The Little Piggy with the Low IQ Goes to Market

Courtesy of The Movie Database

The other night, I lied (laid? eff!) awake, thoughts reeling and body edges restless. I was trying to save the final chapter of the book I was reading for the beach (the female protagonist had just died anyway), and when I went out to watch TV, nothing was on. 'Cept The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Which is great, but it wasn't in HD, so I pouted while watching.

I was still restless with a lack of writing inspiration, and I longed to just jump into the story with Arthur, Trillian, Ford Prefect, Zaphod Beeblebrox, and Marvin the depressed but oh-so-cute robot. Adventure...with a British accent ... This is what I needed.

"Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."

Courtesy of Sharp Pen/Dull Sword

I'd settle for a summer in Paris in a crap flat instead of a spaceship and alien worlds. Heck, I'd settle for weekly shopping trips to the higher-scale Florida grocery store Publix instead of Walmart. But since it was nearing 2 a.m., I instead started pondering if I was anywhere near smart or creative enough to come up with a plot like in 'Hitchhiker's.'

So, I leaned from the couch to precariously grab the laptop off the coffee table with one hand and its T-rex-weak arm and did a complimentary, online IQ test. Yup. 38 questions, distracted just barely once or twice by a comment like this:

"On the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins, because he had achieved so much - the wheel, New York, wars and so on - whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed they were far more intelligent than man - for precisely the same reasons."

Or this:

"I refuse to answer that question, on the grounds that I don't know the answer," says Zaphod.

Or this:

Marvin: "I am at a rough estimate 30 billion times more intelligent than you. Let me give you an example. Think of a number, any number." Zem: "Er, five." Marvin: "Wrong. You see?"

Courtesy of Wikipedia

[Wait, maybe being smart isn't that big of a deal, I think. Cleverness seems to be. Aren't those related though? Why don't I know that?!]

I eventually clicked SUBMIT.

I checked my e-mail for my results. Things start to jump out at me from the screen. Credit card information? $9.99? That'll tell you my IQ right there. What was I thinking...Hadn't I done this before? Found a Web site, answered quizzy questions, opened my e-mail, checked, sighed, deleted. Oh just settle for the toothpick test, Al. (However, I don't think I can do that either.) Maybe just using toothpicks after meals means you have a decent IQ. Maybe just knowing that as you get older, you need to make sure your teeth are food free, lipstick isn't smeared on them, and that you don't clear your throat a zillion times after a meal if you're around people. Maybe just operating like a decent human being means your brain is decent enough. Just not for novel writing. Shiat.

Courtesy of Smart Couponing

So, I went on a Publix adventure the next day.

Justification: It was on our way home more than Walmart. And we thought it would be fun. We climb out of the car and see slender, stylish people moving through the parking lot as we grab a cart and make our way, too. I pull on my sweatshirt, because while it's hot though stormy here lately, insides are pumped full of AC.

"Warm enough there, girl?" a man asks me as we enter.

"No."

We meander through the bakery, deli and produce as well as each and every soothingly-lit aisle. I use the excuse that I don't know where anything is, but really, I just wanna see what yummy foods, fun packaging, and organics await my careful plucking.

Courtesy of the blog True Wild Life

Eventually, our basket is full of prettier generic boxes and bags, and new (to us) kinds of fresh fruit (despite our fridge being broken and living out of ice chests for 6 days - I must say, my hands begged to fall off after digging around for 15 seconds at a time for a single stick of string cheese or cup o' yogurt - how do penguins and the like do it? But the new fridge is here. The ice chests gone. The trips to super-cheap Twice-the-Ice dispensers over. Sniff? Nah.)

We now manually motor up to one of the several minimally-lined check-outs. We're rung up, bagged, and rolling out to the car in such a short amount of time, and by seemingly truly happy people - healthier and almost overly helpful - that we don't know what to do with all the extra time in our evening.

Courtesy of the blog hitchhikers guide to jms

The receipt is substantially larger ($160 for a volume that usually costs us around $120). But I just wanna be more like the couple that had been leaving the store as we entered. The grown up skater boy and girl with the hipster outfit and salon hair, packing groceries into a Subaru. Hm. Enough saving for these things it is. I'll save Publix for when I need to avoid thinking about my IQ.