The Know-It-All

by A. J. Jacobs

  school

  I figure it’s time for a nostalgic field trip. Since I used to be under the impression that I was the smartest boy in the world, and seeing as I’m trying to recapture my former glory, maybe it’d be illuminating to return to the scene of the crime. Maybe I’ll get some insights from a trip to the Dalton School, where I spent thirteen years improving my brain, from kindergarten right on up to graduation.

  My guide for this adventure is sixth-grader Abbey Bender. Abbey is the daughter of my old English teacher Steve Bender, the one who suggested I read that snotty Flaubert book. I trust Abbey—she’s smart and funny, and when I asked her what I should know before my big day, she told me not to wear a miniskirt. Good advice.

  I get to school ten minutes early—a years-old habit. And I find Dalton has changed plenty since the days I spent here trying to make turkey tetrazzini stick to the cafeteria ceiling. Macs have popped up everywhere, the elevators actually work, and all the white Upper East Side boys dress like rap stars. That’s what strikes me most. I feel as if I’ve walked into a school teeming with four-foot-tall Eminems: baggy pants, white headbands, Allen Iverson T-shirts hanging down to their knees. They’re missing some diamond jewelry and Glock semiautomatics, but otherwise, they’ve got it cold.

  My first class is science, with Dr. Fenton, who does not look like a rap star. He looks like a charming British fellow, which he is, with his beard flecked with gray and his tie stuffed in his shirt pocket so it won’t flap about and find its way into a Bunsen burner. Dr. Fenton tells us that we’re going to do some chemistry today. Chemistry. I can handle that, I think. I try to recall my chemistry facts from the Britannica, but only come up with the story of Fritz Haber, the German chemist who had a scheme to pay for the fatherland’s World War I reparations by extracting gold from seawater. There is, in fact, gold in seawater, but not enough to make his scheme successful. I decide to keep this nugget to myself.

  Dr. Fenton gets out a coil of magnesium.

  “Can you burn magnesium?” asks one of the tiny hip-hop artists.

  “It’s illegal to burn it,” says Dr. Fenton. “It might scar the retina.”

  “Can you eat it?” asks another kid.

  “No, that’s not a good idea either.”

  I like the way these kids think. But seeing as the really fun things have been ruled out, we have to settle for observing Dr. Fenton drop bits of magnesium into a container of hydrochloric acid.

  “Now watch what’s happening,” Dr. Fenton tells us. The acid bubbles and hisses and burps out a smoky vapor. My fellow students and I—who are all wearing fluorescent green safety goggles that would be at home at a San Francisco rave—watch intently, scribbling notes. “Now how do you explain what’s happening?”

  Uh-oh. I’m hoping Dr. Fenton won’t call on me, because I’m really not sure what’s happening. Something involving covalent bonds, perhaps? Noble gasses? Electroplating?

  “Do you have pH strips?” asks a particularly skinny kid. “Because if the hydrochloric acid …” His voice trails off.

  “Please continue,” says Dr. Fenton.

  “Because if the hydrochloric acid is the stuff being released in the vapor, the solution should be getting less acidic.”

  Dammit! That 12-year-old bastard is good. Dr. Fenton runs off to get some pH strips, which he dips into the solution. We talk some more, and there’s another suggestion that we eat the solution.

  It’s time for me to assert myself. I raise my hand. I’m genuinely nervous. “What if the magnesium is still in the liquid?” I ask.

  “Are you saying the magnesium is in the liquid, or turns into the liquid?” asks Dr. Fenton.

  I’m not honestly sure. I dodge the question. “Either one.”

  Dr. Fenton nods. I’m glad I spoke up, because my hypothesis—vague as it was—turns out to be the right one. Dr. Fenton shows us that the magnesium does dissolve in the liquid, and hydrogen is released. Yes! Plus, at the end of class, to prove that the gas is indeed hydrogen, he creates an explosion. It wasn’t a Jerry Bruckheimer–style explosion; it was more of a pop about as loud as a bubble wrap. But a crowd pleaser nonetheless.

  After Dr. Fenton dismisses us, I decide to give myself a grade: B. I couldn’t have come up with the chemical equation (Mg + 2HCl → MgCl2 + H2), but my instincts were right.

