idiot-prufs

Reading is Fundamental, Hurling Feces is Not.

It’s good to see that you’re reading. Reading informs you. Reading improves your memory. Reading increases your analytical abilities, it’s like doing a big pile of mental squat thrusts, without the searing pain in your side and subsequent vomiting.

The ability to communicate through the written word is one of the most significant ways in which humans are separated from the lower primates. Also, there’s the general reluctance of most humans to settle disputes by scrabbling up a tree and hurling their feces. (Although, feces hurling can be effective… I’ve been told.)

Imagine some of the ways in which lacking the ability to read and write well can be harmful:

* The traffic tickets pile up because you thought the stop sign read: floor it.

* The comic hilarity that is Marmaduke, is reduced to a bunch of confused scribbles about a clumsy dog.

* Instead of being vessels for whimsical Eastern wisdom, fortunes cookies are just bits of baked crap.

* Rather than informative advertisements, billboards are giant mocking reminders of your inability.

* The embarrassing visits to the emergency room because you misread the words “do not” on the warning label on a can of Raid, which reads: Do not spray directly into face.

Did you know that Ken Edwards of Glossup, Derbyshire, England ate 36 cockroaches in one minute to set the world record? Now you do, because you just read it.

Did you know that Travis Fessler held eleven Madagascar hissing cockroaches in his mouth at one time? He did and it’s also a record.

How will this knowledge manifest itself for your benefit? Imagine the following scenario:

You’re at a dinner party. The conversation is dragging. You can sense the party is dying. There’s a long and awkward pause in the conversation. You can see the host squirming uncomfortably in his seat.

“Travis Fessler held eleven Madagascar hissing cockroaches in his mouth at one time,” you blurt out.

“Really, is that some kind of record?” one of the guests asks.

“Yes it is a record,” you answer.

“Fascinating,” another guest responds, “are Madagascar hissing cockroaches large?”

“Are they large? They’re as big as your butt.” You hold your hands apart for emphasis. The crowd roars with delight.

You’ve jump-started the conversation; everyone is now laughing and talking. The host gives you a nod of appreciation.

Now consider the same scenario:

You’re at a dinner party. The conversation is dragging. You can sense the party is dying. There’s a long awkward pause in the conversation. You can see the host squirming in his seat. This time, you hurl your feces at the host. Your thrown out of the party. You lose your friends. You lose your job. You wind up homeless and living under a bridge. You find a cockroach. You decide to eat the cockroach. It’s not that bad.