My common sense kicks in sporadically, at best....

I read about a Florida man born without arms who wanted to cash a cheque at a bank and was denied the opportunity because he could not provide a thumbprint to verify his identity.

Well duh. Of course he could not provide a fingerprint, so instead he offered two pieces of identification but was still denied.

Huh?

Common sense folks, common sense. I took a common sense quiz on the internet and scored only 75% but I still would have cashed that man’s cheque.

I’m not saying I have a lot of common sense because the truth is that sometimes I just don’t. In fact, when people remark that there is so little common sense in the world now, I become a tad nervous. Do they mean me?

For example, I pay about $60 monthly to access 100 TV channels and yet I can’t find anything to watch. Is that sensible? No, but I continue to do it, every month. And let’s face it; someone with a high level of common sense would likely not take a common sense quiz on the internet to calculate his common sense level. Plus, my wife seems skeptical that I scored as well as I did. I asked her for an example of common sense and she said, “If you pour a cup of hot coffee, don’t take a big sip.” So I said, “I don’t drink coffee.” She just shook her head and turned away.

I guess my point is this: common sense does not always kick in precisely when needed most. That teller who asked an armless man for a fingerprint is likely a very reasonably person most of the time. Just like the young woman I recently observed driving her vehicle during rush-hour down an insanely busy and packed Edmonton street while interacting with her laptop computer. Maybe it was some sort of laptop emergency. Okay forget it. That’s just plain nuts.

Still though, who has common sense all the time? Ever mow the lawn in flip-flops? Ever keep driving when you feel really tired? Ever swat at bees? Ever pretend you are an electrician? Ever climb on your icy roof wearing mukaluks? (Okay, that was just me.)

We all make senseless mistakes. Again and again until we get it right. And as the saying goes, “the one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe.”