You Can't Fix Stupid

If I needed to be reminded that you can't fix stupid, a recent incident at the RV park illustrated that maxim all too clearly.  In the park and extending out into a river, we have a pier equipped with night-fishing lights that turn on at dusk and turn off at dawn.   Not long ago, on a wet, cool night we heard a quiet knocking on our RV door.  When I opened it, a very apologetic camper standing there told me that the lights on the pier had gone off while he and several other people and their children were fishing and asked if we could we come fix the problem.  We got dressed, putting on rain ponchos before we went out into because the heavy mist we'd had all day had turned into a light rain.  A quick examination of the box housing the timer for the lights showed nothing amiss.  We drove on to the breaker box, and sure enough, the breaker was thrown.  In no time, we had the lights back on at the pier.  The camper who had asked for help was waiting for us by the pier, which was wet from one end to the other and had puddles of water standing where the boards had warped a bit.  He thanked us for getting the lights back on, and then he said, "I don't know . . . . everything was working fine until I plugged in a heater, and then the lights went out.  Maybe that did it."  It was then that we looked down at the pier with flashlights and discovered that three extension cords had been connected so that one end would reach the power pedestal at the camper's RV site, and the other end could accommodate the plug on the space heater that was sitting out in the rain at the far end of the pier where everyone was fishing.  Part of one extension cord was gently moving where it dangled a bit in the waves lapping at the shoreline.  We quickly went back and turned the breaker off, ordered everyone off the pier, and asked the camper to retrieve his heater and extension cords.  When the danger of mass electrocution was past, we turned the lights back on and allowed the campers to return to fishing.  The camper who'd taken the heater out onto the pier and caused the problem wasn't the least bit abashed about the potential danger he'd created.  As we left, he told us, "Well, at least it was comfortable out there while it lasted."  No, you can't fix stupid.