Scholaristics

Rena was baffled, she was flabbergasted, she was…really baffled. Rena was frustrated by her synonym disparity.

Never before had Rena felt so dumb. Not dumb in the way she commonly embarrassed herself through unspeakable acts of physical discoordination; but dumb in the sense that everyone around her was smarter than her. Rena thought about the word “discoordination”; unsure if it was a real word.

She asked the group.

They laughed. Rena smiled, not knowing anything more than she had a minute earlier. Everybody liked Rena’s sense of humor. That must mean I have a smart sense of humor, Rena thought. When Rena was introduced to the group, she was described as “the illustrious Rena Becket.” An hour later, Rena had to look up the word “illustrious.” Upon reading the definition, Rena sighed at the unfulfilled prophecy.

Is it blasphemes to entertain the notion Abe Lincoln was shot for talking during a play? Rena never had her thoughts on one place for too long, even if she really wanted to.

For the next hour, Rena listened to the intellectuals around her discuss things of a different world. They were playing a cerebral game in a stadium of the mind. For example: “The Evolution of Pessimism.” Rena understood each of those words individually, but together opened up a context that itself was adapted and discarded before Rena stopped thinking about dinosaurs.

Should Rena ask someone to pass the plate of crescendos or were they called something else? Nevermind, she didn’t want them anymore.

Rena may have felt dumb but she wasn’t a fool. Or if she was going to be a fool, so was going to be a quiet one. Adalai Stevenson once said, “it’s better to remain a fool than to speak up and be a bigger fool…or something like that.” Rena pondered the self-remembered quote. That probably wasn’t exactly what President Stevenson had said. In fact, he probably wasn’t even the one who actually said it.

While trying to remember her presidents and quotes, Asher addressed Rena directly. His demeanor indicated he was giving some kind of friendly push, that he was trying to integrate her with a little teasing, but Rena would again have to look up a semi-joking word describing her: laconic.

Rena thought and she thought quickly. Say something smart. Something someone else once said. Nietzsche said something once, right? The stoner at the record shop talks about him all the time; or more accurately, one of the stoners at the record shop. Actually, a couple of them do. Nietzche must have been that traveling bongo player.

Rena had never played the bongos before but she used to love a guy who played the drums. She would have gone to Nebraska and back for him, she loved him so. But he was in a garage band. And like what happens every time girlfriends get mixed in with bands, the relationship gets strained and the rock star dumps her to save the band. Now he and his pals, known as “Free Beer,” are rounding out their tour circuit in North Grove, Indiana.

Her temporary disconnection from the group of young thinkers, poets and philosophists allowed Rena to miss the growing tension across the room until it degenerated into the lowest and loudest form of communication that evening.

“You are not an intellectual! You are a parrot on an intellectual’s shoulder!”
“Whatever! Your literary criticism is nothing more than a parlor trick!”
“That’s exactly what my insult was: you did it again!”
“No! You did it again!”
“Shove it!”

At this point Rena decided she’d had enough of this crowd. She was going to do the smartest thing anybody could do. After looking up a few words in the dictionary, Rena would down half a bottle of UV blue vodka while watching “I Heart New York” and pass out in her living room.