Talking to Dumb People

So, we were having a light dinner conversation. The big J, who is dabbling with doing something in the medical field because he doesn't want to waste that human anatomy elective credit he naively signed up for in 7th grade - since it has ingrained itself on his memory as he drags a bag of flour mascarading as a baby around school and co-parents with a fellow jock and is totally harrassed by everyone. Ha! I say. Bag of flour? Let those little whipper snapppers spend an hour at my house and you have a perfect ad for birth control, or perhaps celibacy. J has sworn off girls before he even found them interesting because he knows that sex might result in his little sister Fifi. 'Nuf said.



Anyhoo, we were somehow talking about school and he was asking why in the world you even need to study certain subjects. "You don't need to know history if you're a doctor," he said.



I'll be honest. I'm a lone wolf in my household, near and far. My dad was an enginerd. My husband is one, his dad and sister are too. Then you throw in a couple of math and computer science geeks, and I basically have to talk to myself during most family get togethers.



I majored in geography, for gawd's sakes. That statement alone was enough to make even the most drunk fraternity boy run for the hills because they thought I was going for my MRS degree as opposed to my BA degree, which is a bunch of BS, obviously. Besides the fact that I am indeed married. With five children. And drive a suburban. But that's beside the point...



So, trying to make a salient point, I pipe up this bit of wisdom that was passed to me during my introduction to the UDub - people take electives classes so they can engage other people in conversation. These classes are dubbed 'cocktail electives.' But then I had to define a cocktail party and why people stand around just talking, and my point was going nowhere, so hubby came to my rescue with this shining nugget: "You have to study that stuff so you know how to talk to dumb people."



To which my 10 year old (no longer my favorite child) said, "Ohhhh, so that's how you two met,..."



Very funny. Ihope you know who buys the ice cream in this household, young man.