Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Brains Over Easy

Liz observes over her smartly appointed monocle:

You've heard the stereotype before: beautiful women aren't intelligent. I'm living proof.

To the untrained eye, I'm not what one would call "drop dead gorgeous". The old adage implies that since I am not stunningly beautiful, nor blonde, I have the right to be compensated with brain power.

The wife’s tale is true. I feel certain that I am a genius. At the time of this post, no test has been developed that confirms my brilliance. This is their fault, not mine.

My unrecognized genius started in elementary school when I was in the blue bird group instead of the red bird group. They actually tested me for the gifted class when I was in first grade. Apparently, I failed. I remember only one question from the test. It was, "If there were a monkey in a tree and you wanted the monkey to come down, how would you get him down?"

"Who wants a monkey out of the tree?" I wondered. I was insightful enough at 6 to know that monkeys carry all sorts of communicable diseases. If they had left the monkey in the tree where he was happy, we might not have the AIDS epidemic. Stupid teachers. Trying to spread their diseases and all.

Being an unidentified genius has its problems. If I were a recognized genius, I would never have to argue again. So much of my day is spent trying to get people to quit having opinions and simply do exactly as I say. I'll bet Stephen Hawking NEVER has that problem. "Dude. You're arguing with STEPHEN HAWKING. Shut the fuck up before you make even more of an ass out of yourself."

I am certain that I am a new breed of intellectual. The kind who doesn't do math very well and is an atrocious speller. One with an ear fine-tuned to gossip and an eye for recognizing at a glance that those shoes don't got with that outfit. I am the prodigy that grew up to vote for presidential candidates based on their hotness factor. If Clooney runs, he has my vote. My thinking is that he's not going to doom us Hell in 4 years and if I'm going to see someone's face everyday, it might as well be the face of George Clooney. VP? Luke Wilson. HOT.

Seriously.

My BFF overheard her husband's friends arguing over pie. She wanted in on the conversation until she realized they were talking about Pi.

Who the fuck argues over Pi anymore? That's what the LAST generation of geniuses did. MY generation of geniuses argue over PIE, because face it, pie matters and Pi doesn't. We ponder things like "when is a mustache too small be called a mustache?" We do things like not walk on cracks because we don't want to break our mothers' backs. We know the chicken came first. We can open a beer bottle using at least 3 different methods. We place bets on whether or not a stranger will make a bet with a stranger. We like the Discovery Channel because of the cool graphics. We have ingenious ways to take a nap at work without being busted. We know we're smarter than they are.

And we blog about it.

8 comments:

briliantdonkey said...

icksnay on the apsnay atay(or is that 'tay'?) orkway alktay!

BD

Killer said...

I loved this post. I can picture your BFF getting well into the conversation before realizing there was no pie.

I was not in gifted either. I think it is a clear sign that you should not be in the gifted class if you aren't smart enough to know it exists.

I do remember a guy (who to this day still manages to run into me at random locations) who came up one day in elementary school proudly bragging about being moved to "special education". I remember feeling jealous for the day.

Anonymous said...

all in reference to your final paragraph: 1) it ain't a mustache unless magnum p.i. (please note the nod to pie v. pi) would be proud to don it.
2) 3 methods? i go through at least 5 before, in utter desperation, resort to the teeth. 3) i recently bet a friend that he couldn't eat 2 postcards in under a minute 4) pi equals 3.14159...... 5) i used to take 20-30 minute naps, sitting on the break-room toilet, while i was being paid to stock shelves at sears.

EEK said...

At my school we had this special class called 'Indian Class,' where if you were a certain percentage of Native American you'd get to go to learn about your ancestry. The kids that got to attend always came back with cool arts & crafts projects like lanyards and fake spears and stuff. I kept asking my parents if we had any Native American blood runing through our veins, but they just kept telling me no.

I was so jealous of those kids.

mist1 said...

I know a guy that talks about pi all the time. We keep telling him that he needs to get back on his meds.

Churlita said...

I seriosuly tried to get diagnosed with a learning disability in grade school when I found out they got to eat McDonalds for lunch once a month. I was denied.

How about cheesy pop culture knowledge? Do I get genious points for crowding out the math part of my brain in order to fill it with memorized commercials and all the School House Rock songs?

Liz said...

BD,

I am a genius, but I am not of Latin decent. I don't know what you're saying.

Thanks, Killer. She was gravely disappointed, as we ALL would be.

Chad, I was thinking of you when I wrote "3 methods". You must have upped your value to my organization of friends.

Eek, God's eyes and lanyards must have been painful not to craft in third grade. Remember, you're better than that now.

Mist, tell him that he's old school and let him do your taxes.

Churl, yes. You get total credit for pop culture knowledge. As a matter of fact, we should do a post about what School House Rock means to each of us.

othurme said...

If they did a School House Rock bit on Pi, we'd all know it.