#fun fact the chrismas party happened to me circa 2014

[that-gay-jedi]

There's this phenomenon wherein like. If I'm talking to people in person about what very little I know of some topic I have a passing shred of lay interest on they all think I must have either specialized in it somewhere or that I'm mad smart or both and it's literally THE most basic facts (like where the lyrics to O Fortuna come from or Baba Yaga's house being depicted with chicken feet or that the reason cats kill more than they eat is bc they're wired to take care of nonhunting cats). Then when you get on the internet literally everyone knows the thing and they're like "Yeah yeah the chicken feet we've all seen them" and you're like "YES finally I can launch into my obscure rabbit hole about the Goliards please recite a gambler's mass with me to work out our collective religious trauma" so you do and it's great but within a week you feel like you've lead a sheltered life bc you don't speak fluent Latin & you read 500 books about it bc you want to know why people in the comments on a YouTube video are talking about ecclesiastical Latin not being a good choice for translating this Rammstein song into Latin and you can't afford to go to college but you end up knowing 3x more than you previously did despite STILL not speaking fluent Latin and then the people with phDs come in and you find out that no the ancient Norse did not in fact believe in Ragnarok the way we collectively imagine they do (if at all) and you're like woah shit and you read about Loki tying his testicles to a goat and life is good and being surrounded by people who are smarter than and/or have more access to learning materials than you do is good and fun BUT THEN. THEN!!! You go to a fucking Christmas party and somebody starts talking about Hansel and Gretel and it reminds you of Baba Yaga and next thing you know all the program participants and staff from the mental health organization who all know you as the guy who teaches the cool grandma that runs the weekly sober dances how to use her computer to print pamphlets and wipes the windows on the communal van before the news reporters come to take pictures after it was hit while parked are looking at you strangely because you just told them a story about drunken priests and some guy who gave birth to a horse once tying his balls to a goat