Take toothpaste, for example. If you happen to be a radical mint enthusiast, brushing your teeth might be highlight of your day. You might have shiniest teeth in town. You might not want to interrupt your brushing for dinner ... unless menu includes mint jelly pâté.

I remember one of my favorite comic strips, when Adam was trying so hard to diet. Of course, my memory is fading faster than my jeans, but here is roughly how it went:

FRAME ONE: Adam is sneaking back into bed, when his wife asks if he had been snacking.

FRAME TWO: She gives him a passionate kiss ... or at least as passionate as a two-dimensional, black and white cartoon character can give.

FRAME THREE: No. All "fresh and minty", she concludes.

FRAME FOUR: Adam thinks to himself: "Should be. I ate three tubes of toothpaste."

For those of us who use toothpaste for brushing, it is at best bearable. There is obviously collusion at highest levels of mint flavor industry to squash our democratic right to a full range of toothpaste flavors.

But what if Big Mint stranglehold could be broken? What if brushing our teeth could become a custom-designed exhilaration? What if toothpaste came in as many flavors as, say, jelly beans?

We recently tried some new jelly bean flavors on our wedding anniversary. (Oh, come on. What could be more romantic than a romp through jelly bean dispensers?)

The strawberry daiquiri jelly beans tasted delicious. So did strawberry cheesecake ones. The buttered popcorn ones were so-so, but caramel popcorn jelly beans were oh-so yummy.

We tried chocolate fudge flavor and chocolate pudding flavor, but we passed over chocolate covered grasshopper flavor.

Let me hasten to say that I value stupidity as much as next man. I do. Stupidity is, after all, best solution we’ve come up with to mother of all problems itself, problem of being mortal. Enabling us to recast grimmest of existential givens—making it possible to believe not only that we’ve seen image of John Baptist on two separate taco chips but that our sightings are proof-positive of a Second Coming and prospect of salvation and eternal life—stupidity is most effective means available to reduce terror and panic (the human default condition) to a relatively tolerable disquietude. So I respect stupidity. Okay? I think, in fact, that stupidity has been, since origin of consciousness, a marvel of human resourcefulness. Indeed, as a response to human condition, I think that stupidity is rivaled in its genius only by schizophrenia!

But while my regard for stupidity is equal to anyone’s, I also think it’s important to remember that (if for no other reason than simple decency) ancient Greek admonition, "anything in moderation," has application even here. I mean for all of its utility as a buffer against existential dread, stupidity is an unruly thing that can have—when it’s exercised intemperately, when no effort is made to confine it to its purpose—a very negative impact on people who are subjected to it. Yes, it’s crucial to our ability to function at all that we not always recognize too clearly that death is both inevitable and final. But if you’re a bank teller it can pose a major challenge to your customer’s medication when you’ve truncated your brain so drastically that you can’t be certain if it’s Ben Franklin or Tom Snyder who appears on a hundred-dollar bill. (Hold this last thought for just a moment.)

Now to illustrate my point I could discuss conduct of innumerable emotional shitheels who, in just this past month, used stupidity irresponsibly and, to grievous effect, tracked their slovenly handling of problem of living into my life.

I’m thinking of clerks, counterpeople and company representatives—AND NONE OF THEM FOREIGN BORN—who reduced my own circuits to flakes of carbon when they obliged me to restrict my vocabulary to dozen or so English words they were able to comprehend.

And remaining vivid in my memory are two cashiers, one of whom insisted that $42 for a quart of orange juice HAD to be correct because it was "right there on register," and other who demonstrated an appalling literalness.

In case of latter individual: After I placed some half-dozen items in front of him and was reaching for my wallet, he asked me (rhetorically, I assumed) if I was taking them. When I joked that no, I wasn’t, that I liked to go into stores and move stock around, he became irate, bellowed that I must be "some kind of weirdo" to do such a thing and demanded that I leave.

The orange juice jerkoff caused some nasty chemicals to spill in my brain that still haven’t stopped flushing through me. The second bastard triggered a twenty-four-hour period in which I experienced a profound reluctance to leave my apartment, answer phone or take any kind of nourishment.

No, I didn’t make those people up.