Honestly, I had been a little skeptical of networking before. I’m not the kind of person to drop my name, job, favorite position, rank and serial number at the drop of a hat—I prefer much more casual, social connections. To my surprise, one of those turned into what could be the opportunity of a lifetime… or maybe just something to tell the grandkids… or maybe something that could give me cancer of the fingernail, for all I know. We’ll all have to wait for a while to find out the result. Unless it’s cancer—that takes a while to diagnose, especially if I keep it trimmed down at the source.
It was kinda fun, really. I had stopped by there last year, which was when I ultimately decided to apply for membership, so I figured I’d return the favor. Given the prevalence of old people who are actively involved with Mensa and do stuff like working at the State Fair (I think the guy last year could have been my grandfather at the very youngest), I thought it might be a good idea to show that it wasn’t just a group of old farts who like to hang out and answer trivia questions after a monthly potluck dinner. No, sometimes there are young farts like me.
Aside from the little pamphlets and what not on the table, there were some questions on a posterboard behind us (math, language, logic, etc.) and some toothpick puzzles as well. I had a lot of fun with those toothpick puzzles. Let’s see if I can draw one of these out:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| _ | _ | _ | _ | _ | _ |
It’s three toothpicks across the top and the bottom, then seven more that divide it vertically into six equal sections that “keep your sheep together.” The puzzle? Someone “steals” one of the toothpicks and you need to find a way to keep all six sheep together in sections that are all still the same size. (Wouldn’t want to give any sheep an inferiority complex, now, would we?) Given how much fun I had trying to both draw the shape and remember how the puzzle worked, I’m going to spoil it for you: use the remaining twelve toothpicks to form a hexagon with the other six toothpicks pointing to the middle. Ta-da!
The puzzles were all like that in some manner or another. Mostly, I was there to make conversation, put the toothpicks back when people took off right after solving the problems, give them the answers when they gave up… I don’t think laughing at the really frustrated ones was part of the job description, but I did it anyway. It wasn’t to be mean, but you could almost see the smoke coming out of their ears…
Then there were the people who came up and asked some trivia problems of their own. The most interesting I heard was when someone explained how one pound of gold was heavier than one pound of feathers because they were measured in different microscopic particles or some bullshit like that. You don’t want to incite people like that, but it was so tempting to tell him to contact the Nobel people and explain that he’d disproved the equation “1 = 1”. I don’t think he would have been all that amused, but that’s really not the point.
The point is that when I volunteered to help out, I asked to work with more experienced people ‘cause I hadn’t the slightest idea what I’d be doing. If I was supposed to fly solo, I was gonna be in deep doody. So the first morning, I was working with a guy named Paul Jensen. Large guy, fairly cheery and really surprised that he didn’t recognize me. Hey, we hadn’t met before, what do you expect? But he was one of the proctors who helps with the testing for Mensa applicants and never remembered seeing me before. It was because there are two ways to join the organization: take the national test at a designated time and location or submit another applicable test score that complies with their standards. I sent in my LSAT records, they took one look and I got accepted. Similarly, Paul asked me what my score was, I told him and… well, it wasn’t like his eyes lit up, but later on, he called me about possibly joining a couple other organizations for smart people. I opted not to and I thought that would be the end of it.
