Why is anyone surprised that a chimpanzee might be smarter than a human? I wasn’t. We think so highly of our own intellects, yet, as far as I know, we’re the only species on the planet who leaves our keys hanging in the door while running around the house screaming, “Where are my keys? Who stole my keys? Heavens, the world is over, I might as well end it all.” They’re right there in the door! Do you think a chimp would do that? A chimp would have those keys out, be in the car and half way to Vegas, baby. The news this week was that researchers in Japan tested not only chimpanzees’ mental abilities, but also pitted one 5-year-old chimp against college students in a cognitive test of wits. It involved numerals (something most college students have never seen) and flashing white blocks on a computer screen. The chimp smoked them.

Reason No. 672 that we as a species are doomed: Doctors are now prescribing a glaucoma drug to patients, not because they have glaucoma, but because it also makes eyelashes grow longer. I repeat — IT MAKES EYE LASHES GROW LONGER! This, many of you probably know, is quite desirable to certain people. In fact, many of you might want to get on the horn right now to your medical professionals. But don’t. You’re eyelashes are long enough! Leave them be! You’ll look like palm fronds if you’re not careful. I just don’t know what’s wrong with the world. I thought I had heard it all when they came out with Botox, which just happens to be made from the same toxin that causes that all-too-pleasant and very deadly food poisoning called botulism.

Five days on my own, living the bachelor’s life — no one to worry about but me, and free to do whatever I like. No wife. No kid. Five days. On my own. Eat what I want. Drink what I want. Sleep when I want, if I want. Goof around. Get into trouble. All by myself. HELP!!!! When you’re left alone for almost a week there’s a part of you that dreads it — it’s been especially tough not seeing my daughter — and part of you that thinks, “Man, this could be really fun. We can go around in the same pair of underwear all week.” Luckily, there’s not too much of me thinking like that, but it’s nice to know you have that kind of freedom. (Yes, I did change my underwear several times.) My wife went to Long Island with my daughter to help out a cousin who’s been having some health problems. How a woman towing a 2-year-old child who has the energy of bottled plutonium could be of any help at all is beyond me, but off they trekked leaving me to myself.

Run a marathon and people inevitably start to ask you what’s next. What feat will you attempt to top that? What challenge will you set for yourself next? What lengths will you go for the sake of accomplishment and bragging rights? What they’re really saying is, “Hey dipstick, how many pounds of lunacy will your yet-to-harden brain conjure up next? Gonna’ try to get struck by lightning?” I’ve wondered myself. A marathon is a mammoth undertaking, but certainly not insurmountable. Thousands of people have accomplished them, and while impressive, maybe I SHOULD take it up a notch and shoot for something even bigger. Like maybe an ultra-marathon. That’s only 50 miles, and just imagine how stupid people will think I am then. I’ve met a few people who have run ultra-marathons, and my reaction usually is that I want to sit them down, smack them a couple times and scream, “Take up woodworking or golf! Be lazy!” Maybe not ultra-marathons then. Maybe I should get out of running for a while. I could switch to a new sport, like surfing. I’ve been doing that on and off for the past couple years, and I really could get hardcore about it. Is there such a thing as a marathon surf session? I kind of like that pruned look I get after being in the water too long — kind of like a dehydrated 120-year-old.

There’s something not-quite-right about running a marathon, which is a dandy 26.2 miles long and, as much as I can imagine, what it must feel like to give birth through your thigh muscles. There’s something not-quite-right about it, and unfortunately, that doesn’t seriously occur to you until you’re 20 miles into it. Why not a year ago when I first hatched this plan? Or six months ago when I started training? Or why not as I approached the start line, when there was still time to fake the recurrence of an old soccer injury? “Ohhhh, my groin! Someone get me to the beer tent, stat!” But no-ooo! I signed-up, trained, walked up to the start line, accepted the challenge, ran off down the road with a bunch of deranged lunatics and got 20 miles into the thing before I realized it was an extremely bad idea. What was I thinking?

Thanks a lot, Jessica Seinfeld. You just had to go and write a cookbook, becoming a big food sensation in the process. Thanks! Now I’m eating spinach brownies and hearing about chicken nuggets with sweet potato or beet puree. (Actually, that sounds kind of good.) I’ve had apple sauce muffins with carrots stuffed in, and chocolate chip cookies with garbanzo beans tucked discreetly inside. Garbanzo beans in cookies! I have no idea what else is coming down the pipeline, but my wife has become a baking fool. And it’s all because of you. If you haven’t heard of Jessica Seinfeld, she’s the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld and now has a mega-popular cookbook out called “Deceptively Delicious.” It’s all about showing you how to “deceptively” work vegetables into everyday food so your children (and stubborn husbands) will eat them. (For the record, I eat my spinach and love broccoli. The irony is that my wife is the one who’s never been a fan of vegetables. But I guess children change all of that.)

Fear. Trepidation. Panic. Dehydration. Heat stroke. Butterflies. Muscle spasms. Leg cramps. Abdominal cramping. Ear lobe cramping. Fever. The shakes. Ingrown toenails. Deviated knee joint spontaneous combustion. Nausea. Indigestion. Frizzy hair. Anxiety. Terror. Abject terror! No, this was not the result of my marathon training. (For the record, I’m training to run the Marine Corps marathon in Washington D.C. this Oct. 28.) Rather, all these feelings and reactions hit me while walking around the block last weekend right after my neighbor John yelled out to me from his porch: “Hey, you hear they canceled the Chicago Marathon mid-way through because of the heat?” Then, for added effect, “Someone died.” Actually, it turns out that the individual died from a heart condition, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Death from heat during a marathon or death from heart condition during a marathon: which do you prefer? Any way you look at it, he DIED … in the marathon. (Here come the stomach cramps again!)