I Be Smary. Smary, Smary, Smary

My father taught Special Ed students for years and years, and one of the most memorable quotes from his students I can remember is this one, by a girl who was writing about her vast and superior intelligence: "I be smary." By "smary," of course, she meant smart. And by "I be," she of course meant I am. (For those of you not fluent in Ebonics.)

What does this have to do with me? Well, since becoming pregnant, my mental faculties have steadily declined. To be truthful, I think the decline started in my first pregnancy and just steadily continued its descent. I have never fully recovered. My theory is that some of my brain power was channeled to my babies, who are now in possession of much of my intelligence. I be smary, indeed. They be smary-er.

Today my smary-ness manifested itself in a new and profoundly absurd way. I was fixing a very sophisticated lunch of hot dogs for myself and my children, and to be fancy, I was heating the hot dogs in a pot on the stove, as opposed to using the microwave, as I usually do. Though my kids take their hot dogs au naturel, I personally prefer eating them with a bun, and a steamed one at that, if I can get my hands on one. Today, since I was using boiling water to heat the dogs, I thought it was only natural to harness the power of its steam to heat my bun. I concocted a thoroughly brilliant (in my estimation) method for this: I set my splatter screen over the pot of hot water and set my bun on it. Perfect, I thought, except that I realized that the bottom of the bun would probably get nicely steamed while the top remained stiff and cold. Aha! I remembered my microwave food cover, that plastic dome that you place over foods while warming them so they don't make a mess of the microwave. I AM PURE GENIUS, is what I was thinking. I WILL HARNESS THE STEAM IN THE DOME. BRILLIANT.

Well, I stepped away from the stove to let the hot dogs simmer away and the buns soften, returning minutes later to retrieve the succulent treats. I was eager to tuck my hot dog (a Nathan's Famous dog--mmmmm) into the perfectly-steamed bun, and proceeded to lift the microwave lid off of the splatter screen to get at the tender baked goods.

Alas. To no avail.

Here's how smary I really am: I had set a plastic dome on top of a metal mesh over exposed gas flames. Needless to say, the splatter screen and plastic dome were now fused as one, and my bun was trapped inside. It was at this moment, when I was picturing the hack saws and metal snips I would need to free my bun from its plastic and aluminum prison, that I vowed never to use this method ever again. I set the plastic and metal glob back over the flame (what can it hurt now, I thought) and pried at the lid with a fork until the lid and my hot dog bun (bought with a price) were freed. The food dome and splatter screen will never be the same.

So it just goes to show you that I don't always do the smary-est things. But almost exactly two years ago, I birthed a boy child of such cuteness and vivacity as to stop traffic and make people of all ages swoon in his presence. That may be overstating it, but only by a bit, even if I may be a bit biased. Once I have regained some semblance of rationale and stopped playing with fire, I plan to post about my precious two-year old boy and why I love him, and why introducing him to the world was the smary-est thing I have ever done (aside from marrying his father and bringing forth his sister). In the meantime, pray for our family's safety. I apparently cannot be trusted.