Brilliant … But Bouncy

I Thought We Were All Perplexed.

When Dylan was a preschooler, he listed the members of our family in order of intelligence: “Daddy is first,” little Dylan said. “And I am next. Then Shane, and then Mommy.” (Shane was a toddler at the time.)

It was a telling moment in my life, about how I portray myself to my children. They think I’m lacking in intelligence. I have worked hard to overcome that judgment, although I am not certain I have succeeded.

We recently tried out a new indoor swimming pool. The pool had two awesome water slides, a rope swing and a diving board. It also had a separate splash pool with fewer toys and more space for swimming.

After sliding for awhile, we splashed around for awhile in the spacious pool. There were timers running on the wall, rather than normal clocks, although I’m not sure why. So instead of 2:44, the timer would say, “44:21,” meaning 44 minutes past the hour (and 21 seconds).

At one point in the afternoon, I looked up from the water and saw that the two timers were no longer displaying the same time. One timer said, “51:33” and the other timer said, “57:33.”

I had no idea what was going on. It was odd, like one of the timers had suddenly gone kerplooey and was now marking a countdown to some unknown event.

“Hey guys, look!” I said, pointing. “The timers are totally different now! What will we do? How will we know what time it is?”

“Whoa!” someone said. “That’s so weird!” We all watched, perplexed. Or at least, I thought we were all perplexed.

Suddenly, the clocks were back to normal. They were running exactly the same numbers again: “52:40” on both sides.

The boys were trying to tell me something, and everyone was talking at once, so I understood nothing. Someone said, “The four is going to be a nine!” And still, I had no idea what anyone was trying to say.

“See that bright line up there?” Dylan said, clearly irritated with me and pointing to one of the timers. “That’s always going to be there! It’s never going away!”

Okay, I thought. The bright line is so bright that it will never go away.

Still, I had no clue. They had figured out the mystery of the clocks, and I was utterly befuddled.

The boys went back to splashing, and I tried to pretend I understood. I kept glancing at the timers, wondering why they hadn’t been running the same time.

And then, just as suddenly as before, the timers were not the same again. One timer said, “54:09” and the other said “59:09.”

That’s when I saw it: the bright line, the one Dylan had pointed out, was still on and it was perched neatly atop the number four on one of the timers. This line magically transformed the otherwise squarish number four into a squarish number nine.

“Hey look!” I squealed, finally understanding. “The four is a nine because of that bright line up there! And that’s why the timers are different!”

“That’s what I said!” Dylan nearly dunked me under the water. “Did you really not know that?” Clearly, in his eyes, I could not have been more stupid if I’d been born without a brain.

I turned to Shane who, with or without nonverbal learning disorder, usually supported me in my ignorance. “Did you understand, before, what happened to the timers?” I asked him quietly.

He nodded. “Yep.”

And that’s when I knew: I am officially the least intelligent member of my family.