Dumbing Down

I’m getting dumber, I can just feel it.

It’s not intentional and it is not caused by any disease. It’s just that I can feel the IQ points slowly dripping out of my brain. I am kind of hoping that they will find a alien brain sucker so that at least I will have an excuse to as why I’m getting dumber but I think that’s a long shot. And I think that the previous statement is proof positive that I am actually getting dumber. I am actually hoping for an alien so that it will be easier on my ego. I have problems.

The top of those problems is that the stupid life is coming slowly my way again. It’s almost like I de-evolving. Pretty soon, I will be straight Redneck Hossman again. You’ll see me on an episode of cops in a white T-shirt explaining that she hit me first. I will be the guy that you see running from the cops on a John Deer tractor. I’ll lose my house in a tornado and the only thing that I will cry about is the loss of my pit bull, Toothy.

I will have totally forgotten that I have a college degree or that I have read Dante’s Inferno. I will have no idea where Spain is located on a map. I will believe that the Mason Dixon line still exists, Hawaii isn’t a state and by God where’s my gun that I left on the gun rack in my truck. In about 2 ½ weeks, I’m pretty sure that is going to be me.

It’s going to be me because in 2 ½ weeks I have my second kid and that will make me dumber. I will lose an automatic 20 points just by waking up that morning. And all the build up to that moment, that’s another 20. So before the kid is even born, that’s 40 points that I’m in the whole at. I know that this is going to happen. Hell, I know that it is happening right now.

This is not a shot at my kids, I love them. But the day you have a kid is the day that you get a little more stupid. I don’t know why, but it’s true. And I know t hat it is true because this is what happened when I had my first child, Little Hoss.

It was pretty stressful, being a first time Dad and all. It was a C-section as well. They took my wife’s uterus out and placed it on her stomach. I actually asked myself then “What the hell is that?” WTF? I knew what that was. I was a biology minor in college and have participated in the gross anatomy lab so this isn’t even the first time that I have seen this. And where the hell else is a baby going to come from, a cuticle? So I knew it was the uterus but for some reason I didn’t make the connection. The dumb down had begun, I just hadn’t realized it yet.

I made the complete connection about a day after my daughter was born. The world looked a lot more confusing than it had before. Doctors were talking to me but I was not as quick on the up take as I used to be. Sure, I wasn’t sleeping more than an hour at a time, but still. I’m smarter than this! My work called me a day later and asked me a very simple question.

You have to understand something. I was the go to guy. If you had a question, I was the person that you came to. I was a walking jeopardy game. I’m not saying that I was smart, I’m just saying I knew what the hell I was doing when it came to my job. Until that very moment at least. They asked a very simple question and I couldn’t answer it. My mind went totally blank.

There just wasn’t anything there. Most times there is at least a thought process. This time there wasn’t even a single thought. Not one. Not even a small midget pointing in the right direction with a sign. There was nothing but a breeze of stupidity blowing across the amber graves of dumb that had become my brain.

I froze and finally something came to me. It was humbling. I thought, Man, I just got stupid. That was it, that was all I had. I had to tell my work to go ask someone else because I didn’t have an answer. World 1, Hossman 0, game over.

And I can feel this happening again, but at least I am ready for it this time. It took me a good 6 months to begin to get some brain power back and probably over a year to feel like myself again. I don’t blame Little Hoss, I just figure she took some of my own brain power to supplement her own. After all, she rolled over a good 2 months early, where else would she get those smarts?

So now I need to prepare myself for the inevitable. And the first step, of course, is writing down my own phone number and putting it into my wallet. By the time the kid comes I will probably have to pin it to the front of my shirt. I also have to see if I can make a conscious decision of what stays in my head and what goes. I need more room up in the old noggin so the old stuff has to go. But what to throw out?

Every President that has had a beard has been a Republican. Ok, that can be thrown out. I’ll never use that tid bit. It was fun fact to know for a while, but now it can go.

Mount Rushmore only cost 1 million bucks to build. I don’t need to know that anymore.

Mozart poured ice cold water over his head prior to writing any new music. I don’t even know why I know that in the first place, so that’s out.

Niagara Falls once stopped flowing for 30 minutes because of a huge ice block. Cool knowledge, yes, but pointless.

North Jersey has the most shopping malls in one area in the world with seven major shopping malls in a 25 sq. mile radius. I feel dumb just for knowing that one.

The average bra size in America is 36C. Ok, that one I’m keeping. That one needs to stay. I’ll give up something else, but I’m keeping that one. How about the town of Ekalaka was named for the daughter of the famous Sioux chief, Sitting Bull.

I just looked that last one up and since it is new knowledge and not old knowledge, it can certainly go. Sorry Sitting Bull, but it’s either you or remember how to feed myself.

Kids make you stupid, we all know this. However, until you have experienced you can’t understand that it’s not just a cliché but true life.

And those of us that have kids, well, we can’t understand that either. It might as well been written in Greek. And the Greeks of course were an Indian tribe I think somewhere off the cost of Australia.