Outward Intelligence

I’m a fairly educated person. I’d like to think that I come off as such. And honestly sometimes I do, especially if the topic at hand is something I’m familiar with. But then there are times I feel I say something so simply stupid that it might as well cancel out everything else. I’m specifically referring to an interaction recently.

I found an art framing business for a couple of prints I bought many years ago but never got around to framing. In the store I was chatting with the owner about the pieces, they were Monet and Van Gogh, and how one of them was a very unknown painting but it’s one of my favorites. Even she’d never heard of it. For a person who doesn’t know much about artwork as a whole I felt so smart in that moment.

In my head I was patting myself on the back for knowing of a painting that an art framer had never seen by a famous artist. Well of course this feeling didn’t last long because as we moved on to the payment portion of the transaction she asked how I’d be paying. I said credit card. She asked what kind. I lifted the card up to my face and just stared at the card. Unsure of what the question meant I just said “uh it’s this one.” She takes it, flips it over, and goes “Mastercard.” Humbled, I finished the transaction, got back to my car, laughed and thought to myself “damn, oh well.”