“How many shirts are you wearing?” Wendy asked.

“I don’t know. Four? No, five.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s cold outside.”

“Randy, it’s in the forties. Seriously?”

“Well…I would much rather be hot than cold…I can always take a layer off. ” (I seldom do)

“Wimp, ” she said in a non judgmental tone.

“Why does it matter to you? I just don’t like being cold.”

“You look kinda lumpy.”

Well, I guess that may be true.

Couple of weeks later…

“I want you to take this IQ test,” she said, a little too enthusiastically.

“Oh, I am way too tired to take a test tonight. Maybe tomorrow.” Maybe she will forget.

The next day, we drove to McKinney, then Frisco, then back home, arriving home about 10:00.

Changed clothes, settled down on the couch before I began my customary nighttime doze off, and Wendy says, “Take that IQ test….You will probably do way better than me.”

I picked up the box, took the three packets of cards out.
The first was the instructions.
60 questions, 45 minutes, answer all the questions.

Plenty of time.

“Tell me when you’re ready. I will set the timer.”

Why was she so serious about this? Something is fishy.

I numbered my paper 1-60. “Okay, I’m ready.”

“45 minutes…go!”

Man, I was streaking through the first few. Piece of cake.

Wait, what, what the heck does that mean?

I was stuck.

“30 minutes.”

Already?

There were two questions alike, and I couldn’t really feel certain about any of the answers, so I answered them, put a star so I could go back, and moved on.

I remember feeling a little bit of stress…I do not like failing tests, and some of these questions were really tough…and Wendy…well…let’s just say we are both competitive.

“15 minutes.”

Are you kidding? I kept getting stuck on questions.

“5 minutes.”

Aaarrrggghhh.

I finished with 1 minute to spare.

“Finished!”

“Okay,” she said, “now get the answer key and count your mistakes. Don’t read the correct ones yet…just mark the wrong answers.”

Why is she so controlling?

“I missed 8.” I told her my IQ. “How many did you miss?”

She wouldn’t look me in the eyes, but I could tell she was something other than disappointed.
“7.”

Her IQ was two points higher than mine.

The next day….

I was trying to figure out how to raise the water pressure at the lake house. Wendy’s brother, Craig had told me something to try.

It wasn’t super cold, so I just had on a thermal shirt and my expensive Rice University hooded sweatshirt.

I turned the water on at the meter, then I had to walk past the neighbor’s devil dog to turn on the faucet.

Back past devil dog to meter to increase the pressure valve.

Back past devil dog to check on the faucet.

I wasn’t looking at him as he lunged at the fence, and as the fence lunged toward me, his head, now over the fence, bit me on the upper arm.

Didn’t hurt that much, but I could tell there was blood.

But, to be bit by a dog behind a fence when you are three feet away from the fence…how does that even happen?

Wendy drove up.

“The devil dog bit me…I need you to take a picture of my arm.”

“Oh my gosh,” she said,”that looks awful. How did he bite you?”

I told her, we called the sheriff, and a little later I drove myself to the clinic just so they could check it out.

“Just a surface break,” the NP said,” We will get it cleaned up and get you some antibiotics. You were really lucky it wasn’t deeper than this.”

Lucky?

I don’t think so.

And, it wasn’t my IQ that saved me.

It was the layers.