When I was 6 or 7, the school I was in decided to have my IQ tested. I went and saw a nice man who asked me a bunch of interesting (thought provoking) questions, and I was told I scored very high on it. So I was told I was smart at a very young age, and who am I to question the wisdom of my elders? One of the things that made me even smarter was learning that being smart does not keep one from doing really dumb things.
There isn’t space enough in this column to list all the dumb stuff I’ve done. Well, here’s an example – I was going to make a turkey sandwich (I was an adult at this point, mind you) and to avoid dirtying a plate, I decide the slice the turkey in the palm of my hand. “I’ll just stop cutting once I realize the knife blade has gone through the turkey”, I cleverly reasoned. Turned out, that’s NOT clever. I live, I learn…sometimes anyways. Pass the Neosporin, please.
There’s a common theme to my dumbest acts – I will do my reasoning from a cheapskate or lazy point of view, and my innate desire to save money or extra work leads to acts that are terribly embarrasing – made doubly so by the fact that I’ve been telling everyone how smart I am.
Bert Daniels’ recent column on string changing reminded me of this, because not changing strings appeals to my cheap and lazy side. If you could avoid the hassle and expense of changing strings, wouldn’t you do it (or not do it, I guess I mean)? What could be easier than NOT buying strings, and even someone gave them to you, NOT putting them on? It’s such elegant logic, it makes me want to weep with joy!
Turns out there is a reason to change strings: to sound better. And the reluctance to change strings flies in the face of the logic that drove me to buy a high-quality instrument in the first place. “Lessee”, I say to the guitar shop man. “That’s $1200, $1300, $1400 – thanks! Do I want to buy some strings? At $12 a set? Do you think I’m an idiot?”
Wait – it gets dumber. I buy fine instruments with scads of money (because I’m serious about music!), and then I think “$200 for a hardshell case? Isn’t a $21 gig bag good enough, so long as I’m careful?” Actually, I haven’t made that dumb mistake. I’m fanatic about cases.
But I did do this – I bought a $14 instrument stand and put my $3000 banjo on it. Banjos are weighted kind of funny, so that heavy lower part seems to want to be a tippy fulcrum. You guessed it – the banjo tipped over – ever so slowly, and fell gently onto a carpeted floor. Which shattered the peg head just above the nut. I almost passed out from the shock. I felt like crying – how could I be so stupid? It turned out to be repairable, but the next stand I bought was top notch and passed rigorous stage-situation-simulation before I bought it.
About the only thing I can claim to be smart about is not repeating the dumb things I do. But I do have to do every possible dumb thing at least once, and there’s a seemingly endless list of dumb things to do. I just hope I live enough to learn from them all….
