On Fri, 2011-07-08 at 15:18 -0700, Alistair Bell wrote:
> paint it a brightish colour, that way when you stub your toe on it you
>  can feel doubly stupid for not seeing it.

Safety Yellow, maybe.

I need little help feeling doubly, or singly, stupid. Even with NVC
activities, Mrs Squirrel can be counted on to point out when my
Stupidity Index surpasses my Competence Index.*

Earlier this week, the household sink's garbage disposer packed up.
Sounded like it had chewed a piece of metal, and it would not budge.
"It's a goner," I said. Purchased a new disposer.

Plumber guy came over, peered into the thing's maw with a flashlight,
probed into it with a magnetic retriever and fished out a screw. A #8 X
1/2'' pan Phillips sheet metal screw in standard steel with a black
finish.

"There's your problem," he said. Fired up the disposer which ran as
sweetly as a $12,000 turntable on air bearings.

Mrs Squirrel looked at me. I felt somewhat cretinish.

I have no idea where that screw came from, or how it got close enough to
the kitchen sink to fall in. But I am 99 and 44/100th% sure that the
screw wasn't part of the disposer. I know it came from.me. I mean, how
many women typically wander about with loose #8 X 1/2'' pan Phillips
sheet metal screw in standard steel with a black finish?

I did it and I are a nitwit.

==============

* Not that she's a nag -- far from it -- she's just perceptive. I vowed
to her when I married her that I would count on her to inform me when my
behavior (or behaviour, for those north of the 49th parallel) is stupid.
She does not let me down.

-- RJS