Testing

Back in the day. There's an expression that has recently come into vogue...and probably other magazines as well...that I really like. It's got a little more wistful and nostalgic feel to it than the more often used Good Old Days. Back in the day.

Back in the day, if you wanted to go to college you had to take a series of tests we then called College Boards or the SAT's. (Stigmatizedfor Alle Ternity) I think they are called something else now. These tests were broken into two sections for which you received two separate scores. The sections were called Verbal and Math. It was after these Junior and Senior year tests ( We took them twice in an apparent effort to determine if Senior Year was a waste of time) that I realized there were four distinct kinds of people. People who scored high on the Verbal and lower on the Math, people who did the opposite of that, people who did well on both and people who did poorly on both. My group, the first group, did its best to make fun of the second group because they were clearly the Nerds. They got A's in subjects like Algebra, Trig and Chemistry while my group was good at cool things like diagraming sentences, memorizing baudy poems and being able to spell trigonometry. My group was destined to become lowly paid teachers, highly paid rock stars, restaurant employees and the people who rent the most DVD's, while those Math nerds were on their way to launch rockets, cure cancer, decipher the universe and juggle the books. In other words people that my group must continue to make fun of, because, damn it, they're smarter than we are. As for the third group, the equally smart in all areas group, they went on to be captains of industry, masters of their own fate and authors of self help books that are full of bologna and other cold cuts. From the fourth group we got car salesmen, perfume counter attendants, some actors and all of our politicians. This group was easily the most successful, but then, let's face it, it was far and away the largest. So that's how it went back in the day. I wonder if it has changed at all.

Slapstick meets Irony. Yesterday I opened the freezer door of our fridge to get some ice. An ice pack we keep in there slid out and landed on one of my socks only clad feet. Gave me a nasty thump. Luckily, there was an icepack handy.