I have a lot of fears but probably my biggest: that years — many, many, many — from now when my own children are quoting me to their children, this is what they’ll say, “I remember what my mom always used to tell me, ‘Uuuuuh…. Duuuuuhhhhh’...”
No way around it, I am nowhere near as smart as I used to be.
I don’t know how I could have spent so many years in school and so many endless hours studying only to retain pretty much nuthin’.
Just call me Algernon.
You know, after that lab mouse in Daniel Keyes’s novel “Flowers for Algernon” about a man named Charlie with a low IQ who wants to be smart and undergoes the same experimental, intelligence-boosting surgery as Algernon and… uh…. I read this book for a class assignment a really long time ago, so I don’t remember anything except the title because I always thought Algernon was a very cool name. Excuse me for a sec while I go look for some online CliffsNotes.
Oh good grief, no wonder I can’t recall what happened — I probably blocked it out because it was so painfully sad. Spoiler alert: Things do not end well, for man or mouse.
My kids, sometimes being intellectually curious and other times just wanting some free homework answers, will ask me stuff like this:
No. 3: “Which president was Lincoln Peirce?”
Me: “Uuuuhhhh…Duuhhhh...”
No. 1, who’s so intelligent we’re going to be eating Ramen Noodles as adults to pay for some Ivy League college: “It’s Franklin Pierce, dummy. Lincoln Peirce writes all the Big Nate books.”
Me: “Yeah! C’mon! Sheesh.”
Another time in the car, I pointed out the flash of heat lightning in the distance to which No. 2 asked, “What’s heat lightning?”
“Well, it’s when there’s heat and lightning….Uuuuhhhh…. Duuuuhhhh...”
And then I just end up starting to sound like someone on “Drunk History” mangling facts — except I haven’t had anything to drink.
So, in an effort to stave off the eventual further plummet of my IQ, I’ve started to read stuff other than young adult fiction. (As those wacky, fun-lovin’ kids in “The Hunger Games” would say, “May the odds be ever in your favor!”). I even went so far as to take a break from watching “Diners Drive Ins and Dives” reruns to catch some fresh PBS programming. A recent three-day special on California’s Monterey Bay gave me factoids to shout out at dinner.
“Guess what I learned today? That otters use kelp as a sort of restraint device for their babies. They wrap them up in it so the babies can’t drift off while the mommy otters dive down for food.”
The kids all looked at me blankly.
“So, anywaaaaaay,” said No. 1, “as I was saying, I got a 96 on my precalculus test.”
I never even took what comes before precalculus.
Yeah, I’m getting dumber. But, at least I know how to Google. I mean, if I get asked a question I don’t readily know the answer to I can always grab my smart phone and look it up surreptitiously. Oh snap — look who still remembers a middle-school vocab word.
