Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Only a Man Could Be This Dumb

Men.

My god, that was so incredibly stupid. So quintessentially male.

What bizarre combination of unwarranted self-confidence and self-centeredness leads to flying in such a way as to crash a plane, for fun?

"Ooh look at that," Mr Cesarz said, apparently referring to cockpit readings. "Pretty cool."


Yes, it's *cool* to crash your commercial plane and kill yourself! It's *cool* to deliberately exceed the operating parameters of a complex machine that is HANGING IN THE AIR!

It's cool to have *faith* in a piece of machinery magically working no matter what you do to it, rather than *understanding* how it works and might at some point fail!

Oh, you go right ahead and say "all men aren't like that, Sid, you're tarring all of us with this brush" if that makes you feel better. You know and I know that enough men do enough shit like this all the time to effect actuarial tables and insurance rates across the country.

I admit this tirade on my part is triggered in part by the fact that I was raised in Alaska, where being stupid -- or even inattentive -- could GET YOU KILLED. I cannot stress that enough.

Oh, look, a bear! Let's go tease it and take a photo!

Well, only if you want to die, dipshit. Bears are dangerous. What are you, stupid?

It's a lesson that has stood me in good stead, from bears to rattlesnakes to scuba diving to people talking on cellphones on the freeway.

It's this bizarre lack of belief that anything can ever actually hurt you -- this presumption of immortality -- that leads to 18 to 24-year-old men having high auto insurance rates. There's a reason for the high rates. Because when you assume that nothing bad could ever happen, you don't THINK about the CONSEQUENCES of your ACTIONS.

Idiot Guy: Let's destruction-test a plane!

Woman: *raises eyebrows* While I'm in it? No, thanks.

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