One thing I have learned since coming to college is how utterly without common sense I am. Small tasks that should be effortless for anyone who is supposedly smart enough to get into an accredited university seem to be impossible for me to master--or even complete successfully.
For example, right after we moved into our apartment, I decided to make soup. I got out the can of insta-soup, a pot, and the can opener, opened the can, poured the contents into the pot, set the burner on medium, and waited. And waited. And waited. My soup didn't seem to be getting hot..or even warm. I thought, "I'm making soup from a can..how hard can this be?" It turns out that for me, it was pretty difficult. As I was attempting to solve the mystery of why my soup wasn't getting hot, Amy walked into the kitchen and asked me why it smelled like gas. I told her that it was probably just the smell of the stove after it hadn't been used for a while. A few minutes later my soup still wasn't warm and the smell of gas was slowly seeping through our apartment. Amy asked me if I had lit the stove. I said yes. (I thought that lighting the stove was the same as simply turning it on..of course I had turned it on...) After a couple more minutes of trying to poison our entire apartment building with toxic gases, Amy walked over to the stove and realized that, sure enough, it wasn't lit. Oops.
On other countless occasions, I have put something in the oven or on the stove and completely forgotten about it. Way too many times I have started to make my dinner, gotten sidetracked and left our apartment, only to receive a text half an hour later from our roommate Elise saying something like this: "I smelled something burning, so I checked the oven and your chicken was on fire. I turned the oven off..."
Another time I found that my French bread had gone stale. Amy told me that when bread goes stale, you can microwave it and it will become moist again. I cut a large piece of bread and put it in the microwave. I pressed the "add minute" button and began to make the rest of my dinner. After forty seconds, smoke was coming out of the microwave and my bread was a smoking piece of char. Apparently I was only supposed to microwave it for ten seconds. Our apartment smelled like smoke for hours.
I also have proven my lack of common sense in being able to maintain a working car. My car battery died three times within a month and I came back from Christmas break to find one of my tires completely flat. Although car problems are an excellent excuse to talk to boys, even the most chivalrous men get sick of jump starting your car after the third or fourth time.
Hopefully college teaches me a little common sense...fast.
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