Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-07-18 - 9:03 a.m.

Stupid

I had an interesting conversation with my kids the other day about the difference between feeling embarrassed and feeling stupid. Someone had asked my younger child what things made her feel stupid. She couldn't think of any. She's never felt stupid.

Well, hallelujah, huh?

That's pretty cool, isn't it? I mean, she's only eight and all, and she says she has felt embarrassed before, but the kid has never felt stupid. Hey, maybe she never will.

So I had to ponder the difference between embarrassed and stupid. They do have different nuances, and I love words with nuance almost as much as I love the word nuance. It was a diverting train of thought.

Embarrassed has a connotation of things that happen to everybody, or perhaps just things that happen - you didn't actively cause them, or they couldn't be helped, and gee there you are with your pants down - but there but by the grace of God goes everyone who's gawking at you, too.

Stupid is beyond that. Stupid implies that you have personally chosen a plan of action that no intelligent person would have pursued, and now your ass is hanging out for all to see because of it.

I get embarrassed often. I'm lucky to be brunette, because it's hard to see me blush. I get embarrassed over trifles. I think people are looking at me when they're not. I have this thing with the concrete bumpers in parking lots, for instance. I park where I swear there aren't any, and then when I leave and there's no on parked in front of me and I think, "Wow, I can just pull forward here, saving all the incredible backbreaking labor of putting the gearshift into reverse," and sure enough, some idiot had run out while I was in the store and put one of those damn bumpers under my front tire. BumpBUMP. It embarrasses me. Every time. How often can you DO this?

Stupid is different. Stupid is when you think you've worked it out, and you're trying your best, and someone comes along and points out how ass-crack dumb your thinking is. Stupid is when you promise yourself you're NOT going to do it again this time, no way no how, not going there, nuh-uh, and then you do, because you knew you would all along, because you're really just that...stupid. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you may go and sit on the smart side of the room, with my daughter.

I don't feel stupid so often any more, though. Maybe it's that "there but by the grace of God" thing. The older I get, the more I see how much we are all the same. Hah- like YOU never drove over one of those concrete bumpers? Like you never SWORE you wouldn't call him, and then you did anyway? Riiight. I'm not getting any smarter, but I'm letting more people into my Stupid Boat. Somehow, when the company is good, it's harder to feel like there's some sort of spotlight on YOUR mistakes.

I think Younger Child might be getting this about thirty years before I did. She's not stupid, and she knows it. I'm sure she'll have embarrassing moments. She'll walk out of the Ladies' trailing TP from her shoe, she'll put her hand up in class and then have the wrong answer. Maybe she'll drive over concrete bumpers. But she'll know it happens to all of us. She'll know there may be different sides of the room, but it's really all the same chairs.

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