I've been asked many times "How stupid are you?" whilst eyes are rolled. This simple but long answer to this can be summed up in this short tale from my childhood. This occurred sometime in year 5 or 6 I think (making me about 11 or possibly 12). We had a school party which meant that all the boys and girls in my class had gathered to eat have fun and so on with just a teacher present. The teacher seemed to disappear after a while so we were left to our own devices and of course a kissing game emerged as the thing to do. At first it was just the cool kids, but the invitation soon went to the less cool kids to participate. In terms of popularity I probably ended up somewhere in the middle – definitely not one of the cool kids, but not so un-cool that I walked home with my underwear on my head every day. I happily jumped at the chance to participate. The game was simple. The girls went off and decided who they wanted to be kissed by and the guys would one by one guess who had chosen them. Every time they got it wrong five kisses was added to the tally of how many times they had to kiss the girl once they actually found the right one. Anyone can work out that you don't want to guess right immediately. In that case there were no kisses to be had. Anyone but me that is. I had cleverly enough worked out by my perceived ranking in the class which girl was most likely to choose me (a quite cute girl named Cecilia). Instead of using this to my advantage, I had to show how clever I was by selecting the right person immediately. To make matters worse, once the round of the game was over the teacher magically appeared, putting a stop to any more rounds. So that is how stupid I am. And I apologize to Cecilia profusely. I'd be happy to give you stacks of kisses (and if I meet you again I'll be happy to make it up to you…married or not). It occurs to me now that perhaps she was happy about my clever stupidity. Perhaps…
|
