An IQ of -40

I don't think Poo should be near a computer.

Recently, she saw one of those stupid "TEST YOUR IQ" ads. She wanted to do it.

I said, "Poo, forget about it. The IQ is stupid. They tested me and I was something like 160."

I was exaggerating, or lying, or both. I don't have an IQ of 160; it's probably about 103, and falling. Like the tempeature in Tucson on a summer's evening, it's falling by the hour.

When I was a kid, I had many psychological problems. I didn't like school and I had lots of temper tantrums. So my parents paid lots of money for me to go to Boston to be "tested."

They gave me an ink blot and said "what does that look like?" I said: "a butterfly."

Then they gave me vocabulary words. Even at a young age I was an avid reader, so I knew all their vocabulary words.

Then they gave me four pictures: there was a guy driving, a guy being put into an ambulance, a guy getting into a car, and a car crash. They told me: "put them in order." It wasn't difficult.

They reported the results of my test to my parents. My parents were paying customers, so they told them what my parents wanted to hear. Something like this: "your son has a high IQ, so he gets bored easily at school; also, he has problems with authority stemming from a complex relationship with his father."

Ever since, when I did something stupid, like run away from school and hitchhike on the interstate highway, my father would yell at me, "you SUPPOSEDLY have an IQ of 160, HOW COULD YOU BE SO STUPID???"

My father passed away a long time ago, but Poo has taken his place. Now, when I do something stupid, like leaving a bag of ice cubes in a chair, she says, "are you sure you have an IQ of 160?" and she deducts points from my IQ, "I think maybe it's 140." Ten minutes later she sees me throw a bright red t-shirt into a laundry basket with all whites, and she says, "are you sure you have an IQ of 140?" I think maybe it's 120."

Soon, I will have an IQ of -40.