The 4.0s; Or Why Smart People Are So Stupid

When I say I’m smart, it’s not a brag or a boast. It’s not even something I would consider boast-worthy. I was just born that way. I take no more credit for my brain than I would for my hair or eye color. Some people have athletic ability. Others have artistic talent. I have a genius IQ.

I’m not sure when the grown-ups around me figured out that I was smart, but from the time I started school, it was just easier for me than it was for other people. But like so many of my kind, book smarts does not necessarily translate into any other kind of smarts. When we were growing up, my cousin Christina and I were inseparable. (No, ours mothers weren’t cruel enough to name us Christine and Christina. She was adopted and came with the name.) As teenagers, we used to joke that I was going to grow up and get a great job and make a lot of money, but she was going to live longer, because I was destined to step out in front of a bus without looking and get myself killed.

Now, I have an explanation. I believe that we each have a limited and finite amount of brain space. And the fact that I can do things like algebra in my head, well that just means that there’s way less space left for things like remembering to take my drink off the roof of my car before I drive away, or making sure I have my keys before I lock the door.

Let me tell you a little story. We were fresh out of college, and my friend Adriana and I were talking about football.

A: It’s so weird. There are all those states that don’t have football teams at all, and New York has three.
Me: 3?
A The Giants, The Jets, and The Bills
Me: The Bills play in Buffalo.
(Now to truly appreciate this, imagine this line delivered in my snottiest, most know-it-all, most horribly you-are-obviously-an-idiot voice.)
A: Bookgirl, where do you think Buffalo is?
Me: Oh.
A: And you got a 4.0 in college.

Now, in my defense, I only got a 4.0 one semester. I came close another time, but I got an A- in Fitness for Life. Oh, the irony. But from that day on, our friend Anthony and I, the other book-smart member of our little group, were dubbed the “4.0’s.” If you need something explained, give us a call. But we’re inevitably the last two to get any joke. And let’s just say that when street smarts were handed out, neither of us got the lion’s share.

I was accepted into Mensa last year, and I love to wonder about the national meetings would be like. I don’t buy into the stereotype of all those geeks with no social skills I think it would be a lot of people like me. Smart, funny people. Who couldn’t remember where they left their room keys.