Original Air Date: 02.12.07
I wasn't the most intelligent kid growing up. Shoplifting a Twix bar from a local waterpark, in plain view of security cameras, employees and customers, was a pretty good indication of that. It wasn't all that bad.
I did get to ride in a police car for the first time.
I wasn't the most talented either. Unless the recorder counts, I didn't play instruments. My singing is more strangled cat than melody. People often mistake my dancing for an epileptic seizure. I'm not artsy. Even less crafty. And I'm fairly certain I never won a game in any organized team sport I played.
Actually, my 10-under soccer team won one game.
By forfeit.
On today's episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, O has assembled some of the most intelligent and most talented children in the world. Silently and subliminally, I think they're mocking me.
Let's compare.
The World's Youngest Talk Show Host
THEM: Daniel Cook is a 9-year old talk show host with his own show on Disney. He has won six Gemini (the Canadian Emmy) Awards and recently served as a campaign correspondent for the Canadian election. During this episode, he acts as a special correspondent to The Oprah Winfrey Show and attends the Red Dress Fashion Show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. While there, Mary Hart offers him a co-host job.
ME: At 9, I still watched Disney, was a hammer-wielding child during my television debut in a commercial for a local hardware store and won second place in the "Hometown Celebration" lip syncing "Wipeout" from the Fat Boys. I laughed at anyone wearing a red dress. I couldn't spell "correspondent," but did listen to the band "Heart" and was a fan of WWF-icon Jimmy Hart. I also had my first kiss. Not to a Mary. That was the third kiss. Jealous, Danny?
Advantage: PUSH
The Pint-Sized Opera Singer
THEM: Gwyn MacKenzie is an 8-year old opera singer who has been singing and playing the piano since she was three. She can sing arias in four different languages. And was discovered by Jay Leno in Los Angeles.
ME: My singing, often out of key and even more often, horrible, has been known to be completely indecipherable and capable of making people vomit while causing their ears to bleed. At the same time. My melody sounds like it's in a different language. But I have been to Los Angeles.
Advantage: THEM
The Memory Champ
THEM: Corinna Draschl is the 17-year old Junior World Memory Champion was given twenty minutes to look at 50 pictures of random audience members and memorize their names. Later in the show, she returned and said the appropriate name with each picture she was shown. She says she has "tricks and ways of remembering things so she never forgets them."
ME: I can't remember five minutes ago. Twenty minutes ago would require me to take notes. Chances are, if I meet you, by the time you have finished telling me your name, I've forgotten it. It's nothing personal, just the cyclone that is my brain. Without iCal, I would spend my days wandering the streets aimlessly. And I'm truly convinced that, if not on my drivers license and my business cards, I would forget my name. Birthdays, anniversaries and impending arrivals of mothers-in-law are the bane of my existence.
Advantage: THEM
The Sibling Jugglers
THEM: Vova and Olga Galchenko left their homes in Russia, to come to America, at the ages of 15 and 12. They were alone. Today, the siblings are the best team jugglers in the history of ever and owners of two world records.
ME: I tried learning how to juggle at 12. I quit one week later. I left home at 15 to attend a tennis camp. For a week. A camp where I contracted a staph infection, returned home early, was rushed to the hospital and almost died. But, at the time, I was an avid reader of the "Guinness Book of World Records."
Advantage: THEM
Student and CEO
THEM: Jasmine Lawrence is a 15-year old high school student and CEO of her own hair care company. A company she started after chemicals in hair products she used caused all of her hair to fall out when she was 11. She is currently in talks with Wal-Mart to carry her new line.
ME: I had horizontal lines shaved in the side of my head when I was 11, so I could look like Brian Bozworth. It looked more like I had been Punk'd by a hairstylist. Who as drunk. And high. After I saw the follicular travesty in mirror, I cried at which point my mom took me to back to the scene of the crime. Here, the same barber, who was old enough to be the official stylist of the Apostles, had a solution. Shave the sides of my head. Only the sides. Creating a buzz/mullet hybrid. I would've rather had all my hair fall out.
Advantage: THEM
The 7-Year Old Surgeon
THEM: Finally, Akrit Jaswal was reading newspapers at age 2. Shakespeare at 4. He began school at 5 and was observing surgeries shortly thereafter. He conducted his first surgery when he was 7-years old. He scored a 146 on his IQ test and his the smartest person of his age in India. In reference to his goal of curing cancer, Akrit tells his fellow doctors about his theory. "It is based on the disintegration of the DNA binding motives of oncoproteins."
ME: My head just exploded.
Advantage: THEM
And suddenly, I have a desire to put a "My kid can beat up your honor student" bumper sticker on my car.
Next Episode: Overweight Children in Crisis
Parents go to extreme measures to help their obese children lose weight.
Until Monday.
3 comments:
lol, by the end lines I was creased up (:
Dude! You're all funny and stuff! And thanks so much for the comprehensive list. Because I didn't feel insecure enough before reading about all of the savants. In fact, I am SO freaked out that I am curled up in the fetal position sucking my thumb. So thanks for THAT. (But you're still funny....)
Thanks Bex. But remember, we can still probably beat the kids in a foot race, arm wrestling and beer bonging. And in the end, isn't that what matters most?
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