A few years ago, I learned I’m one of the smartest people on the planet. Mensa, you see, was holding its Annual Gathering [so named because only the weak-minded use terms like “convention”] in Fort Worth.

I was interviewing a Mensa higher-up, and she presented me with a couple members to talk with as well. One of those members was a teenager. I asked the kid if she got bored in class and acted out, or if she didn’t get along with some of her teachers who were adamant about just parroting whatever was in the book without actually thinking about it.

The Mensa higher-up suggested I was asking those questions because I had the same issues in school. She encouraged me to take the test. She said reporters were allowed to take the test for free, so the price was right.

A few days later, I got a call confirming what I had always suspected: I am better than most people. And it turns out there’s a club for people who are difficult to work with!

So I now go to our meetings in Ft. Worth. I had stopped for a while because I was working all the time, always, but I’ve now got some free time. Some free time, as one of the smartest people on the planet, to ponder life’s mysteries. You know, like Darwin.

I’m also tremendously modest.

A few years ago, I even agreed to become the editor of the local Mensa newsletter. The month after I started, though, my brain went a-titter after the car crash. By the time I came back, someone else had volunteered. In retrospect, if I wasn’t excited about writing the newsletter, there were probably easier ways to get out of it.

But this week was the Mensa Christmas party. It was a real rager.

One of the activities was a contest to see how quickly we could identify Christmas carols by crudely drawn pictures.

This led to several intense arguments that I’m not making up.

— Upon hearing #2 was “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow,” one person stood up and declared that picture didn’t make any sense. The title is just “Let it Snow,” for cryin’ out loud!

— Number 4 is “First Noel,” but the graphic only indicates “No L,” not that it’s the first No L. Come on!

We had a couple problems with the knights

— In #15, that knight is “holey,” not “holy.”

​– In #21, the knight should be silent, not saying, “Shhhh” with that smirk on his face.

Also, both knights are knights, not nights.

I want to say someone had a problem with O Come, All ye Faithful and Silver Bells, but I didn’t write those down.

The moderator of this titanic struggle would calmly explain each time [and someone did come up with a new issue each time], “These are the official answers. They’re not necessarily the right answers.”

​We are not difficult to work with.

In fact, I performed so well, I earned a picture frame as a door prize. I went through some old pictures I had stashed away. I considered putting a shot of my Youth Baseball Hall of Fame induction in there, but that would be egotistical and I’m tremendously modest. Instead, continuing my theme of documenting hilarious highway signs, I present to you: Stinking Creek Road.