If Murphy was still around, he’d like my new law--

--and where is Murphy, anyway?  Talk about your one-hit wonders. I imagine he’s bellying up to some bar somewhere:

- Pour me another one.

- You bet, man.  You’ve been here a lot lately, haven’t you?

- Just trying to forget the past, man.  I used to be somebody. I used to be famous.

- Oh yeah? Do anything I’ve heard of?

- Ever hear the expression “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong”?

- Well, sure I--hey wait a minute. That was you?

- Yup.

- My...my God.  You’re--you’re Murphy?

- That’s me.

- Listen, hey, I love your work.  I mean...I love that saying. It changed my life, y’know?  It’s great.  Great.

- Thanks man.  I appreciate that.

- Wow, so...what happened to you?  Where you been all these years?

- Oh, I’m sure you’ve heard the tune a million times before.  Guy hits it big, makes a breakthrough--then no one wants the time of day from him.  I mean, it’s not writer’s block.  I’ve thought up tons of other laws.  It’s just...none of them became popular.  No one wants to hear them.

- You’ve got other laws?  Listen...I’d consider it an honor if you’d tell me some of them.

- Really?  Okay, cool. Well, here’s one I like..."a man who butters his bread on two sides had best keep his fingers clean.” Heh.  Pretty good, huh?

- Uh…

- Or “Teacher who keeps her eyes open wide, makes her pupils smart.”

- Uh…

- You too, huh?  No one ever wants to hear my new laws.

- Listen, pal, the next round’s on me.

I didn’t mean to start riffing on Murphy.  My point is, I have a law that I thought of last week when someone went up to me and said, “I’ve got a really stupid question to ask.” And he proceeded to ask a question that not only wasn’t stupid, but made me completely rethink how I was approaching a certain issue.

I thought about that, and then I thought about the times that someone has interrupted a meeting and said “This is something that’s been on my mind for a while.  I’ve given a lot of thought.” And proceeded to ask a question so mind-numbingly vapid that it nearly stopped time.

People who say “I’ve got a stupid question to ask” invariably don’t.  People who issue some long-winded preface to their question invariably do.

Which leads me to my law: the real problem with stupid people is that they have no idea that they’re stupid.