"Look at ME, I'm the SMARTEST PERSON in THE ROOM!"

He actually IS the smartest person
in the room. TSPIRs may think
they are Stephen Hawking smart...No.

           We all know the type. You try and have a conversation with this person – a reasonable interchange of discourse. Or maybe you didn’t try to have a conversation with this person. Maybe you made a statement, something that didn’t require a response. Perhaps you made a comment about how it would be nice to take a moment and remember the victims of the Holocaust. And then the person goes off on you about how Germany is strangling the Greek economy, leaving you absolutely baffled because there is no correlation between the two things. Or you walk outside with this person and look at the blue sky and say, “Wow, it’s a beautiful sunny day.” The person says “No. You’re wrong. It’s raining.” You have found yourself with “the smartest person in the room.”

            I think I’m going to shorten this to TSPIR because it’s faster to type and it feels like something you would say when you wanted to spit, and that’s what I find myself wanting to do when I’m around the smartest person in the room. (Please note, most often TSPIR is not ACTUALLY the most intelligent person around. It’s a self-awarded title). These are DANGEROUS times for those of us who have to deal with TSPIRs. It used to be that if you wanted to know something, you had to go to a library. There was this magical collection of books called The Encyclopedia. Everything in the encyclopedia was researched and vetted and known to be fact, or fact as far as current science had proved. And there were other books in the library called “nonfiction.” These books were written using something called “research.” The research was done by a human who went out and found factual information either in books containing other vetted factual information or by going to primary sources and recording the facts themselves.

            Nowadays, there’s this wealth of dangerous text out there for TSPIRs to draw on called the Internet. You can find any information you want on the Internet. And the best part about it is that none of it has to be true. People think everything they read on Wikipedia is true. It’s not. That’s why it’s FREE. “Wikipedia the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Ugh. It’s like TSPIR heaven. They say a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous. Well, the world has become an intellectual war zone. And the TSPIRs are like unmarked landmines.

            Have you noticed that you can’t say anything anymore without someone telling you that they know more about it than you do? EVERYONE’S an expert these days. It makes for pretty hilarious eavesdropping, to be honest. Do you think you know some TSPIRs, but you’re not sure? I can help you identify these people. They generally have to have the last word in a conversation. It’s to a degree that is noticeably odd – as in, the conversation’s over and they’ve decided to keep talking. They might come and find you to let you know that something you told them last week, only because you thought they might find it interesting, was erroneous. They are also the type that in the absence of an actual ROOM will use places like FACEBOOK to take over as their vehicle for existence. There are walls in a room, so your Facebook wall is as good a place as any for them to prove their superiority by showing off their knowledge, no matter how misguided or just plain wrong it might be.

            It wouldn’t be fair if I pointed these people out and didn’t offer an escape plan. They don’t respond to reason. And arguing only eggs them on, so responding in a logical manner or trying to continue conversation is the worst possible course of action. Whatever you do, DON’T STAY ON TOPIC. Throw them off. Pick something nonsensical and start yelling it in their face. “Chicken shit and baked beans! Chicken shit and baked beans!” They won’t know what to do with something like this. It’s not a statement they can argue with. It’s not a fact they can try to disprove. It’s nonsensical crap. It also serves to warn anyone else nearby that there’s something not right going down and they should just steer clear. There is a better course of action, however, and it is my preferred method. Since I don’t have any need to feel like the smartest person in the room myself, I’m happy to just leave the room and let these jerks have the room to themselves. They can keep arguing alone. They can say whatever they want. Who gives a rat’s ass? Let the forest fall on them and they can find out if it makes any noise when it knocks them unconscious. When they wake up I’ll be long gone and way less irritated.