William E. Brower II
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                                                    The Dumbening Of America

The other night my wife and I stopped at a local fast food joint for a quick dinner on the run.  Upon the mirror of the men’s room I was surprised to find a series of stickers outlining the ways one is supposed to wash their hands.  The three step process was illustrated by a set of hands showing the “right” and “wrong” ways.  Have we as a society sunk to a phase of what I call “second childhood”? 

If you thought the bathroom sign was bad, look under the sun visor of your car and you’ll find a warning stating not to use this item while the vehicle is moving!  Granted, I don’t have a degree or a large title proclaiming my supreme knowledge but I wonder how much farther will we be sinking?  What other signs are going to be available in the upcoming years?  At the rate things are going, I predict a set of directions for using the toilet paper roll in public bathrooms in the next two years.

Complacency has replaced common sense which is a very unfortunate turn of events for us.  In an age where everything you need is at the touch of a hand or voice command  if you use the Dragon programs, we need to remind others that as a whole, there is no need for directions like those.  This isn’t rocket science and we’re not dummies.  It’s amazing that until now this is a topic that has not been discussed.  Someone is a throwing a dish of subtle insults to us.   Do we ignore the signs and continue with our lives focused on that big meeting with the potential buyers or the afternoon golf game at Doral?  I’m a member of what the public coined “Generation X” we’re the ones who are not supposed to care about anything, I’m stepping out of the preformed shell informing you to open your eyes a little more and look at some of these directions on the most common of items.  For those of you who have opened the page glancing at the column, your doing it wrong:

Step 1. Bring your attention a few inches to the top and start reading from the title printed in bold.

Step 2. Under the bold print is the beginning of the article itself.

Step 3. If you have read to this point, the article is finished and there’s a sale at Kmart if you missed the ad on page 3.