Living proof: 'Stupid is as stupid does'

“Stupid is as stupid does.” And a box of chocolates wouldn’t have helped much. The chocolates just would have melted.

As you may know, “Stupid is as stupid does” were words uttered by a fellow named Forrest Gump. Mr. Gump, as you also may know, was featured in a film of the same name. Tom Hanks, who is a pretty good actor, played Mr. Gump.

I’ve seen the film several times, and read the book, too, but don’t remember the context in which the words were spoken. “Stupid is as stupid does” came to mind Sunday evening while yours truly was working on Sunday evening dinner.

Dinner involved cooking some “home-growed” potatoes. The potatoes were “growed” by The Other Half. They went into the oven, at 350 degrees. Keep that number in mind. 

The particular batch of potatoes that I was cooking were some of the tinier ones from this year’s harvest. We tend to consume everything that comes out of the garden which is not eaten first by a woodchuck or skunk or deer or some other critter.

Sunday dinner also involved some meat on the grill. Seemed like a good idea. Of course, when I went to start the charcoal for a fire, sprinkles started to fall, courtesy of the arrival of what had been Hurricane Barry. They didn’t last long, though.

So, I was doing a little bit of cooking indoors, and a little bit of cooking outdoors. Maybe that was too much for my simple little mind. Remember, I’m a journalist. We’re not very smart. Or, so I keep hearing.

Well, to make a short story even longer, it turned out that the meat on the grill cooked much faster than I anticipated. The potatoes in the oven were not cooking as fast as I had anticipated, which meant that I would get to use the microwave.

With a couple of hot pads in hand, I removed the potatoes from the oven. They were cooking in a CorningWare dish. The temperature in the oven was 350 degrees. Very hot. I set the dish on top of the oven. The plan was to move the potatoes to the microwave.

At that point, my brain apparently stopped functioning, as least when it came to making smart decisions.

You see, for some reason, the “Stupid is as stupid does” part of my brain decided that it was OK to try to pick up a CorningWare dish that had just come out of a 350-degree oven WITH MY BARE FINGERS, which immediately felt like they were on fire.

Fortunately, the “You better act quickly and let go of that 350-degree CorningWare dish” part of my brain quickly over-ruled the “Stupid is as stupid does” part of my brain. 

The very, very, very hot dish dropped onto a plate which was on the stove and made a clanking sort of sound. For some reason, I did not utter a single word which could not be used in a family publication. 

The Other Half was in another room and heard the commotion. She asked if everything was OK. I gritted my teeth and told her that I had just done something really stupid. She’s used to that.

Thanks to my Forrest Gump moment, I had a couple of souvenirs in the form of minor burns on the index finger of my left hand and the thumb on my right hand. Guess things cold have been worse. Besides, with a little steak sauce, they tasted just fine.

I managed to get the potatoes into the microwave and finished up Sunday dinner, which turned out to be pretty good, if I do say so myself.

Doing the dinner dishes in hot water was not pleasant, but I did the “grin and bear it” thing. I’m pretty sure that the next time I pull a hot dish out of the oven, I’ll remember to use hot pads, and not bare fingers. 

I did think about having some chocolate for dessert on Sunday evening. That might have been the wrong reward for stupid...