What Was I Saying?
I’ve come to accept a certain fact about my life: I’m not that smart.
I’m certain I wasn’t born stupid, nor was I raised stupid. I used to be quite sharp. I could hold my own in intellectual circles, trading interesting tidbits of trivia blended with insightful commentary on world events. Then came the children, and my life became a sort of blurry haze. It didn’t happen all at once; it was more like a slow leak. Like a snail, I’ve left a trail of intelligence slime along the path and now I’m nothing but a shell and some confused jelly. How can I discuss current events when I’m focusing on important questions like “where is that smell coming from”?
To try and stem the loss of brain cells, I thought about joining a book club. Of course, the last book I’d read was “Clifford’s Big Vacation”. “Tell us, what did you think about the piece?” “Well, I think Mr. Bleakman’s resentment of Clifford is a thinly veiled attempt to come to terms with his own discomfort about his failures in life. No matter how hard he tries, he will simply never be big enough….or red enough.”
I had heard that learning a new hobby was a great way to keep the mind active, so I decided to try knitting. I imagined all of the money we would save by making beautiful hand made scarves for our families at Christmas. $200 in yarn and needles later, I have several stretches of wool that could be at best described as fuzzy tootsie rolls. I plan to give them out next year as a new product I call “Finger Cozies.”
For all of the common sense I have lost over the years, I have gained as well. For example, I now know how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich so that the bread doesn’t get soggy. I can break into a locked room from the outside. I know all of the words to the Hanna Montana theme song. I know the number for poison control.
Now if I could just figure out where that smell was coming from.