My seventeen-year-old son is a genius. I’m not just saying that as a proud mother who can’t see the reality of her own off-spring. I have five kids. Two are going to go far in life because they work hard to reach their goals. One of them, hopefully, will at least be able to marry for money. And one of them is the reason I am already working on a speech that starts with, “I’m sorry, Your Honor.”
And then there is the aforementioned genius who will coast through life, accomplishing great things without even trying. The problem is he is also hysterically funny and witty. (And incredibly handsome, but if I say that you’ll start to think I’m biased.) I love people with a sense of humor. I am personally lobbying for all people to gain the right to have one. There is no reason why anyone should be only smart, funny, or good-looking (as evidenced by my outstanding son). Although, if all the good-looking guys gain a sense of humor, it will be really depressing for the funny fat guy that the whole class/camp/cheerleading squad loves. (Don’t throw stones. I married that guy!)
So, the reason my son’s humor is a bit of a problem is that he wants to be a doctor, but I think he could actually make a living as a stand-up comedian. This might seem like a low aspiration for a mom to have for her nearly perfect son, but in my estimation a good comedian is worth his or her weight in gold. Life without laughter is not much of a life, and I admire those that can pull laughter from even the most difficult audiences. My son has that ability. When he was nine he asked, “Mom, can I hug you or are your hormones making you crazy?” Anybody who can make me laugh when I’m PMSing should definitely consider a career in comedy. I restrained my crazy hormones just long enough to let him hug me without fear of retaliation. His younger sister was right in line behind him, but one hug per PMS episode is about all I can handle, so I in the nicest voice I could muster I said, “Sorry, kid. Back off!”
Today, my practically perfect son is taking his SAT. Soon, we will discover if he actually retained anything from all those nights he took the encyclopedias to bed, at age four. Every morning he would jump up and run into the kitchen, barely able to contain the excitement of his newfound knowledge. “Mom, do you know what the largest mammal in the world is?” Only we hadn’t started him in speech therapy yet, so it was actually, “wargest mammo in da werd.”
Fortunately, I can speak Dutch, so I was able to say, “No, my precious, amazing, four-year-old genius, what is the largest mammal in the world?”
“Da bwue wayo!” (the blue whale)
Last week, as we were determining which universities should receive what are sure to be his astonishingly high SAT scores, he said, “I checked the requirements for Harvard, so let’s go ahead and send them there.”
Now, I’m not one to hold my kids back, (unless they are trying to hug me during a crazy hormone time), but Harvard is expensive. And while my almost perfect son has an excellent GPA, scholarships also require extracurricular involvement. And they don’t count high scores on video games.
“You probably don’t really need a Harvard degree to be a stand-up comedian.”
“Mom, you know I want to be a doctor.”
“Yeah, I know, but you have such a talent for comedy! What was that funny thing you said the other day?”
“Which funny thing?”
“The funny thing that made me spew my diet Snapple all over the kitchen.”
“That happened three times last week. Maybe you’re too easily amused.”
“Or maybe you are exceptionally funny and witty! The world deserves to be exposed to your clevernicity!”
“Clevernicity isn’t a word, Mom. And I think the world deserves a really great doctor, but if I make less than 2200 on the SAT, I will consider a comedy career instead.”
The odds of my close to perfect son making less than a 2200 out of 2400 is practically nil. So, I guess we’ll be stuck with a doctor in the family. I hope all those years of video games have developed his hand-eye coordination. It will come in handy when he’s performing surgery on patients who are shaking with laughter at his brilliant jokes. Or maybe we could compromise and he could become a dentist. He could easily build his practice with an ad that proclaims, “No laughing gas required!”
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