I slid my hands palms-down under the outside of my thighs and began to swing my legs. My heels thumped against the horizontal wooden bar of the chair. The new “media center”—we still called it the library—at Cove Creek Elementary was air-conditioned. Goosebumps sprung out on my arms, and I suddenly had to pee.
The man seated across from me was dressed in pleated khakis, a short-sleeved plaid button-down, and hiking boots. He had a wide brown mustache, and he was a little bald in front. On the table in front of him was a booklet, a record sheet, and a perfectly-sharp #2 pencil.
“What is air made of?” he asked.
I bit my lower lip. Without letting it go, I said, “I don’t know.” He put a zero on the ledger in front of him.
“If Sally leaves her house at 7:45 and gets to school at 8:10, how much time has she spent traveling?” My brother was teaching me to tell time, but I hadn’t quite mastered it. It seemed so easy when he did it, but then again, he was in second grade and knew everything. I studied the floppy drive of the brand-new Apple computer to my right.
“I don’t know,” I told the man. He drew a perfect zero right underneath the first one.
“If Jeff puts 8 eggs in each of 3 baskets, how many eggs are in all the baskets together?” That seemed like it should be easy. The green cursor of the Apple blinked against a black background. It seemed to be counting all the seconds that I didn’t know the answer.
“I don’t know,” I said to the man.
My brother, the second-grade genius, and my sister, who had skipped second grade entirely and was now in fifth grade, were already in GT. Their gifted-and-talentedness was not under scrutiny. But now it was my turn. My mom had gone to my teacher, Miss Kathy (for in the South in 1981, you still called unmarried teachers by their first names), and asked her when I would be evaluated for GT. Miss Kathy, who had had both my siblings for first grade, had said, “Oh, Rebecca, you know Amy’s your social butterfly. She’s not like Bruce or Laura.” My mom was fuming but calmly requested that I be tested anyway.
So here I was, watching an eternal column of zeros stretch down the page across from me. That’s when I realized: I was stupid. From that point, any academic endeavor that was remotely challenging was proof. Writing papers took everything I had; tests were terribly stressful. Moreover, I did all kinds of extracurricular activities to compensate for my lack of intellect. I was drum major in the band; I got in the 12-person competition theater troupe; I became president of the AFS club; I studied in Italy for a year and Mexico for a semester; I sold the hell out of some books door-to-door.
What I distinguished about eight years ago was that I was accepting the opinion of a six-year-old. Wow. I mean, if some six-year-old came up to me now and said, “You’re stupid”, I wouldn’t think a thing of it. Anyhow, it took a while, but I let that shit go.
Of course, occasionally, when I’m feeling six, when I don’t get an allusion my friends make, when I say something inappropriate, it crops up again. But I’m always able to identify it as my own bullshit and let it go.
My question is: Why can’t I do that with my other bullshit?
P.S. I got into that damn GT program. As Homer would say, I’m S-M-R-T.