In the Valley of the Cretin, the Half-Wit is King, Dept.

As some of you might know, I have a hate/hate relationship with those Bunyanesque twins, Willful Ignorance and Self-Inflicted Stupidity.  And, from daily exposure to their misshapen brood--in this episode, as you'll see, I encounter Cluelessness--I wear their stink like a '20s frat boy wore a beaver coat.

An example?  Certainly.  I arrive at a local medical facility for an appointment.  At the elevator bank, I press the "up" button.  Soon enough, the elevator arrives with a chiming tone and the illumination of a white and upwards-pointing arrow.  The door slides open.  Inside are two young women in their twenties.  They stare at me, but make no motion to exit.  I enter the elevator and press "4," the button for my floor, then share with them my view that this elevator is now going up.  "Naw, it's goin' down," I'm told.

The elevator door closes, and, to my non-surprise, it heads up.  The two women are confused.  They were apparently heading for the garage.  For which reason, I deduce from their few words to each other, they had pressed the starred "G" button, perhaps unaware of the convention whereby "G" stands for "Ground Floor," and of the one whereby a star beside the floor alphanumeric indicates that it is the principal exit floor.

The elevator, of its own volition, stops at 1.  This floor is handsomely appointed, wood-grain trim above and below, tastefully matched to the paint, other nice touches.  They overcome their apparent reluctance to leave the safe haven of the elevator, step out, look around and exclaim, "Where the hell we at?!" and "How we gettin' outta here?!" before the door slides back shut, sparing me the sight of their descent into madness.

So. 
Q: If they thought--perhaps not unreasonably--that "G" stood for "Garage," then why didn't they get out of the elevator when it arrived at that floor, particularly as they hadn't pressed any other buttons? 
A: Possibly because it didn't look like a garage floor might look.
Q: And the fancy-schmancy wood-paneled floor looked like the garage?
A: Yeah, I'd love to answer that, but I can't.

Q: At any rate, why insist, after I board the elevator, that it's going down, if they hadn't pushed any other buttons?
A: The topic of today's sermon:  Cluelessness.

Another?  My pleasure.  Casa Sobsister has a shabby little black metal mailbox that may, at one point, have been attached to the house.  It now leans against the house, its flappy door resting in the "closed" position.  So, some time back, in anticipation of a Thanksgiving trip out of town, I submitted a request to the USPS to hold our mail until we returned.  Off we go, back we come five days later.  Well, not only had my "hold mail" request not been heeded, but the brain trust that comprises the mail carrier corps of my local post office had kept wedging the mail into the narrow little mailbox, despite the fact that, oddly enough, the residents were not retrieving their mail.  As a consequence, then, of having a week's worth of mail (including magazines and a book) shoved into it, the mailbox stood with its flappy door forced open and skyward during a period when it rained quite heavily.  Did any of the fucktards from my local post office regard the situation and think, "Hmm...this customer's mailbox is entirely full, possibly as a consequence of not retrieving the mail due to absence.  Perhaps I should check to see if he has filed a 'hold mail' request."?  Short answer: no.  Somewhat-longer answer: no, because the radioactivity to which the postal drone in question exposes him- or herself while hanging onto a cell phone for the entirety of his or her shift renders him or her Clueless.  And that is the kindest of the explanations I've been able to devise.  Otherwise, why would I always get my next-door neighbors' mail?  Why would I get the mail for the lady one block over who has the same house number?  Why, despite the very large sign pasted to the shabby little mailbox that reads, "PLEASE KEEP CLOSED," do the mail carriers leave the flappy door w-i-d-e o-p-e-n?  It's Cluelessness, plain and simple.  Irremediable without a strong and conscious effort, which these shitwits are extremely unlikely to make as they slouch down the street, head and shoulder sandwiching a celly: "Mm-hmm.  Mm-hmm.  You know that's right.  Mm-hmm."

So.
Q: What, are they retarded?
A: No, because the retarded make an effort.  These minus-quam-sub-geniuses don't.

I occasionally despair for the species.  And by "occasionally," I mean "every time I go outside."  And by "every time I go outside," I mean "I have to go outside because I don't trust the USPS to deliver my magazines without jamming them into my mailbox in the rain and leaving the flappy door open."