Unfit for Facebook

There once was a man that took a vocabulary test online.  He had always thought of himself as verbally adept, even quietly priding himself in his depth of language.  Felt that perhaps it was something that distinguished him. After seeing friends from every era of his life taking this test he thought he would weigh in, too.  He anticipated proudly displaying his score alongside theirs to quantify the fraternity he knew they had always shared.

As he took the quiz, he felt like he was holding his own quite well.  But he must have been mistaken.  In the end the results that returned showed him lacking.  He was astonished to find that he had been living with his lexicographical superiors his entire life, it would seem.  He wondered if he had been holding them back.  Or perhaps they let him in their conversations out of some sense of lingual philanthropy.  He felt angry that they may have been patronizing him this whole time.  He felt perhaps he owed them an apology.

                There was a time, not so long ago, when he could feel his blooming intellectual potential and was thrilled to run down mental trails to see what mountain tops he might find himself bursting out upon.  Now he just felt caught in a brambles in an uncleared, overgrown forest.  How could he possibly tread any further without the proper mental tools.  And it was getting late.  And he had a list of unfinished tasks.  Dishes in the sink.  The porch needed mending.  And he was losing a game of chess.  And was behind on bills.  And there was a coffee stain on the same office chair he’d sat in for over a decade at work.

                As he sat there scowling, dark scribble over his head, considering the vocabulary score he was not about to post, he caught himself thinking of words.  Words he hadn’t thought of in a quite a while.  Words he wouldn’t let himself use.  Because children.  And pets.  And propriety. 

                But he was thinking them.