While no one has actually told me this face to face, for about three and a half months, while I slept homeless, in the little covered porch of an abandoned Barbecue restaurant, people walked up at night, and I'd wake up and I'd hear one tell the other(s), "That homeless guy there, he has the highest I.Q. score in the country, it's 198. We're trying to figure out what to do with him." Or a close variation of that. It seems "they" never figured out what to do with me. And why is it anyone else's problem to start with?
This happened every night at times, but usually every 2 to 3 nights, basically, last September through December. I woke up, time after time, unable to see these people because of the small wall by my head, but I'd hear them talking and walking around. It was always late at night, 1:00 to 4:00am or so, I didn't have a watch or phone handy to check. It seemed somebody had been told this a month or so after I wound up here in Richmond, accidentally, while escaping the nightmare that is North Carolina. I was forced out of Southern California in 2008, after having all kinds of weird shit happen in my life, and I could no longer make any kind of living.
For about 18 years now, over ten of which I've been homeless, I've struggled to survive, but have been unable to make any kind well paying living. I worked full time as a taxi driver for 6 of the 10 years of homelessness, living in my taxi while working 70-100 hours a week. I applied for around 140 low end, entry level jobs, in North Carolina, in 2012 thru 2014,and only got 1 call back, from a fast food place that didn't hire me after seeing me. OK, looking at the photo above, that's understandable.
So is this true?
Way back in December 1984, after graduating high school in Boise, Idaho, I signed up to join the Marine Reserves, to get money for college. In early 1985, I took the whole battery of tests necessary to join, which apparently included an I.Q. test. I spent about 2 1/2 months in the Delayed Entry Program, and things got weird when I was about to ship out. My orders couldn't get to Boise two days in a row, for some reason. On ship out day three, I told the recruiters about one stupid thing I did in high school, after they told me security clearances may mean Marines would go talk to my high school friends at some point. The Corps thought about me for a week, and I was dropped for lying to them. Fair enough. I was told the CMC made the final call. I didn't know what that was. They told me, Commandant Marine Corps, THE top general of all. I never could figure that out.
Looking back now, I think that's when I scored this crazy high I.Q. number. It's the only I.Q. test I may have taken, after scoring a 132 in 7th grade (I didn't finish the test that time because I worked really slow).
So what's the deal? Is it actually true that I scored a crazy high I.Q. score 34 years ago? If so, why would ANYONE care in 2019? I don't know. Or is somebody playing a crazy practical joke on the fine people of Richmond, Virginia? I honestly don't know. If it is true, it would explain the incredible amount of crazy stuff that's happened in my life in the last 18 years or so. If it's not true, then who's punking people around here and telling them this weird story about me? And why?
The last option, of course, is that I'm completely and utterly insane. That's possible, I always keep that option open. But if this story is actually true, that's the story the spin doctors in the media would put out if this weird situation became well known and somebody wanted to cover up the truth.
Whatever the case, obviously, a higher than average I.Q. score (either 132 or 198) DOES NOT predict material success in life. In my opinion, I.Q. scores are pretty meaningless. It just means that on one day, on one particular test, a person solved a lot of intellectual problems that people who are borderline autistic tend to do well on. That's about it. The skills it takes to score high on this type of test have virtually nothing to do dealing with everyday life in an effective way.
With that in mind, I'm offering my alleged I.Q. score of 198 up for sale. For $350 (bus fare back to Southern California and some food money), I'll sell you my score, and write it down and make it look official, then it's yours. Obviously it's done nothing but fuck up my life, if it's actually true. If you want to by my score, message me on Facebook.
In this post, I've told you why I don't put a lot of faith in this test score from 34 years ago. Here' s a much more robust argument for why an I.Q. score doesn't mean much.
Blogger's later note: In my world of weird, sarcastic friends, it's obvious that I'm joking about selling my (possible), crazy high IQ score. But in the more general world, someone may think I'm serious. I was just joking about selling the score. Obviously, I can't do that.
There rest of this, however IS true. I am homeless for the moment, the weird people at night did happen a couple dozen times or so, the Marine Corps part is true. A whole lot of weird stuff has happened in my life over many years, and if I did score this high back in 1985, and if some group/company/agency wanted to recruit me for work for them because of that score, it would explain a lot of the crazy incidents in my life, over several years . I don't know what the truth is. The whole thing sounds ridiculous to me, but it's about the only way to actually explain a lot of weird incidents in my life. So maybe I made the high score some like people think, and maybe I'm didn't. It's still an open question.
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