Things that make you go, "well, duh..."

When I was a kid, the radio was a magic machine. Voices came out of it, but it had no mouth; all manner of music came out of it, but it had nothing on it resembling a musical instrument. The concept of "radio stations" was eventually explained to me, and I sort of understood. Radio stations were the places where the concerts were held, right? That worked for me until the day when, dialling along, I caught the same song playing on two different stations at the same time. Impossible--how could one band be in two places at once?
Well, duh.
Much later on than I'd care to admit, I found myself singing a well-known Christmas carol to a crowd. Why do all these "well, duh" moments always seem to happen when there are other people around? Anyway, I got to the second verse and belted out:

Later on, we'll perspire
As we dream by the fire...

--"uh, Ken?"
"What?"
"That's CONspire. Later on, we'll conspire..."
"Huh? What the hell does that mean?"
"It goes with the rest of the verse. "We'll conspire..to face unafraid the plans that we made, and so on and so forth."
"Yeah? Well, I think it's PERspire. Isn't that what you do when you're sitting by the fire? Sweat? I do. "
To which my corrector had nothing to say except "You're wrong."
Well, duh.

Tonight, a third such moment. At thirty-three years of age, I hope to God this is my last. They were blabbering about cowboys on television this evening and I looked at my lovely wife and said...

"Which brings up an interesting point. Why the hell are they called cowboys?"
My lovely wife stared at me. Damn, she wasn't getting it.
"I mean, they have nothing to do with cows at all."
"Of course they do--"
"--They ride horses, not cows!"
She looked at me like I'd gone mad. "They ride horses to HERD cows!"
I looked at her like she'd gone mad. "They ride horses to kill Indians!"
At which point Eva burst into laughter. I guess she couldn't help herself. And then I made it even worse...the fabled "double-duh."
"Wha--okay, were they stealing the Indians' cows? I didn't know the Indians had cows."

A moment's thought would have brought to mind the Calgary Stampede and the hundreds, if not thousands, of cowboys who take part in it. And then my brain, which was utterly convinced it knew what cowboys were, would have directed my mouth to tell you all those folks were just playing a part, a stereotypical part at that. See, I figure that years ago, there used to be a shooting range at the Stampede. It would have been kind of like skeet: these "Indians" would pop up from behind bushes and the 'cowboys' would have to giddy up and shoot 'em down. Political correctness, obviously, came along and put an end to such things, and now they confine themselves to riding bucking broncos....

Oh, never mind. I'm smarter now.

Well, duh...