In second grade I took the test for the "gifted children" program. You had to make a three to get in, and I made a seven. Despite that evidence of intelligence I did awful through middle and high school. Faith was restored when I did decently well on the SAT (not well enough that Harvard was calling, or even UGA, but I did pretty well). Just a few years ago I took a 60-question online IQ test that was supposed to mirror the results you would get from a longer IQ test. The average IQ is 100, and mine came in at 115. A friend of mine, who I would consider a sharp tack, who took an accelerated college syllabus and made A's, only made 102 on the same test. So I thought wow...maybe I'm as smart as I sometimes think I am.

Working in a service job provides ample opportunities to feel smugly superior, and this Saturday when Hillary Clinton made her campaign suspension speech was one of them. I had been listening to Hillary's speech on the radio as I ate my lunchtime hot dog at RaceTrac, then ran to the break room once I was back at work to see the rest on CNN.

There was one co-worker in there, a white lady in her late fifties, and she was watching the Clinton speech when I walked in. This lady had taken a early retirement package from Fitzsimmons and put her money in the stock market, only to find herself bankrupt when the stock market tanked after 9/11. Now she was back punching a time clock for peanuts with me. Here was someone sure to be a fellow Hillary supporter! I told her about how I'd seen Bill Clinton speak, and how I'd kept the Hillary signs I got for framing. She listened but offered little comment.

Then Chucky came in. You remember me talking about Chucky, one of the team managers? I knew Chucky wouldn't look at Clinton on the TV without saying something, and she did. "I've never trusted that woman," she said.

To my surprise the early retiree I presumed fit the Hillary demo said, "Me, either."

I asked Chucky, "Never trusted her based on what?" Chucky went to the Coke machine and held up her index finger as to suggest she was going to answer me after getting her beverage, but instead she left the room. If she'd said because of Hillary's sniper comments I would've given her 10 points, but she had nothing.

Then this 60-ish woman came in who's as old-school Southern belle as you can get, so I knew what she'd have to say. "Barack Obama won't have her for vice president! He couldn't trust her." The early retiree concurred, saying Hillary had said too many nasty things about him. The belle told me, "Yeah, she gave a lot of stuff to the press that was supposed to leak out."

"Like what?," I asked the Southern belle. Again, no examples, no reply at all.

She went on to say, "God help us if Obama gets in there! He'll bankrupt us with all these free programs!"

If I wasn't already discouraged by the lack of response to my other questions I would've asked, "What free programs?" Maybe she didn't know we're already $9 trillion in debt thanks to the Republicans.

Southern Belle had things to add about the union, too. The union has put up fliers saying Fitzsimmons is looking to cut our benefits. "Do they think Fitzsimmons is stupid enough to do that?," she exclaimed. What in the hell makes her think they aren't?

"They're just trying to get members through fear tactics," the early retiree offered. Yeah, right! Do they not read the fucking newspaper? Have they not read about how companies are losing big money paying insurance and pensions and are cutting benefits to get by? My God!

I felt much smarter than them, but it was a sad, lonely kind of smarter. It's a lonely spot, to be one of the few who can see that people are voting their own lives into the shitter. But what can you do? Fuck `em.