Get Smart

Sometimes Frank comes home and asks me, "Did you hear how far the Dow plunged?" or "So what do you think about that vice presidential nominee?" My response is usually, "Huh?" or "I think I heard something about that on Regis and Kelly."

I was out of it. And it was getting embarrassing. So I decided to start reading the newspaper. I’m not talking about the Living section which has the fluff stories that I write. I mean the real sections: the front page, the opinions, metro, business.

In the mornings, when I really want to skip straight to Dear Abby, I force myself to read the front page first. Then I usually have a little current event comment for Frank like, “So, do you think the House will pass the bailout?” or “We better Tivo the VP debates tonight.” When he raised an eyebrow I said, “I need to be smarter!”

I even tried to do the crossword the other night. It was hard.

And in one additional effort to gain more intellect, I changed my home page from MSN.com to CNN.com. I made that decision the other day when the top story on MSN was something like, “Celebrity Hat Disasters” and a tiny, secondary story in the corner of the page was “Bailout fails, Wall Street sees biggest drop ever.”

Now I try to interject my news-savvy in social situations. It reminds me of when Joey on Friends bought the V encyclopedia and he kept trying to bring up Vietnam and volcanoes.

So if you want to talk recessions, gas issues, politics, mergers, the housing market or Atlanta crime, I’m your girl. But I’m not all hard news. I’m always open for fluff—slice of life stuff, advice columns and definitely celebrity fashion hat disasters.