  Abbey’s next class is English. Good. This is what I happen to do for my salary, this English language, so I should be able to shine. Our teacher, Ms. Cornog, an attractive woman in capri pants, announces that today is a special day. “It’s the Grammar Jamboree!”

  The class is small one, eight kids including me, and we split into two teams of four for a grammar-themed showdown. I’m on a team with two rowdy rap artists and a shy girl. Ms. Cornog will hold up a sentence written on a piece of oak tag, and if it’s your turn, you have to tell her the grammatical term for the underlined word. Ms. Cornog holds up a poster for Sophie: “The cat dragged Frank to safety.”

  “Noun,” says my teammate Sophie. High fives all around.

  Ms. Cornog flips the next poster. “The sun shone, yet the day was cold.”

  “Conjunction!” shouts Jack, before Ms. Cornog can read it out loud. In celebration, Jack does the dirty bird.

  And now Ms. Cornog turns to me.

  “Yesterday, she saw twenty bears.” Uh-oh. That seems tricky. Why couldn’t I get the damn cat? I know what a freakin’ cat is. Okay, I can do this. Yesterday is a day, which is a noun.

  “Noun.”

  “Sorry,” says Ms. Cornog. “It’s an adverb.”

  My team lets out a groan.

  “Aren’t you a writer?” says Jack.

  “Well, you see, there are people called copy editors who work with the grammar. So actually, writers don’t need to know grammar too much.”

  Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say. I look at Ms. Cornog. She looks pissed off, which, by the way, is an adjective.

  “You’re now on scoreboard duty,” says Jack. “You think you can handle that?”

  That I can handle, and handle well. But when Ms. Cornog lobs me another grammar question, I incorrectly answer that “with” is a conjunction—it’s a preposition, apparently. My teammates slap their foreheads and wonder if I’m maybe better suited to kindergarten.

  When the final Grammar Jamboree question rolls around, my team trails 23–25, thanks entirely to me. But now, Ms. Cornog introduces a little spice. We can wager as many points as we want. My teammates want to gamble eighteen. I say no. Let it all ride! We do, and—after parsing a sentence about Chauncy and a slippery surfboard—we win! The other team didn’t wager enough. I’m a hero! I may be bad at parts of speech, but I did teach them about gambling. So that’s at least something.

  I give myself a D.

  Time for history class. Our teacher is Ms. Springer, who wears an untucked denim shirt, glasses on the tip of her nose, and calls the kids “sweety pie” and “darling,” except when one of the boisterous boys won’t pipe down, at which point she says, “Hey, Zach! This is your life passing by.”

  Today’s topic is Rome.

  A boy named Alex raises his hand. Ms. Springer calls on him.

  “Have you seen Gladiator?” he asks.

  “You bring up Gladiator every time we talk about Romans,” says Ms. Springer. “Yes, you know I’ve seen Gladiator.”

  Alex makes the point that Russell Crowe’s character was a farmer at one time, and therefore … and therefore … well, that seems to be the extent of his point. Still, it’s hard to argue with.

  “Okay, class,” says Ms. Springer. “What does arete mean?”

  “Quest for excellence!” they shout. Damn. How could I have forgotten that? I knew that at one point.

  “The Greeks were interested in arete, and the Romans were interested in dominance.” Or as she puts it later, “The Greeks were wonderful. The Romans were savages.”

  Ms. Springer is wise, I’ve decided. “You’re young,” she tells the class. “You are go
ing to live through a lot of war. People are going to say that it’s a war to make peace. I want you to think back to your sixth-grade history class. Because they’ve been saying that since Roman times.”

  I wonder if my own sixth-grade teacher said anything that I should have remembered all my life. I wonder if—well, I wonder if that girl in the first row could possibly make any more noise. She is hoovering handfuls of Honeymade chocolate graham crackers, and every time her fingers dive in for some more, she crinkles the bag at disturbingly high decibels. Finally, Ms. Springer suggests that “sweetheart” put the bag away till after class. These kids have it good. I don’t remember ever being allowed to snack during class, even if I snacked silently.

