More Degrees Means Less Common Sense

A friend of mine was recently telling me about some "trouble" her boss was getting into. Her boss had 3 university degrees yet common sense seemed to have escaped her in this particular situation. After many emails back and forth I started to think about my dad.

I love my dad. I've always been a total daddy's girl and am proud of it. I also hold my dad in very high regards. In first grade we were supposed to do an interview of someone we admired, and I interviewed my dad. He's one of the smartest people I know. He is pretty important in his field (theoretical chemistry) and is quite sought out by many people for his expertise and knowledge. Yet for some reason, when my dad graduated from MIT with his Phd, he was required to swap the new title of Doctor for his common sense.

Here are some examples of my dad's lack of common sense:
- He has put his shorts on backwards and did not realize so (they were short shorts... could NOT have been comfortable even worn the correct way)
- He has had to pay full price on a turnpike because when he entered the turnpike he thought that the "ticket" lanes meant you had to have a ticket already, which he didn't because he was ENTERING the turnpike, so he took the "easy pass" lane.
- He once went through a stop sign on the way home from work (blamed me because I was talking to him... even though he drives home this way EVERY DAY since 1978) so he backed up to make the stop sign
- He put on my sister's purple coat once mistaking it for his green one... My dad is 6 feet tall and my sister is 5'1"
- He froze my lizard's crickets on the mile + walk home from the petstore in the dead of winter.
- After living in the same house with Dave since 2004, he still needed directions.
- When teaching me how to drive, he insisted I learn how to back up into a parking space. Keep in mind, this was the FIRST time I had ever been behind the wheel. So naturally I ran into the "Principal Parking Only" sign and dented the car.

Anyway, the list could go on and on.
None of these instances make me think any less of my dad. I just assume he's too busy working out some major science problem in his mind instead of thinking about anything else. Which is most likely true.