Now, I don’t want you to think for one-down-home-second that
I am proud to be locked solidly on the left-hand side of the IQ bell curve, but
there is just no denying it. My sainted Ma
and Pa used to shake their heads sorrowfully and mutter “there’s sumpin’ wrong
wit dat boy” each time the schoolteachers would show them where I sat on the
curve as opposed to where my classmates were perched. I took several tests during my adulthood and
found that there was little change in the score from my early days. One testing firm even sent me a letter of
consolation, fully refunded my fees, and offered a list of low-skill vocations that
I could pursue. By golly, I did find
employment in many of those recommended fields.
However, no matter where I worked, everyone was always much smarter than
I was.
Peculiar as it may seem, during my long life I have never
met any man or woman who ever claimed to have an average IQ. Everyone except me has tested near or above
the genius level. Never in all the
decades of my adult life have I won an intellectual argument; during an encounter
with any of you well-lettered folks, a simple switch from your sophisms to your
IQ score instantly vanquishes me. There
just ain’t no denying that those smartness-score-numbers tell the whole truth
and, nope, it don’t bother me none. Face
it, without me being all dummied up, you smart folks would have nobody to feel
superior to. Besides, I find my two digit IQ score easy to keep track of. All you brainy folks with the three digit IQs
can’t seem to keep them straight; on one online forum I documented a
participant bragging his score up in multi-point-increments over several
different threads, from a low of 147 all the way up through 265 (which he
defended as a typo). Then there was the
time when an out-of-work school administrator, bored by the tedium of standing
in the checkout line at Sam’s Club, hooked me into a political debate. After offering two different IQ scores during
the argument, in a fit of frustration he whipped out a card from his wallet “verifying”
his membership in an exclusive club of super smart people called “Mensatruaters”
or some such. Goodness sakes alive, there
just ain’t no sense in me arguing with that kind of authentication. All I
could offer was my voter’s registration card, to which he snorted, “Dumb people
should not be allowed to vote!” In spite of my humiliation, it was an honor for
me to brush up against such greatness. The last I saw of him, he was wandering
around the parking lot trying to remember where he had parked.
As far as being racist, I freely admit to my not trusting
anyone outside of the human race. Those little
green Martians have such big heads that you just gotta know that all they ever
think about is sticking their probes inside of our earth women! Stop them Martians before it is too late or
they will pollute our gene pool so badly that all of our children will be born
looking like Newt Gingrich. Mark my
words!
Overall, I suppose what puzzles me the most is why things
never seem to get any better with all you smart folks running things. When y’all come up with an answer that can
make some sense to someone of such a simple mind, you can find me here,
snoozing on the shady side of the tree of knowledge, patiently waiting for
whatever comes my way, whether it be horny little green Martian women,
sagacity, or the delivery of a twelve-pack of cold beer.
Reminds me of the line on Prairie Home Companion: "... where all the kids are above average."
ReplyDeleteGreetings from Texas,
ReplyDeleteMy wife worked with gifted and tallented kids (who could spell) for a while. From where I was standing it looked alot like a status thing for the parrents.