Knowing It All

So this is one of the funniest gifts I received this year from one of my roommates, who spent a week prior to our actual gift unwrappings telling me that she could not wait to see my reaction when I opened up one of my gifts from her.

If you know me well at all, you know I do have a certain predilection for being a know-it-all. In recent years, I've curbed back my tendencies because--believe it or not--I've realized that I don't know it all. I've accepted that I don't know it all. And I have never claimed, in recent days, that I know everything. (Because really, who knows everything? And to be honest, who on earth would be crazy enough to want to know everything?)

On a random and only semi-related note, after I introduced my Dad to the Harry Potter books, he spent three months or so teasingly calling me Hermione. Except he pronounced it Her-me-own, despite my insistence on its pronunciation of Her-my-oh-knee. Looking back, I realize that teenage me did not realize for far too long that I was reinforcing his teasing.

I'll admit I'm a wealth of useless information. I can still sing the entire theme song to Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers. I can quote pretty much the entirety of How the Grinch Stole Christmas verbatim. If I've seen it or read it, I can recall particular lines or particular parts of text that impressed me when I first read or saw it.

But recently, I've decided that my apparent know-it-all-ness tends, in my case, to lead to providing information for other people. To clarify: I don't mind. But knowing a lot of information leads to requests to either a) be provided information or b) be led to information. (And I'll be honest. I only provide information to a certain point before setting people free with a road map to the info. Teach a man to fish and all that.)

So I'm resolving, this year, to be stupid. Or to appear stupid. Or, at the very least, not to give the impression of having more knowledge than I actually have. We'll see how well it works out.