T. GAMBLE: Being smart is messy business

For years I have been telling people that I am a genius and, for some reason or another, they have not believed it.

But now, I am finally validated.

A recent report from the news agency Reuters, and Mike Blake, contends that people who go to bed late, leave a mess everywhere and use bad language are more intelligent than the rest of folks.

I’ve scored a trifecta. In fact, based on this criteria, I may be Einstein reincarnated — absent the hair, of course.

Long ago I decided to take the Mensa test to see if I might sneak in as a genius. Mensa is an international organization that accepts as members only those who score in the 98th percentile of intelligence. For those not that smart, this means that 98 percent of people are not as smart as the people who qualify for Mensa.

One must have at least a 130 IQ to qualify. To my knowledge, no Gamble has ever broken the 100 IQ mark, but I figured maybe I’d get lucky and take the test on a good day. They had a few practice tests you could take to see if the whole ordeal would really be worthwhile, as the actual test takes several hours.

To take the practice test, one had to click here and point the arrow there and enter this password and that email address, so on and so forth. I never could figure out how to get logged in for the practice test and, thus, ended my quest to be certified Mensa smart.

Note to self: If you can’t figure out how to take the intelligence test, it is probably a pretty good bet you don’t need to take the intelligence test.

But now the good news.

Reuters says that “chaos on someone’s work desk indicates that they’re not, in fact, simply a messy person, but more importantly that their brain is focused on what really matters.” Now then, someone owes me an apology somewhere — mother, secretary, 6th-grade English teacher. I did not need to clean up after all. I was simply showing off my great intelligence.

The article says “psychologists are convinced a disorderly environment is often the perfect way to stimulate a creative mood helping a person to ponder new ideas and escape the confines of their normal ways of thinking.”

This presupposes the person has any normal ways of thinking to begin with. I’m surprised I haven’t invented a cure for cancer or transporting human beings by mind control. My desk looks like New York City after a week- long garbage strike. The TV show “Hoarders” wants to do a show based only on my desk. It’s possible one of the fugitives from “America’s Most Wanted” could be hiding under the rubble at just this very moment.

As smart as this now makes me, the 12-year-old Hurricane boy may be the smartest man to ever live. He could play Pigpen in a Charlie Brown show and just come as himself. The only difference between him and Hurricane Katrina is that Katrina left a several-miles-wide trail behind, and he usually only leaves about a 12-foot-wide trail of broken items and general mayhem.

Yes, it is good to know Mensa is no longer needed. I’ll be staying up late tonight, cussing at the TV and making a mess. I’m pretty sure in there somewhere is the next great invention.

Email columnist T. Gamble at [email protected].