I Knew It! I'm Surrounded by [Morons]!

This is something most people would agree on, but would never agree that they themselves were: people are dumb. A quote from the movie Men in Black sums it all up pretty well: "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." It is for the most part, true. Everyone is prone to acts of foolishness, stupidity and complete idiocy at times. Even I will admit that I have done some pretty stupid or foolish things in my life. But I do attempt not to act like this day-to-day. To actually open my eyes and be aware of my surroundings. I've known this fact for years, but in working at Tim Hortons, it has highlighted itself so severely as to glow in an all-encompassing, giant blob of Technicolor orange the color of puke up-chucked for all to see. Unfortunately, the only ones who can't see it are of course the ones perversely desecrating the area about themselves. I will follow this up with examples.

This one is about a woman. The lock on the door to one of the stalls in the womans washroom was broken. After I had been informed of this, I put together an out of order sign and taped it to the door itself. After all, when something is broken, you put a sign on it to let others know that it is broken, so they won't suffer the mishap of whatever other person came before them. Well, this woman, even after reading the sign, used the stall. She felt that the sign was a lie; after all, the toilet worked perfectly. Can't be anything wrong with that, right? Oh, except that the lock is broken. She had locked herself into the stall with her only means of getting out being to either climb over top the door, lift the door off its hinges (if she had the strength), or crawl under. This woman approached me, I being the only person on the floor at the time due to it being late at night, and began to ream me out for having locked herself in the washroom. She asked to speak to the supervisor. I asked her at that point, it being roughly a half hour after I had put the sign on the door, if there had been a sign on the door. She replies gruffly that no, there was no sign. I then say, as calmly as I can, "So, you're telling me there is no sign on the door, and if I were to go and inspect this stall in question and find a sign, what would you say then?" Caught in her lie, she confessed. But for her own actions, she wanted to responsibility. I did not bother forwarding her complaint -- she was too stupid to read a sign already on the door, she had no right to complain.

However, women aren't the only people who are stupid. I was out of town at a mall. I'm walking along and spy a Booster Juice. Thinking to myself that I want something, I approach. I see they have a sign up, and it reads: "Cash only: debit and credit card machine is down." Making the logical conclusion, I pay for my item with cash with no hassle. The man behind me, however, looks at the sign, reads it, then pulls out his debit card and utters in a whinny voice asking, "Can I pay with my debit card?" Before the girl at the counter can even reply to his insipid question, I ask him plainly if he is retarded. He gets huffy, looking at me, probably thinking to himself that my question is a stupid one. I point out the sign, and that obviously if there is a sign, then the machine isn't working. He said he was "just checking to make sure." I'm fairly certain the girls would take the sign down if the machine was working. Make no mistake.

The third is something I deal with day to day with many people. At the store, we have plaques detailing what kind of credit cards we accept. Many stores are like this: if you don't see the sticker, the place doesn't accept that card. People are so used to seeing these signs they are obviously blind to them. Sheep herded along. Horses running with blinders, or whatever else. They don't see it. So, every day, I get at least one customer trying to pay with a credit card we do not accept. They get annoyed, asking which kind of credit cards we do accept. I point to the sign that's directly in front of me at the till, where they are standing, in plain view. And almost every time, the credit cards we accept, they don't have. What's worse is when they have no money on them whatsoever. Pointing out that there is a debit machine where they can get money is of no use, because more than fifty percent of the time, they leave, angrily, blaming me for their own inability to see signs plastered at the entrance doors and at every till.

The end is that people are stupid. And anyone who might want to say "well, logically, if you're saying people are stupid, you are too, since you're also a person." This is true. Everyone is stupid, but there are varying degrees of stupidity and stupid acts. The problem is, the dumber population at large outnumbers anyone who is moderately less challenged mentally.