What you don't know can kill you

Steve, one of the guys that will still talk to me after forty-five years, was in my garage the other day. Inclining his head toward the gas-guzzling, non-clunked SUV he said,

“It looks like those tires could use some air Jer,”

They did look a little low, but am I supposed to keep track of that? Steve’s family was in the car business for many years, so he has that over me. I’m not a mechanic. I have people for this kind of thing. Must I add psi to my list of things to be mindful of?

The amount of things that I need to be aware of, to think of, to know is becoming a bit too much for me to handle, but you already knew that didn’t you? I tell you it’s enough to drive a man to drink, except I am not even sure what to drink anymore. Whether it’s coffee, red wine, water, or milk, you can find opposing views advancing arguments for the merits of consuming more or less of each of these.

I have given up on having a working knowledge of all the areas of my life. For example: I have chosen to not become an expert in the kitchen. If I had to, I could be very comfortable eating cereal three times a day. It has that rich, tasty goodness that kids love and mothers trust. I stick with cereal because of the whole balanced diet thing that I am supposed to know about. The milk covers the dairy end of the spectrum, for fruit you can eat Raisin Bran, or Fruit Loops. The added sugar will keep you going all day. The required dietary grain element is in all cereals (don’t take my word for it – like I said, I’m no expert). For the vegetable part I recommend Corn Puffs.

The older I get, the less I know, and what I don’t know about the day to day stuff can fill whole libraries. It’s likely there is an update for my computer, it’s possible the windows in my house need to be replaced, perhaps a warranty is about to expire, or maybe someone I know expired and I missed their obituary.

Sometimes I find myself in situations where I feel alone in my ignorance. The first time I was on a plane with an in-flight movie “A Fish called Wanda,” was the feature. When I put on the headphones I was surprised that they were playing the French language version. Wishing I had tried a little bit harder in my high school French class I was only able to pick-up a few of the words. The guy seated next to me seemed to be enjoying the movie so I asked him if he understood French. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

“You have to turn that dial to English,” he explained as if he were talking to a child.

“I knew that,” I said with a laugh. “Of course, I was kidding.”

Humorist Will Rogers said “All I know is just what I read in the papers.” Communist Karl Marx said “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.”

Kenneth Grahame wrote in “The Wind in the Willows,”

“The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!

Even someone as smart as Mr. Toad probably didn’t check the air pressure in his tires either. But then we may have missed out on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.