An Insight into a Super Idiot’s Life

By Aimah Moiz

Being an idiot is difficult. It is not easy to stand in public and do something so incredibly dreadful that everyone casts aside all of their business and turns around only to stare at you. Not everyone is capable of pulling off such a stunt. However, there are a certain few, like me, who are a magnet for unwanted attention because we are blessed with a gift: the unique ability to effortlessly create disasters wherever we go. Yes, we are all of those who miraculously conjure invisible banana peels to trip on. We are the ones who are blinded by the empty air and ram straight in to people. We are what I like to call the ‘Super Idiots’.

The amazing ability of the ‘Super Idiots’ has a tendency to increase when we are in an environment different to what we are accustomed to. Take, for example, my first day of IntRoweek which was also my third day in the Netherlands, let alone Middelburg. I was going down the escalator at the HEMA, happily chatting with my IntRoweek mother, standing at quite a distance from the rails, not even touching them when I noticed the hem of my palazzo tug. You see, my powers are quite beyond my control; by themselves, my palazzo trousers had decided to get stuck in the escalator – quite a spectacle to behold! I was there, an Asian, wearing an article of clothing quite unknown in the fashionably ignorant Middelburg, and who was now stuck in the escalator with my IntRoweek brother struggling to pull my pants out of the grinding maws of the elevator, while at the same time trying not to rip them. Obviously, everyone, including the gazillions of German tourists who saturate this town every summer (and the occasional Dutch consumers at the HEMA) gathered around to watch. Somebody even got a sandwich (as I believe the HEMA does not offer popcorn). This went on for a good five minutes during which no one could come down and subsequently everyone who was down refused to go up as they would miss out on all the fun that was happening. Finally one of the staff members tried running the escalator in reverse and then pulling my palazzo out. Thankfully it worked, and I was freed, however, my trousers were no longer in any shape to be worn again.

Alas, the chronicles of the Super Idiot do not end here. The life of a Super is far more complicated than that. The next episode in my series of idiocy took place shortly after I bought my oven. You see unlike idiocy the culinary arts are not amongst my strong suits– however, baking cakes is. Getting quite bored of the bland food I had cooked so far I could not wait to try out my oven and finally treat my friends to ‘Super’ good food. After slipping my cake in the oven I began to work on my math homework. Now what I had forgotten was that every Super needs a sidekick; someone to make sure that the Super’s powers do not get out of hand. Back home whenever I did put a cake in the oven, there would always be someone in the kitchen or near the kitchen to keep an eye on it in case I, being as gifted as I am, forgot about it.

Now, a ‘Super’ is always diligent; at least absentmindedly diligent, as was the case with me. I was so diligently involved in my work that it must have taken me a full minute for me to register that the annoying beeping noise was not coming from a garbage truck outside but from inside my room, specifically from the small device present in all of our rooms, which my house back home is thankfully relieved of, called the smoke detector. I looked up too find that my room was full of smoke and I rushed to salvage whatever was left of the cake which, surprisingly, was barely burnt at all.

Now I know that right now most of you might be envious of me for my powers enabling me to achieve a sublime level of concentration that completely blurred out two of my senses. However, these powers come with a price. This sublime level of concentration which I achieve also tends to completely blur out a third sense, a pretty important one which sadly most of us lack – the common sense.

After salvaging my cake I immediately went back to my homework. It was not until a fellow housemate came running into my hallway yelling at me that I realized the fire alarm had gone off because of me and that my entire building had been forced to evacuate. My housemates, at least the ones who are my friends, cheered and told me that I had accomplished what no one had been able to so far; congregating the entire building. Now at every house meeting when less than a third of the residents are present I am told to put my powers of idiocy at work and ‘bake another cake’.

As it is unreasonable to be angry at a Super, I believe I have been forgiven. Or perhaps in this case, more than forgiven, for I fed most of my housemates some of my cake and all the cakes I baked after that have hardly ever lasted the night.

Nevertheless, now that neither UCR nor Middelburg are new places for me anymore, my powers are quite in control. However, I know that the minute I graduate and move to a new town they will come flying back into my life. I just hope I have found a bouncer by then who may restrict their access. If not, well then I guess I will be doomed to be the subject of attention once again.

Aimah Moiz, class of 2017, is a Mathematics and Physics Major from Karachi, Pakistan