Surprise ... You're Stupid

The other day my cell phone rang, prompting me to check the phone ID (Unrecognized) and open the clamshell, against my better judgment.


“This is Charlie.”


“Charlie Accetta?”


I shook my head and took a deep breath.


“No. This is Charlie the talking squirrel.”


“Excuse me?”


“Look, you dialed a specific ten digit number, expecting to speak with someone named Charlie. The person on the other end picks up and says ‘This is Charlie’ and what … you’re surprised?”


It is one of my baser traits to be obnoxious and unkind in the presence of ignorance, but this is an obnoxious and unkind world, so I justify my rudeness by blaming it on the unique gaseous mix of my native atmosphere. Still, all of the self-righteous demurring and projected excuses aside, there is a valid point buried somewhere within – people tend to lean towards stupidity whenever the ground beneath their feet shifts without warning. The amount of change in perspective has no bearing on the matter; the slightest sway of subtle variance seems to bring out the stupid in all of us. In the case of the caller, he didn’t anticipate that I would answer the phone by name and so stuck to his script, no matter how redundant some parts of it had become.


From a personal point of view, it is well known among my friends that I hate surprises, no matter how pleasant and well meant. The simple reason lay in my desire to not look stupid, and there’s nothing better designed to make one look stupid than an orchestrated surprise. Think about it; the best part of a surprise party is the dopey look on the guest of honor’s face at the moment the trap is sprung. A twit like Ashton Kutcher made a name for himself by capturing his fellow B-Listers in various states of mental undress on the MTV show Punk’d, allowing the rest of us to watch as the hoaxes played out. I never thought much of the concept, mainly because I consider anyone appearing on MTV to be stupid by default, thus grinding off the show’s climactic edge. However, the underlying concept holds true in this example, in that altering the arrangement in one’s personal space helps to make stupid people look even more stupid.


Birthday parties and practical jokes are all rather harmless forms of surprise. They generally don’t cause permanent harm to life or limb. In the area of self-inflicted surprise, my favorite is always the person darting out into a busy street from behind a parked truck. How could you not anticipate that car hurtling across your projected path? Were you surprised when the collision threw you straight up into the air and dropped you on your head? Oh, you can’t answer because you’re dead? How stupid of me. Better yet, those dopes who exit from the driver’s side of their cars and are immediately flattened, in spite of having a perfectly good rear view mirror at their disposal. I mean, that’s a seriously stupid form of surprise.


Even historical examples tend to reveal the power of stupidity over genius when giving credit for a masterful military stroke. The legend of the Trojan Horse is described by Homer (the Greek, not the Simpson) as a gift left at the gates of Troy. Despite various warnings of doom, the Trojans rolled it inside their walls and the thirty Greeks hidden within the horse snuck out in the cover of night and opened the gates for the balance of the waiting Greek army. Can you imagine the comical bug-eyed aspect of the Trojan military leaders, after holding off the combined Greek armies for ten years, in finding their city overwhelmed on the strength of an oversized knick-knack? Talk about being Punk’d.


The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is a well-documented example of another not so pleasant tactical surprise. During the war, hearings held in the U.S. Senate and House to uncover the reasons behind the disaster revealed a list of misinterpreted events and bungled communications that helped ensure a Japanese victory. Among the conclusions arrived at was the fact that it wouldn’t have been such a big surprise if the people involved in defending the base weren’t so self-absorbed and insulated. Needless to say, the generals and admirals under congressional scrutiny were surprised to hear that, judging by their pained facial expressions. Most of those men went to their graves in denial, raising the real possibility that stupidity can be multi-dimensional and attach itself like a coat of oil-based paint to the shrouds of our eternal afterlife.


The same can probably be said for the future demise of the intelligence clowns who allowed the attacks on September 11, 2001 to succeed. They’ll go to their graves insisting that something of the sort was bound to happen eventually and that it just coincidently occurred during their watch, when they should simply admit to their stupidity and move on. That’s what I’d do. Granted, I don’t normally put people’s lives at risk through my own miscalculations or failures to anticipate, but I like to think that I would consider that bigger picture if circumstances so dictated. Even then, if I were caught unawares, causing harm and havoc, I’d kick myself in the ass and tell the world that I’m sorry for being such a dope. Upon hearing that, most people would find themselves surprised by the admission, thus allowing me to shake the stupid out of my fur and watch with pleasure as it attached itself to theirs.