The Only Genius in the Room

Friday night, twentyish people gathered in a standard-sized apartment to wish happy birthday to some dear friends of mine.

Of course, every party of this nature has that one guy–the Arrogant Drunk.  This is the guy who, no matter what conversation he butts into, must prove himself the Smartest, Funniest, or Coolest person in that circle.  Failing all of these, he will, at the very least, endeavor to prove that he is the Loudest.

This party had one, too.

To give you an idea of the level of special we’re dealing with, here: for the early parts of the party, my friend’s teenage son was present, and he shares his–very distinctive–name with a prominent anime character.

Arrogant Drunk asked his mother if she’d ever heard of this anime, and then proceeded to explain it to her for several minutes, despite the fact that her answer was ‘yes, obviously’.

Anyway, Arrogant Drunk spent most of the party corralled in the kitchen, where the alcohol was, and my friends and I threw occasional subtle shade at him from the living room whenever his voice surpassed an acceptable number of decibels.

When I was ready to leave, though, I realized my favorite serving dish was still in the kitchen with half a cake on it.  The party’s host and I would have to enter Arrogant Drunk proximity to perform a Cake Transfer.

He seemed to hunt primarily via sound, like those monsters in A Quiet Place, so I figured we’d be okay as long as we didn’t say much.

I procured another plate from our host, and we looked around for a couple forks to perform the transfer, though all the plastic forks appeared to have been used up.  Unfortunately, our host mentioned this out loud, attracting the attention of Arrogant Drunk.

“Just use a knife and a spoon,” he said.  “That’ll be just as good as a fork.”

“Will it?” I muttered.

Arrogant Drunk looked affronted.  “You don’t believe me?”

I thought about the mechanics of balancing half a cake between a knife and a spoon.  “I’m not sure I believe you know physics,” I responded.

“Actually, I’m a physics major,” he responded proudly.

(Post-party, evidence arose that suggested that Arrogant Drunk’s ‘major’ was a fluid concept, which changed to suit his purposes.)

“Oh,” I replied, as politely as possible.  “I’ll take your word for it, then.” I grabbed a plastic knife and spoon, since they were really the only available options, and hoped I wouldn’t end up dropping the cake on the floor.

Apparently, my response was not sufficiently flattering to Arrogant Drunk, and he felt the need to further prove his social dominance.

As I lifted the cake carefully off the plate, he suddenly boomed, “What’s the speed of gravity?”

I frowned, the cake dangling precariously in midair between two unsuitable utensils.  Was this a trick question?  I cast my mind back to high school physics, literally half a lifetime ago at this point.  I thought I remembered that gravity didn’t have a speed.  What was he asking for, then?  Is there some formula I’ve long since forgotten?  I think I remembered that gravity had a somewhat constant acceleration rate, though.  Maybe he meant that?

“Thirty two feet per second?” I tried as I set the cake down on the other plate.

Arrogant Drunk made several awestruck noises.

“How did you guess that?” He asked.

I frowned at him.  Guess?  ” I mean…I went to high school.”

But Arrogant Drunk wasn’t here to actually listen to people.  He continued gibbering excitedly to his friends for several more seconds.  Then he fixed his attention back on me.  “I’ve never heard anyone–ever–guess that right on the first try.”

I stared at him, exasperated.  He does this to people on a regular basis?  “I told you.  I didn’t guess.  I remembered.  From high school.” I turned around, serving dish finally in hand, and began to scrape the cake crumbs off of it into the trash.

Behind me, Arrogant Drunk and his friends were conferring sotto voce.  …Well, as best they could, given their level of alcohol consumption.

“(Dude, do they even teach that in high school?)”

“(I don’t know what the hell high school she went to.)”

“Advanced placement physics,” I called over my shoulder.  (Okay, I realized seconds later that I misspoke.  I was only in Honors physics, not AP.  But since apparently these guys lived in a universe where the standard track didn’t even teach you what gravity was, I didn’t really feel it necessary to correct myself.)

Arrogant Drunk made several more awestruck noises.  When I turned around, he was looking at me, for the first time all night, with genuine respect.

“Do you work at Fermilab?” He asked, completely serious.

I rolled my eyes and went to say goodbye to the hosts.

“And I thought I was the only genius in the room,” Arrogant Drunk mused on my way out.

“You wouldn’t have been anyway, dude,” his friend ribbed him.

I left the party feeling victorious, socially exhausted, and really, really lucky.

Because if that dude had asked me literally anything else about physics, I would not have been able to answer.