I read a story in my paper the other day that said researchers at Fermilab's Tevatron particle collider may have made a huge discovery: a long-sought particle called the "Higgs Boson" that is thought to give all other particles mass. The discovery might lead to a reexamination of much of today's physics, the reporter wrote.

I stared at the article for a moment. I had no idea what it was about. I'd never heard of a "Higgs Boson" particle or a "Tevatron" for that matter. I know that they have particle colliders. But I have no idea why they have them, or what reason there would be to make microscopic particles collide.

I don't even really know what physics is. I took it in high school but have no recollection of what happened there. There was a really nice smart girl in my class who let me read her notes and scribbled out answers for me whenever I was called on.

Suddenly, with a shock of recognition, it hit me: I'm dumb. As a post.

I'm not as stupid as some people. You will never see me as a guest on "Jerry Springer," where people are constantly finding out that their sister is their mom, leading to ugly wrestling matches where items of clothing get ripped.

And while I regularly get e-mails from people in Nigeria asking me to send my bank account information to them, I'll never fall for that (again).

When my kids point to my chest and ask me about that spot on the front of my shirt, I don't look down, because I'm smart enough to know they're planning to flick me in the nose.

But I don't really know how to do anything important. I have a house because somebody else knew how to build one. I eat because somebody figured out how to grow crops and get them to my house before they rot. I can drive a car but could never make, or even fix, one.

The newspaper is packed every day with jobs that I am not qualified to fill. One of my neighbors is a venture capitalist. When someone asks me what that means, I have to shrug my shoulders and say, "No clue!"

My house is full of books, but I haven't read all that many all the way to the end. I regularly buy fat, thick history books, read one or two pages, get bored, then place them in some strategic spot so friends will see them and be impressed.

People often assume I'm smart because: 1) I'm a writer, 2) I wear glasses, and 3) I have poor social skills. But the whole "writer" thing falls apart once they find out I'm not working on the great American novel, and they see what I really write (this). Glasses don't get me very far once I open my mouth. The poor social skills just mean that most of my conversations are, thankfully, short ones.

I'm guessing, and you don't have to admit it out loud, that you are probably just as stupid as I am. (The fact that you're still reading this column makes it, ironically, a no-brainer.)

You're not a neurosurgeon, or a nuclear physicist, or even a venture capitalist. (If you are one of those, send me a quick note to explain what it is you do, but please keep it simple.)

You've never read the classics. You probably threw in the towel after the first "Harry Potter" book because they were getting intimidatingly thick. It was easier to just wait for the movies to come out, wasn't it?

I'll bet, and you really, really don't want to admit this out loud, that you don't even really know enough about the job you have. There are some things you've got down, but more often than you'd like to admit, you're faking it, and you just haven't been caught.

At meetings, there are presentations where you sit there nodding your head, solemnly and knowingly, while your brain is, in reality, doing nothing more than trying to remember all the words to the "Scooby-Doo" theme song.

We could sit around and wonder that being as dumb as we are, we still make it through every day. We could worry that one day we're going to be exposed as the idiots we are, and end up at home actually watching old "Scooby" episodes.

But we won't, will we? That would take too much thought. Instead, we'll do what we've always done, and rely on our own extremely dumb luck.