Intelligence Promotion

I’m one (mis) step closer to joining MENSA.   That elite group of nerdy, brainy people.  I’ll explain.

See, I fell a few days ago.  It was a big fall.  A shoe caught on an uneven piece of sidewalk and down I went.  Knees, wrists and face.   In that order.  Happily, I only got a few cuts, some bruises and a bit of gravel in my face.  Nothing broken, sprained or sliced.

I clearly recall that as I thudded to the ground, I uttered a four letter word and it wasn’t “rats.”

I also remember that as I was trying to stand up, I saw a man drive past me who couldn’t possibly have missed my splayed-out body on the ground.  He didn’t so much as say: “Hey lady, you OK?”  I called him a name.  It wasn’t a nice name.

I dusted myself off, limped home, treated my wounds and scolded myself for being so careless, if not outright stupid.  I also took myself to task for using such un-lady-like language.

But then I remembered.

Michael Adams wrote a book, “In Praise of Profanity,”  in which he says that the effective use of profanity has proved to be an indicator of verbal skill.  If not intelligence.

The Marist College has recently published a report supporting that premise.

Given the utterances that flew out of my mouth so spontaneously, so effectively and, I believe, quite appropriately, I decided that I’d earned an intelligence promotion…15 points on the IQ scale, at a minimum.  Look out MENSA, I’m on my way.  I may not arrive all in one piece but I’ll be there.

All in all, it was a very satisfying day.