Dumb or dumber?

So I was having a pity party. I even invited my husband, which I thought was generous of me, but he declined. In very strong words. The only "whine" he wanted in our house, he said, was the kind that goes in your mouth, not out of it.

I had been trying to do an assignment for an online class I'm taking, Research Methods for Writers. I thought it would be fun. I thought it would be interesting. I thought it would be informative. It's been informative, all right. It's informed me that I am not even as smart as a second grader. During a seemingly simple search of the Library of Congress Web site, I could not find anything even remotely related to the search terms I entered. If I put in "humorous quotes," it gave me something about a priest leading a St. Patrick's Day parade. If I put in "talk show hosts," I got several entries about Catherine the Great.

After about a half hour of this, the pity party began. "What am I doing wrong??" I whined. Yes, whined.

Joe did take great pity on me, even though he allowed me none for myself. "Think how else you could enter the terms," he urged. "This is forcing you to be creative." And he was right. It did force me to be creative, if by "creative" he meant "go crazy."

Later I was searching the Web site of an elementary school curriculum and randomly picked the second-grade curriculum to browse. Do you know what 7-year-olds are learning these days? In addition to "express ideas in original compositions" and "study time, money, temperature, and capacity," there were technology goals, including learning to use spreadsheets and databases.

"Forget continuing ed classes," I said to Joe. "I need to go back to second grade!" Just before my pity party, I'd been asking him to please explain databases in language I could understand. No doubt these 7-year-olds could have told me.

In social studies, the kids were expected to learn about "old-world figures," by which they probably meant Tony Blair. I brightened considerably when I read the science objectives. The kids would learn about rocks! Surely I know everything there is to know about rocks. They're hard. Gray. And would really, really hurt if they hit you in the head.

Maybe I'm not so dumb after all.