Book Smart / Street Dumb

 I continually see people that I know are book smart, but they seem incredibly dumb at times.  And it seems that the times when they are dumb, it's often the simplest of practical, everyday, things that most people would know.

I know someone that was an A student in mathematics and physics, but as far as I can tell, is functionally a moron when it comes to common sense.

There was the case of a screw that came loose on his storm door.  He claimed that the screw was stripped out and that the whole storm door or at least the handle would need to be replaced.  And I knew that the handle on that storm door was less than two years old, and I also knew that storm doors are not screwed into from the handle.  The screw for the door handle goes from a plate on the inside of the door, through the door to the plate on the outside of the door.

So I checked the door.  I held the plate on the outside of the door flash against the door, and then from the inside, easily screwed into the handle and into the outer plate.  I tightened it.  The issue was resolved in two minutes or less.

This is a mechanical thing that anyone over 25 years old should already know.

There was another case where this same guy had to chain a mower to a car port post, to secure it so that no one could easily steal the mower.  the thing is, he looped the chain onto the mower and then back onto a lock.  The lock was secured to the chain and the mower, but he wasn't smart enough to also loop it all around the post.  So any thief could just grab the mower and roll it away, dragging the chain with the lock on behind.

How could any adult miss something so simple.

And then there was a young man that I knew that used to carry all of his video games, CDs, DVDs, DVD player and game console(s) in the back seat of his car.  I told him that thieves would see that stuff in his backseat and break into the car and steal it.  He didn't believe me at first.  He asked "how will they know I have this stuff?"
I had to answer, "all they have to do is walk by the car in a parking lot, or while it is parked at the curb, and look in the back seat.

He still didn't believe me.  He said, "Why would they do that?"

I said, "Because that's what thieves do.  They look for things to steal and opportunities to do it.  And you are putting that stuff on display."

So the next time I saw him, he explained that he solved the problem.  I looked in the back seat, and he had shopping bags and a box full of stuff.  You couldn't tell what was in them, but you could tell that they were packaged with something.

I had to then explain to him that he'd have been better off just leaving the stuff out in view, because now he's made it easier for the thieves to carry his stuff off; because now it's all in bags and a box.

He didn't seem to understand the problem.

"The thief walks by ten cars in the parking lot, and looks in each one for something to steal", I said.

"If nine cars have nothing visible, but he comes by your car, he might not know what it is you have, but he knows you have something that might possibly be worth something.", I said, "and he's looking for something that he can sell for a quick buck."

I kept telling him that it was okay to have that stuff package up like he had it, but that he needed to put it away in his trunk where it couldn't been seen, and to not put it there in front of witnesses (his friends' neighbors).  I told him to pack up at his home, and then when he returns, take that stuff back into his house.

Well, I followed my advise for a while, but got lazy and just left it in the back seat.  

He was robbed soon after that.  He lost everything, but it costed him several hundred dollars to replace the window that the thieves broke to get into his car.

I didn't say "I told you so."  I just shook my head in disbelief that I even had to explain this stuff to him over and over and he still didn't get it.

 And then there's another guy that I know that has an advanced degree, and is a teacher.  When the Covid-19 pandemic first hit, businesses were shutting down.  I knew a lot of people that were losing their jobs and trying to figure out how to survive.  I knew business owners that were losing their customers (because their customers were out of work), and they were trying to figure out how to keep their businesses open.

So my first concern was my friend, so I asked him if he knew what he was going to do.  His response floored me.

"I don't have to worry about it, because I have my own business."  He said, "I'm not like everyone working in the corporate world."

I asked him, "what do your customers do for a living?"

He was stunned and didn't answer me.  It had finally hit him that the pandemic was going to affect him, just like it was affecting everyone else.  I was just amazed that someone with an advanced education couldn't figure this out on his own.

I could go on with other people that I know that have advanced education, including one person with a Ph.D, that had views that didn't match with reality at all.

In the end, I just said, "Book Smart, Street Dumb".  Someone might come up with a better way to paraphrase it, but that's what I see.  There are a lot of people that we typically think of as smart individuals, but when it comes to real life situations, they are complete morons.