There is a strong need for a study to be done on why a person cannot be blessed with both intelligence AND common sense. My theory is that during the course of creation, God decided that having both qualities would have caused circuit overload for most people, so He only allowed one trait or the other to be bestowed.
I am one of the unfortunate ones who got the book smarts instead of street/life smarts. This stood me in good stead during my 16-year academic career but hasn’t been a whit of benefit since. I mean, I can balance the checkbook to the penny and SEE and ACKNOWLEDGE that corrective action is needed for the major deficit there. I just can’t figure out what the action should be.
Luckily, I had the foresight—which is not the same as intelligence---to marry someone with common sense. Captain creatively (that’s another word for common sense) steered us out of one financial fiasco with an utterly OBVIOUS solution: cutting up my cash card. I figured it was going to take extremely drastic measures…like the sale or rent of one of our children to someone not fortunate enough to have been blessed with offspring.
Mechanical problems and their associated difficulties are another area that is beyond my intellect. A flat tire during rush hour many years ago had me doing the 100-yard dash in high heels (this creates a bad mental image) to a phone booth to call Captain for some of his famous sage advice. Would you believe he actually suggested I change the tire myself? Not that I don’t know how, because my daddy made sure I did. But there was no way I was going to squat down in high heels, which would hike my skirt to a nearly-illegal state, on the busiest street in town...not happening.
Sometimes, for inexplicable reasons, all cosmic mysteries are out in force at the same time and natural law is suspended, momentarily placing me at the upper end of the common sense scale. One such example is the time a doctor that I worked for was saying that the last batch of cookies he’d made hadn’t risen at all and ended up flat as pancakes. I asked him if he’d put baking powder in the dough, which I thought everyone knew was the ingredient that makes the cookies rise (learned that in the 4-H foods project, by the way). With a puzzled look, he said, “No, I was out of that and since the recipe only called for ¼ teaspoon, I didn’t think it was important.” Dude, didn’t you take chemistry in college or medical school?! Amazingly, we have remained good friends in the ensuing 24 years even though I was sort of a snot to him that day!
Another such example was the time Captain and his father were arguing about whether or not Captain should sell the straw bales he’d gotten from his oat crop (my father-in-law’s viewpoint) or if the straw bales should go in the haymow to be used during the winter in case my father-in-law’s supply ran short before spring (Captain’s viewpoint). After listening to them—which is more than they were doing to each other, I might add—I suggested that Captain should sell the straw bales to his father, and then they would both be happy. To strike two people who are in the midst of a heated discussion completely dumb was enough to keep me happy for several days. Even though they didn’t use my suggestion.
They say that opposites attract. Such is not the case for me. I was SMART enough to attract a sensible man, and he had the COMMON SENSE to get caught.
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