A Good Old-Fashioned Barn-Razing

Okay, so I'm sitting on the couch, showing Jason my scabby knee. It's scabby because my razor was not optimally sharp, and I did a rush job in the shower. And it occurs to me that either I should start calling my razor my shaver or call shaving razing. Wouldn't that make more sense? Which prompts the inevitable discussion about how razing already has too many meanings.

The verb "to raze" is unique in the English language because it's one of the many words that have two meanings (like prune...as in a dried plum, or the action of trimming your roses, 2 very different meanings) except that the 2 different meanings of to raze are complete opposites- it can mean to build or construct OR to destroy or tear down. So if I told you I was having a good old-fashioned barn-razing you would have to come take a peak at my back yard to see if I had just built myself a barn, or demolished one.

Jason and I know this because it was a question in our Mensa quiz book. For those of you who may not know, Mensa is kind of a club for smart people-they admit only the top 2% of all people, according to their IQ tests. Jason and I are not Mensa members, which is not to say that we couldn't be, just that we aren't really club people. My IQ score is in fact within the top 2% and since Jason was smart enough to marry me, he may qualify by default. Geena Davis is reportedly a member, as are Scott Adams (creator of Dilbert), Isaac Asimov (one of my favourite writers...you should look him up, Will Smith's movie I, Robot was based on his stuff), and Jessica Simpson.

Whoa, there. Did I just say Jessica Simpson? Well, according to her mother in Vanity Fair, Jessica's IQ is 160, which definitely makes her Mensa material. It makes her considerably smarter than me; in fact, it puts her on par with Einstein. So yeah, lots of people laughed when they read that. I mean, sure mothers are protective of their daughters. And Jessica is certainly dumb enough to need a lot of protecting...but if her mother is going to lie, she probably should have aimed for something a little more believable. Like an IQ of 60...which would put her at the moronic, but still functional level, which is documented weekly on MTV, to my understanding. Perhaps she should be considered as Densa material, which as you can imagine, is for people in the bottom 2% of the population. If you're wondering whether or not you qualify, you can gain peace of mind with this simple quiz.

Anyway, back to the problem at hand: my scabby knee. There really is no band-aid on the market made for knees. But with geniuses with Jessica Simpson around, I'm sure that's not a problem I'll have for long!