And she's the smart one in her family

Eventually, I’ll get back around to posting about my own life. I feel the need right now, however, to try to wrap up what we’ve learned this week from my illustrious co-worker, and not the specifics of her situation, exactly, but rather what she is teaching us about human nature and life in general. Let’s warm up by considering a few of the memorable questions she’s thrown my way, usually with no warning or appropriate segue:
“Are lemons good for you?”
“How big is a 22-inch TV?”
“Do we live in middle Tennessee?” (no, we live in East Tennessee; she has for 32 years)

The list could be much longer if I was faster with the pen (do you think she might get suspicious that I reach for pen and paper every time she asks me a question?). These are just some of what I’ve recorded. Sure, we all ask dumb questions every once in a while, but, from what I can tell about the people who may read this blog, we all are probably aware of the geographic region of our current residence, the benefits of eating citrus fruit and that an inch is, in fact, a unit of measurement. What I’m attempting to establish here, beyond the shadow of a whisker of a doubt, is not that she’s simply an idiot, but rather the true bottomless depths of her ignorance. And I mean that in the most charitable of ways, because she really is a nice girl.

I’ll try to get to the point. Because there are limited avenues for reaching this site, I have to assume that you are most likely similar to me in that you are educated, intelligent, and come to most of your conclusions about the world around you through careful reasoning. Prepare yourself now, because here comes the bombshell: We are the minority. My illustrious co-worker is not. She is the people. This is what we are up against. How can we expect a person to grapple with issues such as abortion, population growth, urban planning, international politics, environmental ethics, and any other important concepts that a person of legal voting age should have to consider… when they are not aware that fruit is good for them?

We can’t. I’m sorry, but we just can’t. Through extensive interaction with people such as my illustrious co-worker and others like her (what does that say about me?), I am becoming increasingly impressed that the average person can tie their shoes. Dammit, I’m ranting again. I said I wouldn’t do this. To try and atone for my downer message on such a beautiful Saturday morning, let me leave you with this small glimmer of hope: The Google homepage of my illustrious co-worker features the following graphic: a clock that counts down to the end of the George W. Bush presidency. See, even she gets it.