More 'splaining

As you may recall, a while ago I got stuck on an hour-long Metro ride with a contender for Mansplainer of the Year. It’s not enough that this guy is invested in pontificating on various subjects of which he possesses minimal knowledge; he pontificates on subjects he knows little about to people who possess considerable expertise in them.

A key element in this is that he’s so busy enjoying the sound of his own voice that he can’t be arsed to determine whether or not his target set of ears might know something about the subject. Or, indeed, if the listener has any interest in it.

I was reminded of this on Monday when the colleague suddenly appeared at my office door as I was wrestling with a spreadsheet. He plopped himself down and proceeded to regale me with 40 minutes of details about his move from one house to another in our community. As in: having to downsize from 5300sf to 1800sf; dealing with whackjob house buyers; consequently having to pay two mortgages; needing to get rid of a large dining room table (“that I paid $2800 for”) and a lot of other furniture that won’t fit; how great the new place is; all the plans for using his son’s bedroom while the kid is away at college; needing to buy an outdoor grill because the kitchen doesn’t have all the luxe features that his $1M house did; bus schedules to the Metro station; details of bus routes to the Metro station; having the option to get picked up at the station because they have three cars; etc., etc., etc.

I gotta tell you—it takes a powerful lot of pishing to make me wish I could get back to a spreadsheet. I hope to avoid any future encounters at Metro, because my life is flashing before my eyes just at the thought.