I Like Children, But I Couldn't Eat A Whole One

Written in a drunken stupor by Peter File

Whitney Houston once sang “I believe the children are our future”, presumably because “I believe sharing a drug habit with Bobby Brown is my future” contained too many syllables and would have been a chillingly accurate self-fulfilling prophecy. Whatever her reasons, I bet the children whom Whitney was singing about were normal ones. You know the sort - grubby little urchins with a fondness for ribbon candy, hula hoops, and marbles. The kind that frolic without a care in the world, making mud pies and daisy chains, and running home crying when they graze their knees or elbows.

She was almost certainly not singing about the kind of freakish super child that is accepted into Mensa when they’re barely two years old.

You read that right. The British chapter of the best known high-IQ society in the world last week accepted a two year old into its ranks. The little scamp scored a staggering 156 on her IQ test.

You may be impressed, but I can tell you that when you stagger into work after a 72 hour bender with an Olsen twin, pick up the newspaper and discover that a child is cleverer than you were even before you started going on 72 hour benders with Olsen twins – that kind of revelation can be particularly soul destroying.

I read the article again and again, hoping that the cocktail of cocktails still doing the backstroke in my bloodstream were somehow distorting the words on the page. After asking three sober colleagues to read it out to me and witnessing their similarly despondent reactions, I genuinely began to concede that I was possibly stupider than a two year old.

Ignoring the Mobar Gazette charter, I attempted to sober up. Ignoring the Mobar Gazette charter yet again, I decided to do some research. I resolved to get to the bottom of exactly how this little cretin had wowed the Mensa boffins, and if it transpired that it was true, I would begin following the Mobar Gazette charter again, and assassinate the absolute hell out of this kid’s character.

So, what can this nappy-clad Einstein lay claim to having mastered? Firstly, the phonetic alphabet. Not really much of a claim there. I can recite the phonetic alphabet. Hell, even cops can recite the phonetic alphabet. I instantly felt a little better. This wasn’t as bravo alpha delta as I had first thought.

The next claim was that she could count to ten in Spanish. Spanish, for the love of vodka. It’s not exactly Russian or Icelandic, is it now? If I’m not mistaken, woefully painful and talentless American pop punk outfit The Offspring count to six in Spanish in the intro to Pretty Fly For A White Guy. I’m sure if the time signature had allowed it, they could have pooled their collective grey matter and struggled to ten.

What else? She possesses the awesome ability to name different types of triangle. All three of them. Stunning. I suppose there’s not much else to do once you’ve mastered all the different types of squares and circles.

Not content with threatening the careers of triangle aficionados and Spanish numeracy experts, the tiny rocket scientist in waiting can read “mummy” and “daddy” and spell her name aloud. Spare me. I spelt my first and last name aloud last night. Not amazing at first glance, but considering that I was on the wrong side of my second pitcher of mojitos and under pressure to perform for an increasingly impatient member of the constabulary, I think we can chalk this one up as another win over our alleged whiz kid.

The more pedantic amongst you are probably having a fit by this stage, infuriated by what you may consider rather cheap point scoring off a defenceless infant. You are no doubt gesticulating wildly at the twenty tonne white elephant over there in the corner – her IQ of one hundred and fifty bloody six.

Frankly, that worried me. How could I possibly discredit such a result? Well, amazed by the wealth of material that this newfound ally “research” had afforded me, I dug a little deeper. I learnt that Mensa uses the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale to rate the suitability of new members, and a fine scale it is too.

The bad news for Miss Smartypants is that the test is scored by comparing how the test taker performs compared with other people of the same age. Going by Mensa standards, this means that she outperformed 98% of other two year olds who have attempted the test. Other two year olds. Other two year olds, who would have a fair stab at drawing a really terrible picture of a cat in between sucking their thumb and soiling themselves.

Her ability to spell her own name would therefore put her light years ahead of her peers. In fact, spelling her own name would score so highly on the test that she could and probably did draw farm animals as the answer to every other question on the test.

As remarkable as this story may initially appear, one can’t help but consider one deeply troubling fact. This news was brought to us by a journalist. Entrusting a journalist with the task of reporting the truth is akin to asking a Rottweiler to guard a Scotch fillet. In between their morning belt of Johnnie Walker and their luncheon of chardonnay and peach schnapps, a journalist generally has to justify their existence by turning in a story. TODDLER SPELLS OWN NAME, DRAWS CAT doesn’t exactly compel one to buy a newspaper, does it?

To prove my point, when this story first surfaced, it was claimed that this Edisonette could name almost all the capital cities of the world. The next day, it was half the capital cities. The day after, she could manage 35. By next week, if presented with a globe, she may just be able to identify which planet she is from. The latest reports have downgraded her ability from being able to rattle off the phonetic alphabet to the paltry achievement of reciting the English alphabet.

So perhaps our pint sized genius has learnt something from this past week or two that her dim-witted peers may take decades to fathom. If you’ve got something important to share with the world, don’t let it fall into the grubby alcoholic hands of someone who has the resources and motives to transform a couple of pig farmers feeling a bit unwell into a world-ending pandemic.