I have spent much of my life trying to appear smarter and more
competent then I actually am. I started this ruse early and have
stuck with it because why abandon a sinking ship? One of the
techniques that is my stack and trade is using unnecessarily complex
language to throw people off the trail of my marginal knowledge. The
idea is to cause insecurity in the audience with jargon and thus keep
them from asking any questions that might reveal the man behind the
curtain. This works sometimes but sometimes my bluff is called and
leads to some cringe-worthy back and side tracking. One time Quinn
and I found some wild asparagus on the side of a ditch and collected
a whole lot of it. When we got back to his house I wanted to
demonstrate my vast knowledge to his mom and kept saying that we had
probably collected one or two U.S. Pounds of asparagus. I mentioned
this unit of measure many times in the course of our brief
conversation. It was U.S. pound this and U.S. pound that until she
finally asked me if there was some other sort of pound that I was
worried she would be confused with. I was embarrassed to have my
bluff called and I guess I still am. The sad part was that beyond that exact situation it didn't make me reconsider my know-it-all-ism and I still never fore-think my faux pas just regret them. They say consistency is key to something well I am well on my way to whatever that thing may be.