  The kids, like those in my other classes, know a lot, and not just about Russell Crowe’s character. They know about Assyrian kings and Virgil’s Aeneid and several other things that I should know but don’t. Though I did get a round of applause by saying what res publica means. So I give myself a C+.

  In conclusion—that’s how I ended my elementary school essays, so I figure it fits—I came away with three things from my time travel adventure. First, I got more alarming evidence of the Ebbinghaus curve. From magnesium to arete to conjunctions, I’ve lost even more information from my school days than I expected. Second, I got a better glimpse into the origins of a young know-it-all. I can’t say for sure whether any of those mini Eminems I met think they’re the smartest boy in the world, but I recognize their cocksure swagger. It’s the swagger of boys who are consistently told how smart they are, who have yet to get drop-kicked by recessions and failed relationships. And third, I realize—way too late, as it turns out—how fun school could have been. As confident as I was of my intellectual abilities, I still spent most of my time worrying. I worried about grades, my appearance, the effects of that nefarious carbon monoxide. I neglected to realize that I was spending five days a week learning amazing things. That was my job. Learning. I guess I should stop looking at the Britannica as a self-imposed homework assignment and just embrace the joy of learning. Relax. Remember, A.J., this is your life passing you by!

  Scrabble

  The game is available in braille. That’s a nice fact. This makes me feel better about humanity for some reason. I can’t really explain why.

  script

  Dammit. Julie watched The West Wing and told me that President Bartlet stole my great July Fourth fact about Jefferson and Adams dying on the same day. Now it’s common property.

  selection

  A regular day at work editing an article on a new BMW and another on a pouting TV star. A regular day until about three in the afternoon. That’s when I get the following message on my voice mail: “Hi, this is Matt from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” Sweet mother of God. I call him back and it’s what I both hoped and feared. I’ve been chosen. I’ve been called to the big leagues. The show will tape on December 16. A few short weeks to prepare. I immediately get a stress stomachache.

  Seven Wonders

  A real letdown. I don’t think even half of the seven qualify as genuine wonders. The pyramids, yes, they are, in fact, wondrous, but some of the others—well, let’s take a look. The Colossus at Rhodes did not bestride the harbor. That was a myth. It was pretty big—105 feet—but there was no bestriding going on. It just stood with its legs closed on one side of the harbor. So I’m already disappointed. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were not hanging at all. Just terraced gardens on a bunch of ziggurats. Sort of a fancy roof garden. Again, not impressed. And the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus—it didn’t do much. It was just a big rectangular building. I, for one, am not sure I’d call that a wonder. Whoever came up with the Seven Wonders of the World concept—that was a great PR mind.

  sharks

  Menstruation can increase the likelihood of a shark attack. Another reason to be happy Julie’s pregnant.

  Shaw, George Bernard

  Before I started reading the encyclopedia, my most impressive piece of Shaw knowledge was his quote about marriage: “When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal and exhausting condition until death do them part.” I remembered this because, for a couple of years there, every time I attended a family function at my grandparents’ house, my grandfather would break out Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations and read Shaw’s passage out loud, giggling until he shook. Then Grandma tore out the page and the recitations stopped.

  Shaw, I learned, was a an odd man. A failed writer in his twenties, he became a pamphleteer, a music critic, an opera buff, a peacenik, a vegetarian, and a socialist, before getting around to completely revolutionizing English drama. He also had an apparently celibate marriage—how the Britannica knows this I can’t say—which helps explain his quote about the institution. But my favorite Shavian fact was this one, which I actually learned back in the Cs: the great dramatist got nekkid for a photographer. In 1906, at the request of Alvin Langdon Coburn, the first art photographer, Shaw sat for a nude photo in the pose of Rodin’s Thinker. George Bernard Shaw, centerfold.

  This is heartening news for the thousands of men and women who have peeled their clothes off for a cameraman. So what if Vanessa Williams exposed some skin? So what if Madonna and Burt Reynolds went buff? The modern world’s greatest playwright did too.

  I am personally heartened because, sadly, back when times were tough, I too posed naked. It happened in my second year at Esquire. We had asked the actress Mary-Louise Parker to pose nude in our pages—a request we make of many talented young actresses—and she said she’d do it, but only on the condition that the editor of the piece also pose naked. The editor happened to be me.

