SENSE ISN'T ALWAYS COMMON

A young friend just told me that the doctor diagnosed the pain in his joint as, “Tennis Elbow.” “That’s really weird,” he said, “because I don’t play tennis.” “Well,” I replied, “You must be doing some repetitive motion to cause the pain.” I know that he lifts weights, and does all kinds of cockamamie exercises on a Nautilus Machine, but when I said, “It’s probably one of your exercises,” he protested that it didn’t hurt when he exercised.  I then advised that he pay attention to which repetitive exercise causes him pain, and then, “Stop doing it.”

My advice made sense to me, but he will probably ignore it, because I’m not a doctor. Common sense can be so underrated. The whole conversation reminded me of the old joke, “Doctor it hurts when I do that.” “Okay,” says the Doctor, “Stop doing that!”

Years ago, as an avid swimmer, I would swim for 45 minutes at a time, using the “Australian Crawl”. My right shoulder started hurting, so I went to the doctor, and after several cortisone shots, I was told that shortly I would need a shoulder replacement. That’s what the doctor said, but he never asked me what I thought might be causing the problem. My common sense told me to just stop swimming that way, and my shoulder miraculously healed without having to take a trip to Lourdes.

I have a friend who decided to fill her Jaguar with gas at 11:00 p.m. at the most deserted, unlit gas station she could find. I skipped the common sense speech and went right to---“Are you nuts?”  I admit that sometimes it is difficult to choose between right and wrong, but certainly a person should know the difference between right and stupid.

It’s always good advice not to argue with a fool, but when a kid behind the counter at the hardware store bragged, “I never vote, and I never will.” I said to him, “If someone came in here and told you that the government is going to take away your right to vote, you’d probably be the first one out there kicking up a fuss.”

I would like to say that I gave him something to think about, but I’m not sure he could do that. Perhaps, my common sense should have told me that we’d all be better off without him setting foot in a voting booth.

I agree with W.C. Fields who said, “Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.”

Esther Blumenfeld (“A sense of humor is just common sense dancing.”) William James