I had a brain straining conversation today.
Have you even had one of those conversations where, for most of it, you are struggling to keep up and can't quite follow what the other person says, and you assume it's because they're smarter than you? And then they say something and you realise that it's the opposite: you were having trouble because they're not smart at all, and they're making all sorts of nonsense statements, which is why it's hard to understand--just for a different reason!
I saw a comic somewhere once that said the word for this moment should be 'dumbpifany' or something like that. I like that word.
I was in a fossil shop (ohhh how I love fossils) and went to buy a trilobite from an order I had no samples of yet; a shipment had come in recently and I was hoping they'd have a few of the type I wanted. The lady at the counter was very nice and, because it's a small shop where the staff and customers are generally very friendly with each other, we started up a bit of a conversation. I had nowhere to be urgently, after all. But quickly I realised that I could hardly keep up with what she was saying. I was reduced to "mmm" and "ah" and "oh really?" as she said all sorts of profound-sounding things which seemed just beyond me. It was getting frustrating and distressing. At one point early on she had mentioned that she was a cancarian, and I had stupidly assumed that it was like a piscarian (a person who limits their meat consumption to fish only) except she ate crustaceans ('cancer' meaning crab in Latin, just as 'piscis' means fish). After five minutes, it clicked for me: she meant that she was of the star sign cancer, and all her gibberish was cliched new age stuff mixed with misinterpreted quantum theory. My brain was hurting so badly until I realised what was going on...
