Command–Z or Me and My Moron Chip

On my Mac, in just about every application, "command–z" is the keyboard shortcut for undo. If you're on a PC running windows, it's "control–z". When you use the undo command on a computer, its as if the previous action never happened. As one who's done a fair amount of video editing, photo editing, page layout, and word processing for my promotional materials, I've used "command–z" a lot.

I recently read an article that used the computer "undo" as a metaphor for something,
(I don't remember what)... and that got me thinking how nice it would be to have a "command–z" for life, specifically the things that we say. How many times have we said something that we wish we could take back, or undo. Of course we try... We've all heard the expression at some point in our lives "I take that back" or "I was just kidding". But I believe it was Jerry Seinfeld who said "Take it back? You can't take it back! It's already out there!" Of course there is apologies and forgiveness and we should all be doing more of those, especially the apologies. However, since there is no shortcut to simply "undo" what we've said, it would of course be much easier to simply "not-do" in the first place.

And that brings us to the moron chip. Radio talk show host Joe Souchery coined the term "moron chip". The moron chip, as I understand it, is that little chip in your brain that kicks in and says "Hey moron! That's really stupid idea, don't do that!" or "Hey moron! That's a really dumb thing to say, keep your mouth shut!" Or, as is not often enough the case with me, (just ask my kids) "Hey moron! That's not going to be funny, don't even try!" So when you have what Joe calls a "moron chip problem" that's when the chip doesn't kick-in and stop you from doing what you shouldn't do or say.

If your married, most of your moron chip failures probably happen in interaction with your spouse (especially if your a husband). Here is an example of my chip failing yesterday. My wife was going to make a chicken and rice casserole that my daughter had requested for lunch. I mentioned there was a couple of chicken breasts and she could use the bigger one and save me the other. The ones I was referring to were in the fridge but I had not made that clear. Shortly after telling her, I walked into the kitchen where my wife had two bags of chicken breasts (I buy them at Sam's Club and then freeze them two to a bag) thawing in a bucket of water. My mind said "I meant the thawed chicken not the frozen! and two bags!That's four chicken breasts! You only need one for a small casserole for lunch.". At the same time I said "Thats a lot..." And stopped—but it was to late. I may as well have spewed out the whole thing because she knew exactly what I meant. I apologized right away which she appreciated but the damage was done.

It wasn't until a few hours later that I realized exactly what was going on. She wasn't thawing it all out for her. One bag was for me and one was for her. She was doing exactly what she had heard me tell her to do. Use the bigger and save me other. Because I wasn't clear about it being in the fridge she took it out of the freezer (99% of the time that's where using chicken would start) and was taking care of one for me so that it would be ready when I needed it. So consequently to he,r it came across as "You dummy what are you doing using that much chicken don't you know better".If my moron chip kicked in properly, I would have realized that she never puts that much chicken in a casserole, so obviously it's not all for that purpose, and therefor some of it must be for something else, and since I said I needed some, it must be for me, and I didn't get across clearly that there was chicken in the fridge, so moron just say thank you for thawing the chicken and move on. Needless to say I went and apologized again.

To go back from the moron chip to the computer chip. If we did our word processing, video editing, or whatever, without ever or rarely needing to use our undo shortcut, imagine how much smoother, easier, and less frustrating that task would be. Not to mention the savings in time and mental energy. If we apply that same line of thinking to the things we say, where our moron chip is functioning properly and we didn't feel the need to command-z our tongues so often, our relationships, and thus our lives, would also go along smoother, easier, with less frustration, and save us the time and energy, that goes into the repair work, of apologizing and forgiving.

So for the sake of my wife and kids, say a prayer for me (add yourself to the list while your at it) and the proper functioning of my moron chip: no short circuits, no bad wiring, and frequent upgrades to a bigger, better, more powerful chip. As this is one chip that will never become outdated, obsolete, or to powerful.