Democrats will destroy the country.”
I stuck my head deeper into my phone, cursing myself for not bringing my headphones in.
He then went on about how much better JD Vance was than Pence. He essentially called Pence a wimp. He explained that he liked Vance as he told it like it was and that he was great at delivering one liners.
If the ability to deliver one liners was a qualification for Vice President of the most powerful country on the planet then perhaps Rodney Dangerfield, Milton Berle or Henny Youngman should have held the office. Current comedians such as Jim Gaffigan or Daniel Tosh might be good candidates. Heck, I am prone to sending out the occasional good one line zingers myself. I could look very Vice Presidential if that was all I had to do.
The son then proceeded to talk about the debunked story concerning Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio having people’s pets for dinner. Trump, not so surprisingly, repeated this story during the debate.
From what I could gather, the son believed the story, discounting what the town’s mayor and the state’s governor had said about the story not being true, “of course, they would say that. They do not want their town and state to look bad.”
He continued, blaming the “liberal” media for not investigating the story diligently and uncovering the truth.
I just kept my mouth shut. It was a small waiting room and nowhere in there could I have escaped their conversation. I briefly thought about going out to the hall to wait, but I thought that would be awkward.
The father, for his part, just kept repeating that he did not pay attention to the news anymore. I suppose this was his strategy for not getting more involved in the conversation.
I then remembered a common comment of the Sage of North Barrington, “You can’t fix stupid.”
You certainly cannot argue with stupid. I would have simply been Sisyphus rolling a boulder up the MAGA hill only to watch it roll back down into the mosh pit of MAGAlodytes.
After finishing his rant about the liberal media’s lack of investigation of the pet eating story, he made a comment about Democratic women having prostrates.
What!
One has to wonder what he thought the function of the prostrate was. And why a male specific organ would only be found in women who identified as Democrats. Anatomy does not care what your political beliefs are. Of course, earlier he had been disparaging Rachel Levine, the transgender Assistant Secretary for Health and Head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in the Biden administration. So perhaps it was a call back to that. From his comment, perhaps he thought all women who identify as Democratic were transgender.
You cannot make this stuff up… and yup, you can’t fix stupid.
Thankfully it was at this point that the nurse came to the door and called me back to an exam room so she could do her vampire routine.
I was in Washington, MO overnight for a speaking engagement. On the way back to my hotel after supper, I passed a younger man on the walk, with his dog. Just after he passed me, he said, can I ask you a question? Stupidly, I said OK. After some preliminary questions clearly trying to feel out my political beliefs, he asked who I was voting for. I said “the sane one!” His response: “So Trump, then?” When I protested, he launched into the eating dogs and cats thing. I said goodnight and walked away. He called after me, “this is why the country is divided, people won’t talk any more!” I thought to myself, no, we’re divided because the insane think they are the sane ones. As the Wicked Witch of the West once said, “what a world!”
What a world INDEED
Love this .
“Apparently in this country, the “Stupids” are an extended family.” George Carlin