The Modern Man: Putting the Dumb in Wisdumb

As one ages, it is assumed that you will gain wisdom at the expense of your youthful persona.

For instance, I've learned to CHECK the breaker box to make sure the electricity is off when wiring my basement. It was quite a shocker, but I did learn.

I've learned that middle school is a perfect place for puns like "shocker", but adults weary of them quickly. However, I'm not a quitter, which might be a jolt to some of you.

I've learned good music is ageless, but our stars of the 70's and 80's weren't ageless at all, even with highly paid for plastic surgery, as shown by the following pictures, here, here, and here.

However even with all these neat bits of wisdom, with age comes confusion as well. The world moves forward at a technological pace equivalent of a (choose one... bike racer, sprinter, football player, or baseball star) on steroids.

So, as I should be getting more and more wisdom, there are more and more things I don't understand. So I've possibly coined the phrase wisdumb, which seems to show the state I'm almost constantly in. I should be getting smarter and wiser, but I keep seeing more and more things that confuse me. For instance:

I don't get stickers on fruit. Dear Lord, I just spent three minutes poking and prodding my lunchtime plum to pull that sucker off. Now it's stuck to my finger and I'm trying to flick it in the trash. Of course, it's now on the floor and I'm wondering if I should just leave it there, or take more time from my lunch break to unstick it from the floor. Do I really need a sticker to tell me it's a plum? It was in the plum pile for @$#@ sake. Am I going to pick it up and ask, "Hmm, I can't remember what kind of fruit this is? Thank God! There's a sticker! It's a plum!"

I don't get how a group of three people in a car all be talking on cell phones at one time (I actually saw this the other day)? Are they talking to each other? Do they hate each other? Is this the new ménage a trios, and if it was, why wasn't I invited?

I don't understand when a video game copies reality, and within the game I control a player who finds someone playing a video game in that video game, is that person whose playing the video game controling me?

On that note, do we control the video game players, or do they truly control us as we play at 3:00 AM hoping to make the next level and go to bed to get that 3 hours of sleep before work/school starts.

If reality shows mimic the human condition, then I'm beginning to wonder what condition my condition is in.

I don't understand how my wife can talk for 2 hours on the phone with a friend she's going to see that day.

If myspace.com is really your space, but technically it doesn't take up any real space at all, shouldn't it be called mypretendvirtualspacethatno-onereallycaresabout.com?

I don't get how NASCAR vehicles turn to the left all the time, yet their constituents tend to vote to the right.

I don't understand why radio stations are giving away "free money". If they are just giving away money, do I have to pay them back?

I also don't understand why I haven't made a million dollars with the inclusion of my new google ads.

I do understand that the google searches the blog for topics that they can sell and then places relevant advertisements, but last time I checked, my two ads were "Teaching Aids" and surpisingly, "Toilet Parts".

Toilet parts?

Now that's something I understand.