  This was unsettling. The only thing more unsettling was that when my boss heard about the idea, he thought it was absolutely brilliant—and suggested I be photographed with caviar spread over my nipples, the way we shot an Italian actress the year before. So, in order to keep my job, a few days later I found myself at a dim, hangar-sized studio being shot for a “classy” black-and-white photo. There were no Russian fish eggs involved, but I did have to sit in an awkward cross-legged yoga position to cover up what the Irish photographer called my “chopper.” He also kept telling me to “sooook in yer goot,” which I eventually figured out was a request to conceal my mini beer belly. Sadly, all the cute young female assistants displayed monumental indifference to my naked form, which to them apparently held as much allure as a wicker table.

  The really anxiety-producing part was the reactions of friends and family. When I told my mother, she looked at me the way I imagine John Walker Lindh’s mom did when he told her he’d chosen a career in the Taliban military. Several people recommended I invest in some bottles of Nair body hair remover. And colleagues told me this was the end of my serious journalistic career, as if I ever had one.

  In any case, I wish I had had the Shaw fact in my arsenal back then. That would have made me feel much more comfortable. But since I still occasionally get mocked for taking off my pants for a photo, I finally have an answer at the ready: “Well, it didn’t seem to hurt George Bernard Shaw’s career.” Now all I have to do is write a few brilliant plays.

  Sinology

  I’m not what you’d call a relaxed father-in-waiting. I’m overprotective, constantly stressed. Julie’s much better about dealing with this whole pregnancy thing than I am, and she’s got the little added difficulty of hormonal seesaws and a growing human being in her body.

  I get nervous if Julie carries anything heavier than, say, a bottle of Liquid Paper. I hate it when she’s out pounding the New York pavement or, worse, riding the Stairmaster in our extra bedroom. She swears to keep her heart rate low, but I still hover nervously nearby, checking to see if she starts huffing too heavily. Personally, I wouldn’t object if she spent the rest of her pregnancy in bed.

  I think I’d be even more neurotic—if that’s possible—if not for one re
assuring fact. Namely, that the wife of Mao Zedong accompanied him on the Long March while she was pregnant. The Long March—a roundabout trek from east to west China—was a grueling, six-thousand-mile ordeal over eighteen mountain ranges and twenty-four rivers. If Mao’s wife and baby survived that, I figure it’s probably okay for Julie to walk to the Fairway supermarket eight blocks away.

  Mao’s wife survived the Long March, but their marriage didn’t. A few years later Mao dumped his devoted wife and married an actress. I tell Julie to watch out—I’ll probably marry Renee Zellwegger soon.

  sleep

  I won’t be getting a lot of this once the baby comes out—which doesn’t trouble me too much. I’ve always hated sleep. I see it as a waste of time, one-third of my life vanished with nothing to show but a bunch of ever-larger drool stains on my pillows. Julie, on the other hand, loves her shut-eye. She’s a champion sleeper, polishing off twelve hours on a weekend night with no effort at all. She’d rather sleep than do pretty much any activity—read, watch TV, listen to her husband discuss the various competitors to the Dewey Decimal System. And when she wakes up after a solid dozen hours, she makes that satisfied postnap smacking sound that I used to think was the exclusive trademark of Yogi the bear after he finished his hibernation.

  She’d better savor those twelve hours now. We’ll soon be suffering from hyposomnia (little sleep)—which is the preferred term to “insomnia” (no sleep), because, technically, almost everyone gets a little sleep. High-pitched screeches will soon jolt us out of sleep. This, I learn, is actually considered quite dangerous by certain cultures. The Tajal people of Luzon believe that the soul leaves the body during sleep and goes to a special dreamworld, which is why they “severely punish for awakening a sleeping person.”

  When I tell Julie this, she approves, as I predicted she would. “Now that’s a good law,” she says. “Those Tajal people have their priorities straight.” And as I should have predicted, the next morning, when I clink my cereal bowl a bit too loudly on the counter, Julie shouts from the bedroom, “Don’t make me come out there and punish you!”