I married a freakin' genius

“I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
Oscar Wilde


My husband is smarter than the average bear. Really. I mean, when we get together with my family to play Trivia Pursuit, they fight over who gets Jim on their team. Do they fight over moi? I say nay, nay. This man has an I.Q. of, I don't know, but it's up there. He knows things that no human being should know. He RETAINS EVERYTHING. Me, on the other hand? Not so much. I may remember that I read an article about such and such, but that's about it. He can remember statistics - dates, times, whatever. Dirty rat bastard. Oh sorry. That just slipped out. You see, I'm a little bit JEALOUS of his mind. My mind seems to be stepping out more frequently and takes its time coming back.

We used to have a game at the library where I worked. It was called, "Can we stump Pat's husband?" We'd all think up a question that we'd figure he'd have NO CLUE what the answer was, and I'll be damned if he didn't know the answer.

For instance, one day my friend Judy said, "I know! I bet he won't know what a cloaca is!"

"Huh?"

She explained it to us, but I'll tell you in different terms. Basically birds only have one hole, that urine, feces, and mating happens. Oookay. Why does Judy know this, you might ask? She had to draw a bird in detail for one of her drawing classes.




So I came home from work all excited.

"Okay, hon, the question of the day is, "What is a cloaca?"

He replied, quite smugly I might add, "It's the sex organ of birds."

"HOW DO YOU KNOW THESE THINGS?!" I screeched!

"I grew up on a FARM! Of course I know what a cloaca is!"

Oh. Never mind.

Another time, a co-worker Alice said, "I've got it! Ask him, 'What is a bonobo?'"



"It's an endangered species of monkeys that live in central Africa."

Fuck! Please excuse my French, ladies and gentlemen, but honest to Pete, how can he be so smart?

Let me give you some more examples. The other day we're out and about. I said, "Oh look, there's a sculpture of a man with a camera."

He said, "It's not a camera. It's a theadolite."




A theado- what?

It's like a transit-thingy. Why he just couldn't say transit is beyond me. He just wanted to show off his knowledge prowess, I guess. Grrrr!

Remember the movie Armageddon with Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck, and Steve Buscemi, among others?



It's about 8 crude oil drillers who are called upon to save the world from a Texas-sized meteor that's heading towards earth. In one scene they are all up in space, on the meteor, to blow it up. They are drilling holes to insert bombs, and they drop some pipes. It makes an echoing sound and at this point my husband leans over and whispers quite loudly, "That really wouldn't happen in space because there's no air and sound can't propagate."

Dude. Way to kill a scene.

The thing is I think Jim was born like Mr. Potato Head. All brains - then his arms and legs were attached.



And it's genetic. When his family gets together, it's like a meeting of the minds. At one of our family get togethers, we were all sitting around a table. Jim said, "You know, I've been thinking about this. Let's say you have a pop can with a vacuum inside, and you puncture it. Which direction would it go?"

Seriously? This man is losing sleep over this?

So the geniuses of the family discussed this, while the drinkers had another drink. (They never came up with the answer, by the way.)

Don't get me wrong. There are advantages to being married to a genius. He has all the answers. People call him up all the time with computer questions. It's like he's the answer desk for Microsoft.

The thing is, even if he DOESN'T know the answer, he can bluff his way out, and I wouldn't even know the difference. And THAT, my friends, pisses me off!