The people of Cooley, Australia, have had it with their image as the world's dumbest town. So they've embarked on an ambitious program of study to raise their average IQ by at least 20 points.
"We're tired of people making fun of us," says Mayor Marty Simpkind, noting that some Australians have started using the phrase "pulled a Cooley" when someone does something stupid.
The tiny-brained town has earned that reputation many times over. In just the last year:
Police announced they must stop all patrols, because their squad cars have run out of gas. "We can't buy new cars until the next budget year," says the police chief.
An abandoned warehouse burned to the ground because firefighters didn't hook their hoses to water hydrants. "I always thought the water was already in the truck," says a firehouse commander. "Somebody should've said something about those hydrant things."
A riot broke out on a street corner, when a crowd of pedestrians began pushing and shoving after standing at the intersection for more than an hour. "We were waiting for the stop sign to change, and it never did," says one of the few to escape injury in the melee.
Several businesses in town, including the bank, have collapsed because employees can't make change. "They'd get a $5 bill and give change for $50, or get $100 and give change for $10," says an outside auditor who investigated the bank failures. "And once word got out, the place was easy pickings for counterfeiters."
Dozens of dimwits have been hospitalized with bizarre self-inflicted injuries. Cooley residents often drive cars with cardboard sunscreens still covering the windshield, try to iron their clothes while wearing them and jump off buildings dressed as Superman because they think the cape enables them to fly. The Town Council recently outlawed Superman capes, for residents' protection.
Desperate to cure the affliction of idiocy, town officials have hired the New Zealand tutoring firm Edu-Zone to run classes in math, reading and logic for the town's 523 residents.
"Frankly, I'm not sure we'll have much success at raising their IQ," says an Edu-Zone spokeswoman. "There are some intelligence researchers who believe it's possible, but others say IQ is something you are born with and is as unchangeable as eye color.
"But we are eager to try, for the sake of the town. These people are so desperately feeble-minded, it's a wonder they're functioning at all."
Cooley's leaders hope to see the town IQ go from a dull-witted 75 to an average-intelligence mark of 95; experts say an IQ of 90 to 110 is average.
"We'd be real happy going from 75 to 95," Simpkind says. "That's two points, right?"
