Statistically, she'd be most likely to survive if she picked the first cougar she thought of, and didn't waffle around thinking it might be cougar #3.

I think this has been shown to not be true. (The thing about always going with your first answer.)

I had a psychology professor who designed his tests to teach people to pick their first answer. The tests had something like 300 questions, and the more you answered, the less each wrong answer counted off.

Aimee, is that deal at kmart on Friday? or Thursday?

Cashmere, on Thursday.

I'm going to die of boredom before I have a chance to leave early for the train station.

I love online shopping - if it exists, it's likely to turn up on the internet. (A friend of mine has been looking for some movies on DVD; her husband insists that they not use their credit cards for online shopping (yes, crazy), so I tracked down #1 on her list and purchased it in about 15 minutes.)

My coworker gave me french fries.

And we also almost accidentally left a ten-minute message on someone's voicemail about gravy.

Dana, if someone left me a voicemail about gravy ... it'd be an improvement over most of the ones I get.

Some kids who were tested with the highest IQs acted like the stupidest sacks of shit imaginable.

Me! Me! Well, okay, I just tended to slack HARD instead of doing my work. And yet I tested highest of all the gifted kids in my gifted class. Which I only know because my teacher pointed it out to the class. I think she was trying to explain to them that smarts != success or something. (She was very fond of me, but my poor study habits were a known issue.)

Really, it was probably undiagnosed ADD issues at play, but I still think it's funny, even 20+ years later.

The ones higher than that tend to have the brain-in-a-jar quality, where you get a sense that no amount of explanation will let you understand what they're thinking.

I'm higher than that, and I swear I make sense most some of the time! And no one would ever mistake me for a brain in a jar. But see above re: study skills. I own my apparent waste of potential, and suspect it's made me a happier person.

I think a lot depends on how a person gets socialized - I went to college with some truly smart people who weren't safe out without a keeper. And I think "success" - however you define it - depends largely on how you use what you have.

If skill at multiple choice tests had any relationship to life, I'd be living in a mansion with cabana boys.

AND you'd have picked the right ones!