Woman Watches Jeopardy To Hone Sense Of Importance
47 year-old secretary Diane Lords may handle mundane filing tasks and light phone conversations all day at work, but she says she is determined not to let that or any other "useless, anti-intellectual" environments stifle her quest to become a better, more important person.
The drive to keep her brain sharp, Lords says, is the main reason why she is a religious viewer of popular quiz show Jeopardy, which tests players' knowledge of the arcane harder than listening to Dennis Miller for 30 seconds.
"Some of these questions, you just wonder where they even got this stuff, or who would know it," Lords marveled during last night's episode. "But if you watch enough episodes, the knowledge starts to pile up in your head, and slowly, you become – in a way -- smarter than most other people, or at least the ones who don't watch or play Jeopardy."
Through brushing up on Corinthian helmets, Bach cantatas, and anal sex, Lords hopes to beef up on her intellect, and eventually do something significant.
"I figure, it's all got to add up to something," she figured. "How could someone know what year Constantinople fell and not be essential to mankind?"
One effect of the rigorous training may already be developing; Lords says she sometimes feels as if she is developing a slight sense of precognition.
"Gaulish, what is Gaulish," Lords quickly said, only about a half a second after a contestant had said the question to the answer of a predecessor of the French language. She nodded and said she had gotten that one.
But paving the way to some future societal breakthrough is not always easy or fun for Lords; her accumulation of purpose and direction in life has alienated her from many of her coworkers.
"Diane asked me the other day if I knew 'about this one Scottish philanthropist'," fellow secretary Etna Plummer recalled. "I asked her what the hell she was talking about, and she called me a 'cree-tun' and told me that he apparently founded some colleges. Thanks, Diane. Why don't you go watch some CSI and talk about it with the god damned rest of us?"
"Only, like, really smart people or psychopaths watch Jeopardy," said another coworker authoritatively. "And I don't think Diane is very smart."
"She oughtta spend more time makin' dinner and less time thinking she's smarter 'un me," opined Lords' husband Dale, who says he supports his wife in all that she does. "And if I ever see Alex what's-his'face, he better get ready to answer this question: what is me kicking your ass?"
But Lords says she never expected most people to understand her calling, and refuses to be discouraged from whatever it is that she is preparing for, which, "in her wildest dreams", would be an appearance on the show itself.
"Not only am I getting really good at the game, but I figure sooner or later they're going to start looping the cards, and then I'll really be ready to shine," she said. "There has to be only a few thousand things to know, and sooner or later, you've gone through them all."
