The Luck of Brains
I am so lucky I was born into a middleclass family in Canada and not a poor family in Africa. Because that's just luck, isn't it. I mean, no matter what your IQ, you're going to have an easier rise up the ladder in middleclass Canada than you are in poor Africa.
I don't think the ladder in Africa even has rungs.
So whether or not you get to show off your brains, if you have any, is largely a matter of luck, isn't it.
Well? Isn't it?
Anyway, there's an argument that goes on in the Blogosphere every now and again, some people might call it a self-serving argument, although certainly not the white people having it, about brain size and IQ and sex and race and how apples and oranges are both fruits but oranges have bigger seeds, if you catch my drift.
Personally, I've never had my IQ tested, although I am white, because when I was a kid, I almost second guessed myself into special ed. Only a snap test in which I didn't have time to change the correct answer to the wrong one saved me from spending the year in the opportunity class. (Which wouldn't have been so bad, really, since that's where the nicest kids were - one of whom was a friend with webbed hands and feet and flat facial features who certainly had nothing wrong with her brain that I could tell - but, like I say, I've never had my IQ tested, and those were in the days when looking weird was enough to land you in the opportunity class, anyway - mostly for your own safety. The really stupid bullies were always in regular classes, as I'm sure most fair to midling-aged people will remember.)
Also, and I have no idea if this is relevant or not, but I have a pixie face and corresponding little head. It's the main reason why I can't be a model or a movie star. Because to be a model or movie star you need a big head. Vanna White says so and she should know. Apparently, her head is half her body - that's why she looks so good on television, while Pat Sajak looks like such a mutant freak beside her. Funny, but a mutant freak just the same. According to Vanna, he'd never make it as a model or movie star.
So, given the little pixie nature of my uppermost region, there's simply no way my brain could be very big. There just isn't. My co-worker, a Turnip, has a head ten times as big as mine and, like I say, I could argue him inside out but I'd still have the smaller head - now wouldn't I. He only has the one argument, too: "Woman mommy, man smrt".
Nope. I just can't risk having my IQ tested. Even though the test would probably be right up my alley. I even figured out the key to genius. Yup. Wanna know what it is? It's confidence. The confidence of knowing you are right is the first sign and main indicator of genius. It said so right on the back of a book I bought for my ex so he could check whether or not he should really be in Mensa instead of wasting his brain being married to me. That's because our kids are all three super brainiacs and my brother's kids are all four super brainiacs and my ex just cannot accept that the super brainiac genes are coming from my family and not his.
Hilariously - they aren't. He just hasn't figured out, yet, that my brother only has super brainiac kids because he married a super brainiac (too). It's a common flaw with super brainiacs, I've noticed. They're easily tripped up by things like just not knowing that your wife's sister-in-law is the super brainiac and not her brother, and will spend years trying to prove what everybody else already knows they are but, well, it's all just too easy for the lesser brains to have fun with them - isn't it.
Say, have you ever noticed, too, that it's always white people having the race vs brain size debate? And that the scientists who study the race vs brain size conundrum are always white, too? I mean, really. How white is that? That white people actually spend their lives trying to prove how smart they are or aren't relative to non-white people by studying brain size and IQ scores just so other white people can argue either in favour of or against the studies -which all white people know are funded by white supremacist outfits of one kind or another. Meanwhile, we all know how smart white supremacists are, don't we. Not. At. All. Unless they are, in which case, though, we wouldn't catch them out so easily being white supremacists, would we.
Besides, how many studies does it take to figure out that one man's IQ test is another man's toilet paper? Right? C'mon. I know people who can barely speak English who can speak French - and I can't speak French. Yet. Although I plan to grow my brain by doing the New York Times Book of Crosswords this winter.
You can do that, you know. Learn. And grow your brain. That's what happens when you take little kids and put them in a stimulating environment with lots of educational toys and Sharon, Lois and Bram. You feed them lots of good food, make sure they get lots of sleep, and lo and behold - your brain grows big and strong like it never was when you were trying to learn Chaucerian English.
Chaucerian English is boring.
Of course, that may be because I tried to learn Chaucerian English without studying it because I was busy having fun at the pub. Gawd. When I think of how smart I'd still not be if I hadn't spent my 20s in a bar, it kills me, it really does. That's another reason why I can't get my IQ tested. Because I'd lament the results on account of I'd know I could have done way better if I hadn't gone out for drinks on my 18th birthday and come back in when I was 28.
So yeah, I need one of those special elixirs that are never in my junk mail inbox to grow my brain back to its original size.
At least.
Then maybe I'll have my IQ tested.
