One hen, two ducks, three Pokemon battles

They say the average human being only uses 10% of his or her brain.  I want to know, does that estimate include all the useless trivia that is clogging up my brain, or am I even worse off than the average human?  

I took the kids for our regular "one hour walk."  It actually ends up taking about two hours at the kids' pace, but they would freak out at the thought of a "two hour walk", so the little white lie continues.  It is supposed to be our chance to hang out, get some extemely light exercise, breathe some slightly less smog-filled air, and basically spend some quality time bonding.  Today, I found myself ignoring the kids' chatter and, instead, chanting a little ditty I had to memorize in 7th grade in order to trade seats in Industrial Arts class.

One hen

Two ducks

Three squawking geese

Four limerick oysters

Five corpulent porpoises

Six pairs of Don Alberto's tweezes

Seven thousand Macedonians in full battle array

Eight brass monkeys sitting on an ancient sacred crypt of Egypt

Nine apathetic, sympathetic, diabetic, old men on roller skates with a marked propensity towards procrastination and sloth

Ten lyrical, spherical, diabolical denizens of the deep who haul and stall around the corner of the quo, the quay and the quivery at the very same time.

Why I remember this but still haven't fully memorized my home phone number of two years, I do not know. The useless stuff is there, burned into my brain, using up precious grey cells and squeezing out important information that I could use in real life.  It is far too late for me to do anything about it.  But I do worry about my kids' useless information.  I wouldn't mind if they knew things like that kid from Jerry Maguire.  Maybe as doctors, they might need to know that the human head weighs 8 lbs. 

But what, in twenty years from now, is Guinness going to do with all the useless Pokemon facts he has knocking around in his head?  Is anyone going to care that he can rattle off the name of every Pokemon by type, evolutions and favorite attacks?  "Mommy, guess what Torterra evolves into?"  "I don't know.  Aquadoodle."  "No, trick question!  Torterra doesn't evolve into anything!"  Why can he memorize all these details, but not be able to name 10 animals in Chinese - after having taken two years of Chinese class in school?

How can Ellington not be 100% sure of his letters yet, but be able to use the word "capice" properly after having heard it once in Alvin and the Chipmunks?  Well, grammatically properly, not necessarily a how-a-four-year-should-talk-to-his-mother properly.  "Mommy, I want you to wipe my bum bum now, capice?"  "Yes, I do capice.  And no, you can wipe your butt yourself, you little stinker."

Meanwhile, Cayman doesn't seem to have her own font of trivia.  Of course, she's good at a lot of things, just none that lend themselves to spouting off random bits of information.  

Art, gymnastics, swimming.  Reading, writing, arithmetic.  Emotional manipulation and subterfuge.  Hmmm...I guess she'll do okay in life.