The Box

A few days ago I came to the definitive conclusion that common sense is not common. I’ve known this for some time, but today there is no doubt in my mind we have a lot of people walking around with not a clue what common sense is. On this past Saturday I was walking across an intersection and I witnessed two examples within seconds of one another of what I’ll call ‘stupidfullery’. Stupidfullery definition is one without common sense.

The first example was a woman driving a car across the intersection that I was crossing with a cell phone to her ears. I’m glad that she wasn’t so engrossed in her conversation that she did recognize that she did have a right turn signal. The second illustration was a young woman who was crossing the intersection with me. She too was on her cell phone and was all into her conversation and started crossing the street only because she saw me crossing. I had to mention to her to watch for the cars where making a left turn across our crosswalk. Apparently her phone volume was too loud because she did respond by looking at the turning cars and thanked be for bringing this to her attention. But she didn’t miss a beat on her conversation that continued throughout her street crossing. Has technology inserted stupidfullery into some people’s heads? I have to laugh to keep from crying.

Okay, let me digress. I have been perplexed for some time by actions of stupidfullery to the point I’d ask “Why God?” I finally came to the conclusion that common sense is not common. For many years I’ve held fast to an analogy about “The Box” that I developed many years ago. The analogy is when examples of stupidfullery arise I would state that that person didn’t open their box.

The analogy that I developed is somewhat comical. In the beginning, before we are born God presents us with a beautiful box giftwrapped with a beautiful bow on top. There are three responses to this present. 1^st – The person looks at the gift and says “Ooh pretty box and places it in a place of high esteem and never opens the box.” 2^nd – The response is that the person sees the box and proceeds to crush it without opening it. 3^rd – This person opens the box and in it is the precious gift of common sense. When I see stupidfullery I now say, “They didn’t open their box.” These analogies although it is sad to realize that there are so many people without common sense it keeps me from being frustrated.  Because you cannot make a person accept a gift.