"Some beans."

The other day, I had occasion to marvel at the fact that some people manage to sail through life without any critical thinking skills whatsoever.

And by 'marvel', I mean 'despair'.

If you want to add an amount to another amount, and make sure that the original amount has increased by the added amount, you'd just sort of...add them up, wouldn't you? Seems fairly straightforward to me.

And yes, okay, this was a tax withholding amount on a paycheck, and taxes are complicated, but 'how do I tell if this dude's withholding has increased by the additional amount he had us enter' isn't rocket science. It's not even calculus. It's far more in line with "Timmy has two apples, and Amanda gives him two more apples. How many apples does Timmy have now?" There was even a rather prolonged history of previous tax amounts withheld to which this person could have added the new number to see what the increased total would be--approximately, but that's good enough. 

If I wasn't already convinced that humanity is hurtling headlong toward its own demise, this would have strengthened the case considerably.

It just baffles me. It really does. There are actually people on this planet who are that helpless. There are people on this planet who are more helpless in terms of finding solutions from the tools available to them. Has elementary school become nothing but rote memorization and regurgitation? (Actually, that's probably not too far off, judging by what I know of friends' kids' schoolwork.) Are we destined for a future full of grown-ass adults who can't put their underpants on without a set of easy to follow instructions?

I have a surprising amount of patience and a natural ability to make people understand things, and I'm more than happy to get someone pointed in the right direction and even do a little hand-holding beyond that if it's necessary. But if you can't apply basic logic to what is essentially a third grade math problem, I don't know what to tell you.

Well, I have some ideas, but none of them are particularly polite.

Summary: People can't add and I can't deal. Here's the funny version of this situation courtesy of Rowan Atkinson in the second season of Blackadder: "Some beans."