Intelligence Test
At the top of the hill in my town, at the intersection of two ancient trails, sits the local intelligence test. At the ancient intersection is a traffic light – stopping a 4 lane highway from killing people who must get to McDonald’s right now and allowing smart people to enter a strip mall safely. But in the name of free commerce, you may also enter the mall from the 4 lane, maybe 200 feet south of the light. Hence the intelligence test – smart people will enter and exit the strip mall using the traffic light, stupid people will attempt to use the other way, turning across 3 lanes of traffic moving at 45 mph. This maneuver does occasionally cause accidents, an action, much less common now, where stupidity actually matters. Now that I’ve made an objective intelligence test, splitting people into two groups, smart people like me and stupid people who aren’t, every time I drive by I look for a stupid person, maybe like checking a trot line, to see if I’ve hooked one and what sort of dip they might be. I look at the vehicle and into the windows, make assumptions, draw conclusions. So – this time I see a brand new Mercedes SUV – black with dark tinted windows. I can barely make out a man inside talking on his phone. I say to myself “There’s an idiot in a $75,000 car” and clearly see the universe in microcosm.