A Pompous MENSA Genius

Herb’s Blog, Herbdate 22168 – 738:

Dear Fans, Friends, Fiends, Foes, Foundlings, High-Flyin’ Daredevils, and Family,

Working in retail again does mean a veritable plethora of stories and anecdotes. Like the genius from MENSA that I met who came through my line. MENSA is an organization whose membership requirements include having an IQ over 130 which is where the top 2% of intelligence belongs. It really is a cool-sounding group but I’ve never had the courage to take the test, even the online one. I’m afraid I will find out I’m not nearly as smart as I think I am. In my estimation, most of my readers could probably get in, though.

Anyway, this guy on a shirt with an embroidered logo that said MENSA on it. I had never seen anything like it before and was intrigued about it. I wondered if genius-level people have a sense of humor so I said, “Are you really a member or did you just get the shirt?”
“Well,” he harrumphed, “That strikes me as a rather…” he wanted to use the word stupid so bad, but he didn’t, “unusual…question, since you can’t get the shirt unless you are a member.”
Since I was working speedy and his transaction was complete I didn’t get the opportunity to chide with him anymore. I would have told him that I saw that exact same shirt at the Goodwill but it’s probably best I had to rush him out of there and get on with the next customer. But the next person in line laughed as I pointed out that I used to make t-shirts and could make a nicer one than he had on. I also thought I could find one at the Goodwill or ARC. We had a good laugh. Pompous people, especially without a sense of humor (or perhaps that is a prerequisite for being pompous.) are really annoying. I would rather wait on someone who (supposedly) was not as intelligent but more down-to-earth with a sense of humor. Just sayin’.

23 Comments

  1. Of course, having a high IQ just means that you are good at IQ tests. And IQ tests are (now) seen as being very poor indicators of actual intelligence.

  2. Apparently I qualify for MENSA according to the online test, but never felt the need to join or flaunt that. I think the concept is too elitist and the people in it are usually low on emotional intelligence, although IQ tests and similar exercises are good for brain development and help with Alzheimers etc later on.

    • You know, Petra, there is no question in my mind that you qualify for MENSA. I think I’m correct that English isn’t your first language, but you write in English better than the vast majority of people who have it as their first language and you write beautifully. I think you’re amazing for more reasons than that, but I just had to say this because I’ve thought it for some time.

      • Well, thank you for this comment, almost made me blush! It’s nice to know people actually read my blog and appreciate it, it means a lot. And yes, English is not my first language, but I guess reading as much as I do helped with that.

    • LOL! Years of retail have given me a different way of seeing people. It can be annoying sometimes but when you get to really help somebody it’s worthwhile.

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