Certified Genius?

This episode does not flatter me, but if I heard about someone else doing this, I'd have laughingly published it, so to be fair, I'll tell it on myself.

I haven't been able to get out and around on my trike the last several days.  My favorite uncle died 3 weeks ago up in Utah and I spent a week flying up there for the funeral and visiting with my siblings and their families while there.
But I HAVE been getting exercise.  Yesterday I dug out my chain saw to cut up more stove length wood from our downed tree-logs lying in the yard.
Since moving to Missouri, this dandy little Stihl chainsaw has proved difficult to start.
A month or so ago I had to take it to our friendly local small engine repairman to see if he could get it to start after I had worn myself ragged pulling and jerking and huffing and puffing on the starter cord to no avail.   I hadn't even  been able to get it to sputter or pop, much less start and run.
He drained the carburetor and put in fresh gas/oil mix, and got it started.   Well, I should have tried the same thing before giving up on it.  This little machine has previously been fairly easy to start, even when cold.
I only ran the saw an hour or so after paying to get it going.  Now, yesterday, 2 weeks of cold damp weather later, I spent a half hour wearing myself out again trying to get it started, without even a pop out of it.  It was around freezing and had been stored in our cold garage, so I took it inside the back door of the house in hopes of warming it up and making it easier to start. An hour so more later, I again began the useless yanking and pulling without any luck.  I finally took it inside the garage and took off the outer cover and air filter and blew out the filter and carburetor with compressed air and tried again.  No luck.  Since the covers were still off the carburetor, I decided to see if raw propane from my hand-held blow torch might make it run.  Sure enough,  after I wedged the snout of the torch into the carburetor throat and yanked the cord, it started and ran for a minute or so, although weakly.
I removed the torch from the carb and - again - the critter wouldn't start.  As I poked around, checking the throttle settings (Choke, Run/Idle, and Stop), I was horrified to see the Choke/Start position and the Kill/Stop position were exactly the REVERSE of what I had been trying to use.
In other words, when I was yanking uselessly away on the cord trying to start the monster, I had the throttle set in the KILL/Stop position.  DUHHH....
Can you imagine?  When I set the throttle to the correct position for CHOKE/START, it STARTED.  The miracles of modern technology....
I was thus able to exhaust myself cutting up a mound of wood out by the driveway.
Feeling SO stupid is becoming increasingly common lately.
It reminds me of the old joke I heard maybe 50 years ago:
Once there were two fuddy-duddies who lived next door to each other.
One loved grass and had a big green lawn in his backyard, but the other had a huge swimming pool on his side of their adjoining yards.
One day the first looney was out mowing grass all afternoon, and as the day wore on, he kept cutting closer and closer to his neighbor's swimming pool.  On his last pass, he got too close and stumbled into the full pool, lawnmower and all.  The pool's owner, hearing the loud splash, ran out to see what had happened.  Spotting his neighbor under the water, he laughed out loud as he saw the clueless fellow, underwater, pulling with all his might trying to start the mower's motor again.
Screaming with all the voice he could muster, he yelled at his stupid neighbor:
"Choke it, STUPID!!  CHOKE IT !!