Defeated by Someone Smarter Than a Fifth Grader

Okay, I admit it. I watch American Idol. Not every single episode, but… I do record it in hopes of watching every single episode. At the end of last night's episode, Jeff Foxworthy plugged his new game show, “Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader?” I have no intention of tuning into such jouvenile nonsense, but Foxworthy did raise an interesting question…

“How many sides does a trapezoid have?”

From my horizontal position, I sluggishly began to shuffle through stacks of data in my mind, yet within seconds the Farmer piped up with, “Four.”

Jerking my head in surprise, I asked, “How did you know that?”

And then, as if my brain was frozen, I continued with, “It can’t be four. That’s a square.”

At this, the Farmer gave me a blank stare. “Stephanie. (pause) The square is not the only four-sided shape. What about the rectangle? What about the parallelogram?”

“I think it’s five,” I retorted.

“That’s a pentagon,” Farmer answered dryly.

I could do nothing but admit an embarrassing defeat. My man knows his shapes. And I continue to question my state of normalcy.

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