Oh, I'm as smart as an extraterrestrial visiting Earth. With rare exceptions, I don't even argue with people about politics or social issues, preferring instead to roll my eyes and bury myself in my New York Times when guys insist on buffeting me with their uninformed opinions. Yeah, I'm smart.
I play chess rather than poker (although I shouldn't be too hard on that game - a university professor I know paid for his doctorate studies as a professional poker player.) I don't just root for the Cubs; hell, I pore over the most minute baseball statistics and analyze trends with all the zeal of an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health.
For laughs, I read P.G. Wodehouse rather than watch Jimmy Fallon. My car is a Prius. I cook with olive oil rather than butter. I do the laundry in cold water to conserve energy. I'm typing this on a MacBook, not - puh-lease! - a PC. I even wear horn-rimmed glasses.
I'm so smart smoke ought to be pouring out of my ears.
My constant efforts to cultivate this streak of elitism in me - and let's be frank, that's really all it is - have cut me off from, well, American life.
A great way to submerge one's brilliant self in the normal world is to stay at a Holiday Inn. The Loved One and I are spending a week in Bloomington, Indiana so we can look at homes. In our cramped room, the TV dominates. Even the lobby, with its plush leather sofas and cushiony armchairs, is dominated by an enormous flat screen tuned to whatever peppy talk show is on at the moment.
And since The Loved One forgot to bring her alarm clock, she's had to use the radio alarm that comes with the room and seems permanently tuned to the local oldies station.
Here's what I've gleaned thus far in my descent into reality. The radio, first. I was in that delicious few minutes of half-sleep this morning when suddenly the radio alarm began to blare the Beatles' "Back In The USSR." Only it sounded as though the Fab Four had swallowed a jugful of amphetamines before they recorded it. I realized that a lot of commercial radio stations still use that speed-up technique to quicken the pace of records so they can sound more "energetic" than the competition. I was transformed from sleepily serene to jaw-clenchingly tense before Paul McCartney could sing "Man, I had a dreadful flight."
Unfortunately for me, The Loved One had gotten up before the alarm and was already in the shower. I would have had to roll all the way over to the other side of the bed and stretch out to hit the snooze button. Horrors! So the speeded-up blaring continued.
Next up, the news. I guessed, correctly, that the lead story - the only story - would be the impending termination of the human race by swine flu. It was the kicker at the end of the newscast that informed me radio news readers still employ that stale old format of ending on a wry (read: stupid, dull, and guaranteed to make the brain dead titter) story. This one was about a Chicago guy who wants to open up a hot dog stand called Felony Franks. He wants to staff the joint with ex-cons. Now, that might be a sort-of interesting tidbit but the news reader found the names of the entrees to be the meat of the story. "He wants to serve Pardon Burgers and Misdemeanor Weiners," came the voice over the radio, "this is ABC News."
I suppose the news reader intended me to respond he-he or ho-ho. Instead, I moaned "Shut the fuck up!" which elicited the query from the shower, "What's wrong?"
I decide to go down in the lobby for a cup of coffee and write this post. I'm immediately overwhelemed by The Early Show on CBS. Well, whaddya know - the big story is the coming collapse of civilization due to swine flu. A jittery couple at home wearing surgical masks answer the host's questions. Their teenaged son has developed flu-like symptoms and was tested yesterday for the virus. While awaiting the results, they're doing what comes naturally to Americans - panicking. The kid is off-screen somewhere, coughing occasionally, as if on cue. The host asks them, "Is this the worst day of your life?"
Man, this human-race terminating, civilization-collapsing swine flu couldn't have come a moment too soon, for my money.
After a commercial for a lawyer ("If someone you love has died after using a pain patch containing fentanyl, call...,) The Rachael Ray Show comes on. The maniacally grinning face of Rachael Ray has infested more grocery store aisles than all the ants and mice that have ever lived. Now, apparently, she's a life coach, too. Today's show features a segment on The Recession (that will, of course, collapse civilization.) A woman calls in to say she'd recently lost her job and asks what she should do next.
Again, she called Rachael Ray for this vital advice!
I can't take it anymore. I dash over to Barnes & Noble to buy Newton's "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica." I have to hurry up and read it before civilization collapses.
