School for the gifted

I love that Far Side card - with the kiddy pushing on the door to the School For The Gifted, a door that has a sign that says "Pull".

Which brings me to my luffley husband. He is so smart. SO intelligent.

He's also been touched with the arrogance rod - which, if it weren't for him being so sure (and such a nice person), would be infuriating and a turn-off. Well... it's a turn-off a lot of the time anyway, but he gets away with it. I am usually just astounded by his brazen assuredness that he is right. In all things. And when I ask him if he thinks he is right about EV-ER-Y-THING, he oscillates between sometimes saying very calmly, with a slow blink, "Yes", and a very even and equally calm "No". So... I dunno. It must change for him as to whether he thinks he's soooooo-oooooo right and when he lets a little humility creep in and acceded he just might not be the world's expert on any topic you chuck at him.

Scarily though, he does seem to know everything about everything. Ask him any question on any given day.... he'll know the answer. Even cricket scores. I never see him watch cricket (well, hardly), but I ask dumb sports questions about the footy or about cricket deliberately when I know he hasn't watched it. And he STILL knows the right answer! And I know it's right because I'll look it up or hear it later and go "Doooh! Right again!", much like Jerry Seinfeld saying through clenched teeth "Newman!"

I was thinking about all this "I know I'm right"ness yesterday as I was driving. I had a woman on my arse (well, rather, on the car's arse) and I was doing just over the 70km/h speed limit. When people are pushy enough to come up behind me like that and sway left to right to make a point, I hit the cruise control so I know I'm keeping an even speed and just mosy along. And I was wondering whether she thought that bearing down on me would scare me into speeding up for her. Then I remembered that is actually what Steve does: he'll push behind someone and tailgate (or cm's off being technically tailgating anyway) and I've asked him before whether he reckons that will actually help the situation. Always, he is "right", of course, and says (again very fucking calmly) "Yes".

Now when the scenario is reversed and we're going along and someone is right on his tail and he's doing the speed limit, he mumbles "Pushy bastard" and goes slower to .... "teach them a lesson".

My husband, in all his intelligence and knowledge and passiveness (er, except behind the wheel), cannot grasp that him pushing behind someone and expecting them to speed up for him will yield much the same response as he has when it's reversed. A MENSA level IQ is only good for some problem solving.