The One That Started It All

I had been working at my current job for about three months when I started coming to the realization that I really had something special on my hands. By that I mean, I've dealt with some seemingly incompetent people in my life, but with this, I honestly believe I've found the dumbest person I could ever meet.

To give some background, this woman (I will not reveal her name, but for the sake of these writings, she will be referred to as Kim from now on) is 43 years old. She has never been married (though she has constantly spoken of how she wishes she was), is from a northern state, and moved here to North Carolina in July of 2006. She basically has no friends here, she lives alone with her dog, and seems to get little social interaction. Because of this apparent limit on social interaction, she talks so much that I'm constantly stuffing cotton in my ears to stop them from bleeding.

So one day I was working away minding my own business when she enters the room and starts up about how she had been watching television the night before, watching Oprah or Dr. Phil or some such show that I'd rather stab my eyes out than watch. And she said...

"You know what I heard on Oprah last night? This doctor was on her show, and he said that the human bite is the most dangerous bite in the world because of all the bacteria contained in the human mouth."

I had to pause for a moment and consider how ludicrous this statement sounded, but I wanted to try and approach the argument politely, so I said, "Now wait a minute, let's think about this. It seems to me that something like a poisonous spider bite would be more dangerous. I think you'd be a lot more likely to die from a poisonous spider bite than if another person bit you."

And she responded with...

"But spiders aren't animals. They're arachnids."

I thought maybe she'd misunderstood something along the way, so I tried to explain it to her. "Now let me explain it to you. On Earth, you're basically one of two things. I know there are non-living things, and there are all sorts of living things like bacteria and protists and viruses and whatnot. But going back to seventh grade science here, if you're a living thing on Earth, chances are you fall into one of two categories. You're either a plant, or you're an animal. Now you are correct that spiders are arachnids, but that's narrowing it down. They're still animals."

Her response? "No, you're wrong."

I stood in shock for a moment. Was I really hearing what I think I was? And before I could compose myself and try to explain again, she started in with, "And also, I was watching this nature show on PBS last night and they were talking about these things, I think they were called Komodo Dragons, that have so much venom in their bite that it's the deadliest bite in the world."

This was getting crazier by the second. "Time out," I responded, "just a second ago you told me that the human bite was the most dangerous bite in the world, and now you're telling me that the animal with the deadliest bite is the Komodo Dragon. Is there not some sort of correlation between most dangerous and most deadly? You're not making any sense."

"But Komodo Dragons aren't animals, they're reptiles."

At that point, I was afraid I was going to pop a blood vessel if I stayed in the room, so I just walked out, thinking to myself, "How can someone who has (supposedly) graduated from college (she claims to have a degree) honestly believe that Komodo Dragons are not animals? She's got to be an idiot."

Little did I know that this was only the beginning...

More coming tomorrow.