The Dumbest Thing in the History of Dumb Things

I have never claimed to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I am a spontaneous person, and I do a lot of things without thinking them through. Some of them are pretty dumb. But recently I set a new standard. Yes, I did what must surely qualify as the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things.

The story requires a bit of set up. Our house has a finished basement which we often use as a playroom for the grandkids when they come to visit. Over the last couple years, we have accumulated piles of toys, pieces of toys, and partial pieces of the pieces of toys. When the tykes go home, we just shovel everything into a pile against the wall. One day, we decided it would be nice, and certainly neater, to order one of those toy storage organizers, with the twelve cube-shaped baskets that fit snugly into separate compartments.

Sharon picked one she liked off the internet and ordered it. It arrived, unassembled, in a huge box about four days later outside our front door. I opened the door, wrapped my arms around it, and tried to lift it into the house. Whoa! Not a chance. Apparently, there was more lumber and hardware in there than I had anticipated, and it weighted a ton! The best I could do was lean the giant box over and drag it through the doorway. I then dragged it to the kitchen door leading to the basement, pathetically grunting and groaning all the way. Several times during this lengthy process, Sharon pointed out that I shouldn’t do this alone, and offered to help me. But being the masculine, macho husband that I am, I cavalierly refused.

Eventually, I opened the kitchen door, which leads to a fifteen step descension. At the bottom of those steps is the door to the garage, while the door to the playroom is on the right. Both doors were closed. I stopped and pondered for a moment the best way to get the box down the steps. Once again, Sharon offered to help. Once again, I declined. I decided to lean the box down on its side, push it partially over the first step, and slide it down.

That’s when it happened. I did the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things. After leaning the box over the top step, I let go of it so as to move around ahead of it and ease it down one step at a time. You can guess what happened. The instant I let go, that huge, heavy box took off down the steps like a rocket launched out of a silo. It flew down the stairway and smashed into the garage door so hard, the doorknob was dislodged from the door.

Did you ever have one of those moments where you just stand there in suspended animation, wondering if what you just witnessed really happened? Hoping you’re about to wake up from some bizarre dream? That was me staring in disbelief at the top of the steps. Did I really just do that? Could any human being be that stupid? Upon hearing the tremendous crash, Sharon came running, and recognized immediately what happened. If ever there was an I-told-you-so moment, that was it. She must love me. She just smiled gently and said accidents will happen. Maybe the ashen look on my face scared her.

Needless to say, we now need a new garage door. What bothers me the most, is that there were so many more sensible courses of action. Taking the contents out of the box upstairs, or letting Sharon help me slide it down the steps, or just dragging the dang thing around the outside of the house and coming in through the garage! Duh!

I really don’t even know why I’m writing about this. I should be taking this ridiculous incident to the grave. Maybe, in some sick corner of my mind, I’m hoping there are readers out there who will comment about something they’ve done, something they thought was even dumber, just to make me feel better.

I’m waiting…….