Are You Stupid? A Conclusive Test

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re stupid, don’t worry—you probably are. But if you refuse to be convinced without tangible proof, then today is your day! The following two-step test can prove, beyond a doubt, that you’re stupid.

Sadly, it cannot prove conclusively that you’re not stupid, but consider the source of the test—how on Earth would we know how to test for actual intelligence? What do we look like, Norman Einstein?¹

We asked around, and have learned that no, we do not look like Norman Einstein. So without further ado, here’s the test:


The Test

Question 1

You are a new homeowner, and in the process of replacing burned-out lightbulbs, you discover that nearly all of the outdoor recessed light sockets are filled with large wasps’ nests. To get the wasps’ nest out of these sockets, do you:

(a) shut off the electricity to any and all sockets to be accessed
(b) shut off the what to the what?

Following step 1 (above), do you:

(a) remove the wasps’ nests using any one of dozens or even hundreds of common and easily accessible household items that conduct electricity poorly or not at all—including but not limited to dowels, pool cues, plunger handles, broomsticks, remote control devices, chopsticks, matches, bamboo knitting needles, wooden salad spoons, or basically anything that isn’t a big fat metal screwdriver.
(b) use a big fat metal screwdriver and start stabbing wildly overhead into an electrical socket while standing on a wobbly dining-room chair placed on an uneven surface. In the wind.

If you answered (a) to either or both of these questions, congratulations! It’s possible you’re not stupid, but further testing is necessary.

If you chose any other answers, congratulations! You are stupid.² But don’t lose heart, dummy—even in these trying financial times, when banks are tight with their money and very picky about to whom they lend it, stupid people very much like you can and still do qualify to be homeowners. In other good news, you’re welcome to join us at our place; we have plenty of work to be done and many different kinds of screwdrivers.

Stay tuned to this space for tips on how to re-wire a GFCI outlet, and after that for tips on how to process a fire-insurance claim.

NOTE
1. Special thanks to Joe Theismann, who may or may not have ever said “The word ‘genius’ isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
2. This is all true, although we feel obligated to point out to our worried readers that that we did not, in fact, stab a screwdriver into a live electrical socket and electrocute ourselves to death, or even just a little. We’re stupid, not uncoordinated.

Being Right: Not Always the Same as Being Smart

 
When my wife is asked what it’s like being nine years younger than her husband,¹ she likes to say that

 “People think he’s robbing the cradle, but actually I’m robbing the grave.”

It’s a good line and she delivers it well, with a happy, sunny bounce to her voice that rarely fails to get a laugh. It’s the kind of thing that one doesn’t expect to hear from a genuine graverobber, who in our experience tend to be generally unpleasant people.

Not the most practical way to find a date . . .
but, hey, times are tough all around.

While our age gap rarely comes up as an actual problem worth discussing, it often becomes the basis of good-natured teasing, such as when I injure an old-mannish part of me (a hip, for example) playing hockey, getting slowly out of bed, or chasing kids off our lawn; or when she struggles to identify artifacts such as LP records, typewriters, and rotary phones,² or wants to know what life was like before automobiles.

Your humble author, ca. 1895.

The age gap does seem to be a bit harder on me, though, not just because I’m more elderly and thus an easier, slower target, but also because, frankly, I’m not too bright.


Some years ago—I won’t say exactly how many—Some Gal turned twenty-five. She was in a funk for much longer than I had learned to expect her to be down about anything,³ so finally I asked what was eating her. Clearly (in hindsight) upset about having rushed through the first five years of her twenties, she answered with a slump in her shoulders and voice:

“I’m halfway to thirty.”

My immediate response—the mathematical part of my brain obviously moving much faster than the part that doles out common sense—was:

“What are you talking about? You’re halfway to fifty.”

I suspect that by the time I live this down, she’ll be halfway to ninety. Maybe older than that, since I’m dimwitted enough to have put it in writing so it’ll be harder to forget.



NOTE
1. In case you’re struggling to keep up, my wife’s husband is me. While we tend to use the first-person plural here at Bowling in the Dark, referring to our wife’s husband as “us” would be be confusing at best, and at worst might inadvertently generate discussion about polygamy and the constitutional definition of marriage, and I/we/Gaia are particularly interested in not having that discussion here.
2. I’m making a lot of this up because she’s probably not going to read this.
3. Probably twenty or thirty minutes. She’s pretty upbeat.