Wednesday, September 21, 2011

An Accident Waiting to Happen

The older I get (and that's about to be pretty darned old), the more surprised I am at how stupid we humans can be. 

On my way to work this morning, I rode down in the elevator with a guy wearing pants and a white t-shirt, who was using both hands to balance a very large bowl of very runny oatmeal.  Spoon in the bowl.  Button-up dress shirt on a hanger tucked under his arm.  Medium-sized glass bottle with a screw top lid full of water also clutched in one of his hands, along with his car keys. 
Photo courtesy of brokenwisdom.com

When I asked him if he was planning to eat the oatmeal while he drove to work, he smiled rather sheepishly and said if he answered that question, he'd have to kill me.  I suggested it could be rather messy (while in my head thinking, "are you insane?!??") and he laughed and said that's why he doesn't put his dress shirt on until he gets to work.

I'm thinking this behaviour is a total recipe for disaster.  Seriously?  Where do you balance a runny bowl of oatmeal on a car seat? The dude could barely operate the elevator buttons and I have no idea how he would have handled the doorknob on the parking garage door if I hadn't been there. And a glass bottle with a screw top for water?  Oh right, you probably just steer with your knees when you need both hands to get that lid off, am I right?  Geez, buddy, get a clue, would ya?

As we walked to our cars, I asked if he'd give me a head start out of the parking garage because I sure as heck didn't want to be anywhere near this clown when he got behind the wheel!!  (He thought I was joking.)

In reality, we're all idiots, aren't we?  I like to tell myself I'm smarter than this guy but then, I foolishly believed the weather forecaster on the radio this morning who said the rain wouldn't start until "later tonight" and was surprised when it started pouring at 3 p.m. and I ended up with very wet shoes and toes because I thought it would be safe to wear sandals to work today. 

But at least I wasn't going to risk lives by driving with damp toes.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

A person I once worked with routinely ate a bowl of cold cereal and milk while driving to work. How she did it I don't know.