Sometimes, I’m the idiot in front of you

I’m a really smart guy. Like, the guy who always wrecked the curve. The guy who did Scholar’s Bowl and chess team. MENSA smart. Paid dues for a year; now I’m what they call a “wandering M.”

And I’ve never, that I can remember, swiped my credit card correctly on the first try at a gas pump or a POS terminal. Yes, I know there’s a diagram. Always, there is a diagram. I have a highly specific spatial retardation that prevents me from interpreting it correctly.

Want to know what’s worse? I slid my Visa in and out of a gas pump tonight five times before it occurred to me to turn the card around and try it the other way. This, even knowing I have this specific retardation.

Want to know what’s even worse than that? The times that I have had the foresight to remember my “handicap” and try to account for it, I still screw it up. I’ve actually thought to myself: “OK, you always get this wrong. So think about what you would want to do, and then just do the opposite.” Well, I guess that’s too much the other way, because I still mess it up. And then I’ve tried to account for it thusly: “OK, you get it wrong the first try, then you get it wrong trying to second-guess it, so the third guess ought to be right.”

Nope.

At this point, I’m resigned to getting it wrong the rest of my life. And shit, I’m only 35 now. Imagine what I’ll be getting wrong when I’m 75!

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