Everyone knows better than I do

If you've seen Precedent Shitgibbon on TV -- and how could you have not -- you know that he knows everything about everything.

"No one knows more about taxes than I do."

"No one knows more about ISIS than I do."

"No one knows more about construction than I do."

That's just the tip of the iceberg. There's also construction, campaign finance reform, global warming, etc. I'm sure despite having no formal background in oceanic studies, no one knows more about icebergs than he does. That 239 lbs. man is 239 lbs. of pure brain power.

It got me thinking.
Mostly because I have never used that phrase, "No one knows more about ________ than I do." 

Ever.

In fact, though I will gloat like hell when I kick my family's ass at Jeopardy, I am well aware of the myriad of things that everyone knows more about than me.

Everyone.

European Royalty. I have no stomach for any of this crap. I couldn't tell you the difference between Louis the 14th and any of his 13 predecessors. I don't care if Henry had eight wives. Eight dogs. Or eight throw pillows. I'm not interested in who married who and whose cousin begat whose other cousin to become the Duke/Earl/Lord of Prussia. Oh and I don't give a shit about Prussia and couldn''t find it in on a map.

"Everyone knows more about European Royalty than I do."

Greek Mythology. At one time I was actually fascinated by all the greek gods and their incumbent stories. I gobbled up the lore of Zeus, Athena and Prometheus. But that family tree grew too tall and I eventually fell off. Apparently I knocked my head on one of the branches and came away with amnesia. (Amnesia? Isn't she the Greek Goddess of Hamberders?)

"Everyone knows more about Greek Mythology than I do."

Auto Mechanics. This one is particularly embarrassing as I have been writing about cars for close to thirty years. Don't get me wrong I have a general idea of how a car works. And can even perform some perfunctory maintenance operations, like changing the oil, fixing a flat and even putting on my own tire chains (which is not to be underrated).

But if you were to ever spot me on the shoulder of a road trying to troubleshoot something under the hood, you should know I'd have the hardest time picking out the alternator from the carburetor. From what I understand from my local guy, today's vehicles don't even have carburetors anymore.

"Everyone knows more about Auto Mechanics than I do."

The list is long and humiliating.

Allow me to peel off another layer of this humble onion. Because even on shit I'm supposed to know, I don't.

For instance, though I consider myself to be a very good chess player and I am currently beating a Russian guy named Yuri, but I have yet to successfully lure an opponent into the Danish Gambit.

And as readers of R17 are no doubt aware, my mastery of the English language and the arcane rules of grammar is fuzzy at best. And I have no idea, nor will I ever, regarding the proper use of the em-dash.