Despite my best efforts to hide the newspaper in the dishwasher where, trust me, my husband would never find it, someone must have told him about the article that reported that tall people are smarter.
Way smarter, it turns out.
"It says here that Princeton researchers have discovered that tall people have advanced verbal and numerical skills," he crowed, while lowering his 6-foot-4 self into a chair meant for a much dumber person and unfolding the curiously soggy newspaper.
"That's ridiculous," I said. "What about Yoda? He's really wise."
"He's a movie character," hubby said with obvious, high I.Q.'d impatience.
"I'm talking about real people. Like me!"
"Oh, great," I pouted. "I knew you were going to get a lot of acreage out of this just because I'm 5-foot 3."
"You mean mileage, not acreage," he corrected. "I know that expression because I'm tall."
Oh, curse this report published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (motto: "Tall but Unlaid.")
"It says that taller children as young as age 3 perform significantly better on cognitive tests," said hubby. "You do know what I mean when I say `cognitive' don't you?"
"Don't make me hurt you."
"It's the process of using knowledge in the broadest sense," he said, "including perception, memory, judgment, the whole, if you will, enchilada."
"I'm sorry, I'm too short to understand all but the enchilada part of what you just said," I said, sarcasm dripping from my words like, well, something that drips a lot.
For some reason, ever since hubby had discovered the smart-tall connection, I was feeling shorter and dumber by the second.
"There are plenty of people who are tall but not smart," I said, while trying fervently to find my mouth with a forkful of peas.
"Nah," hubby said. "Think about it. We've got Abraham Lincoln; you've got Tom Cruise."
OK, that hurt.
This must be how Pluto felt. You go through your whole life feeling like a pretty good planet, worthy of textbook illustrations and pop quizzes and cute little planet jingles to help everyone remember the order — My Very Excellent Mother Just Sent Us Nine Pizzas — and then you realize you'll never be pizza again. Or much of anything except an oversized gas bag.
Speaking of which, there was hubby again, still crowing about his height advantage.
He's convinced that he's smarter ever since we had a huge fight on movie night because he wanted to see "An Inconvenient Truth" and I wanted to see "Talladega Nights."
Hmmm. Two hours of Al Gore earnestly yammering about the dying planet versus Will Ferrell putting nachos up his nose. Talk about a no-brainer.
