Trying Not To Be Too Dumb.

By Lisa Harmon

I’m trying my best not to be too dumb.  At one time I was super-smart.  Good grades smart.  I wasn’t valedictorian or anything but I was a bookworm with analytical skills and a good memory.

Fast forward all these years and joints later, and wham!  What happened to my brains?

My declining mental acuity brings to mind this famous (in my family) retort from Squiggy (of Laverne & Shirley, in case you’ve heard of another one) in response to being asked to “think about it.”  He becomes incensed and yells “Think about it!  Think about it!  With WHAT?!”

That’s me.  Think about it, with what?  My super-clogged brain?  I can’t keep anything in my head.  It is a complete stand-still up there.  I can’t even remember the sentence I’ve just read.  I once forgot the end of the sentence I was saying while I was saying the beginning of the sentence!  Astounding and one hundred percent true!

I have lost so much to father time, 20/20 vision, good hearing, tight skin.  But what I miss the most is my brain.  It was my most distinguishing feature!

I wasn’t the prettiest, the skinniest, or the coolest.  But I was smart and funny and that was me.

I’m not smart anymore.  I spend most of my time now trying not to be too dumb.  I mean a little dumb is one thing, but when people start rolling their eyes and talking really loud and slow, man, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of that!

And this dumbness is not even my fault!  I mean, do you know how many times that store on the corner changed?  It was a Wetsons, a Nathan’s, a Roy Rogers, a Burger King, a Wendy’s, a Subway.  Now it’s a Dunkin Donuts.  So what?  The damage is done.  I’ve got half my brain cells used up remembering all the damn restaurants that have come and gone in just one store on just one block!

Here’s another way I got dumb:  research.  Yes research.  Not doing it, reading about it.  Of course you know, on Sundays, Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays, caffeine gives you cancer.  On the other days of the week, caffeine prevents cancer.  Except Wednesdays.  On Wednesdays, caffeine prevents Parkinson’s.

Is it just me or is there a deluge of brain-clogging (mis)information out there?

Come on!  I know you need a conclusion to keep getting funding for your study, but you’re really driving me nuts over here.

Here’s what else makes me dumb:  Cell phones.  I don’t know anyone’s number anymore.  You know why?  It’s not just because the number is in my phone.  It is also because everyone has changed their number twenty-five times since high school!

Everybody I know had one phone number from 1975 to 1995.  After the 90’s, everybody’s number changed over and over.  Again, clogging up those precious few brain cells.

Also making me dumb:  the internet.  I used to talk to people, face to face or on a land-line!  Yes.  For those of you that don’t know, a land-line is a way to talk to a person that’s far away, without having to say “WHAT?  WHAT?  WHAT?” like on a cell phone.  When I talk to people, I have to be quick to be witty.  It kept me sharp.

Now I don’t talk to anyone.  I comment on their facebook statuses.  Well that doesn’t make me sharp!  I’ve got all day and the rest of my life to make a pithy comment.  It makes me stupid.  Having all that time for my “off-the-cuff” remarks takes out the challenge.

And finally slang.  Slang’s sole purpose is to confuse old people.  It is constantly changing to separate the old farts from the hip kids.  I recently was told that I was DTF*.  I had to ask what that meant.  By the time I found out, it was way too late to be offended!

So here I am, with my softening (or hardening) brain.  It doesn’t work quite as well as it used to.  It’s a little jammed up with a lot of junk preventing me from remembering important things like which brand of hummus is the one I like. 

If you see me, searching for the right word, or unsure what you just said to me, or confused about what a meme is, or sticking my finger in the hummus, please don’t judge me.  Right now I am just trying to not be too dumb.

*DTF = down to f*ck.  I am still not sure exactly what it means!