It’s graduation season. And boy do I feel like an underachiever. I just read a story about a twelve-year-old boy in California who graduated college with five degrees. That’s not a typo. He was awarded five Associate of Arts degrees in History, Social Sciences, Social Behavior and Self-Development, Arts and Human Expression, and Science and Mathematics. His GPA was 3.92 and he started at age nine.
At age nine, I still believed the Six-Million Dollar Man was real. I was a moron. This kid went from second grade to a brief home-schooling period to university. And finishing college with five degrees? It took me eight years to finish college* and I only managed a double major!
Of course, there is a downside to graduating at twelve. You now have to enter the workforce ten years earlier than everyone else. You see, society strategically delays your work life until after you can legally drink. That way, when you become jaded by office politics, bad bosses, and your daily commute, you have something to look forward to at the end of the day. But this kid will be jaded by age 18 and still have to wait three years until he can legally drown his sorrows.
However, a genius like this could be just what humanity needs to give us bionic limbs that look real. He might be the one that invents the technology that gives me leg upgrades along with a hip replacement so I can run faster than a car. Who knows, it might just be the genius that can give me a bionic arm when I tire of putting up with carpal tunnel. And let’s just throw in that bionic eye with a telescopic and a microscopic lens! Then I would be the Six-Million Dollar Man. And nine-year-old me wouldn’t be a moron, now would he?
Book Update: There’s a Tales From a Roundabout, Vol. 3 just around the corner. Teddy Wiggins is back, Officer Lupinsky, and the Lakewood Estates boys. New characters include two feuding neighbors (Peter Common and a man known only as “The Libertarian,”), two inept home burglars, and 21 miniature goats. I think you’re going to enjoy it.
PS: If you read last week’s post, I had a second Oliver Winchel sighting! He was peeing by the side of I-69, north of Bloomington, Indiana on Monday (Memorial Day). Way to get around Oliver!
*I did have to work my way through college, so I went part-time for quite a bit of that 8 years.
Carry on, Citizens!
