Intelligence

I took an IQ test on Facebook this week.

Doing something like this is always a dangerous proposition. Do I really want to know how smart I'm not? Also, I know my score in second grade was in the low 130s – it was either 132 or 134. If I score lower than that, what would it do to my self esteem?

Anyway, I scored a 137. They figured this out by giving me 30 multiple choice questions, giving me a limit of 15 minutes (it took me 10ish), and doing something with the answers I gave.

According to Wikipedia (always questionable, but often reliable), a genius has an IQ of 140, though it's now been weighted down to 136.

Mensa, the "genius society," doesn't use numbers to determine qualification anymore, it uses percentiles. You have to be in the top two percent of scorers on qualified IQ tests.

I'm positive the Facebook IQ test is not a qualified test, but according to one site, I would easily qualify with either my Facebook score or my second grade score.

I won't be joining Mensa any time soon. I don't know if there's a local chapter; the site doesn't tell me. What the site does tell me is that if I want to join, I am more than welcome to send them $40 to take their official qualifying test, $40 to have it judged, and another $52 in annual fees should I make the grade.

I am also free to send in $18 if I want to take a practice test at home, and $40 more to have it judged.

Intelligent and gullible aren't mutually exclusive terms, I guess.

So, a test said I'm smart, and now here I am, sitting alone in a dark office building on a Saturday night waiting to cover a basketball game, which I'll be watching on TV. It's snowing outside, but at least there's decent coffee in the kitchen. If I don't feel like driving home late tonight in whatever mess has been made outside, we have a comfortable couch in the office that I could wheel into the conference room.

Fantastic.

"All geniuses are drunkards!" wrote Chales Bukowski.

Ani Difranco on genius:

Genius is in a back beat
Backseat to nothing if you're dancing
Especially something stupid
Like I.Q.
For every lie I unlearn
I learn something new

When you see me creak out onto the tennis court tomorrow afternoon, dragging from my Saturday afternoon match and a late night at the office, be sure to yell "genius" as sarcastically as possible.

But make sure you mean it.