Back to Nonfiction: the Daily Facepalm

(I'm under no illusion about the immense room for improvement which exists in the state of human things, but sometimes, face to face with the dingbats, with no reason in sight far and wide, I honestly wonder how anything ever gets done. How over 90% of them, those, out there, manage to hold down jobs and own cars or vans and live indoors. I guess it's my autistic-spectrum condition which makes it hard for me to understand how the world functions for most people.

Again: what follows, the non-italicized part, is real unscripted dialogue.Horrifyingly real.)

HER: The letters of Paul were written less than 50 years after the death of Jesus.

ME: No, earlier than that: they were written 50 to 60 years after Jesus' (supposed) BIRTH.

HER: All four of the gospels were written within less than 100 years, with Mark being written at about the time of the fall of the temple in 70 CE.

ME: My understand­ing was that the Gospels were all completed by AD 115. Again, that's 115 years after the BIRTH of Jesus.

(At this point, a simple "Oh yes, of course: after Jesus' BIRTH! How silly of me! Thank you, fellow Huffington Post reader!" would've sufficed. That would've worked just fine.

But NO. Sister had to get all up in a monkey's face.)

HER: How is '50 to 60 years after Jesus' (supposed) BIRTH' any 'earlier' than 'less than 50 years after the death of Jesus'?

ME: If Jesus lived to be 33 years old, then 50 years after his birth was 33 years earlier than 50 years after his death. I'm pretty sure. Does somebody want to check my math? (Anybody? Please!)

HER: Do you want to find a pin so we can argue about the number of angels dancing?

ME: No!

HER: What part of "range" don't you understand­? Why are you quibbling over something that is so totally irrelevant­? Are you sure about that pin and dancing angels invitation­? I think you would relish the event.

(Wrong again! So wrong!

She started out here correcting somebody else's Biblical dates.

I swear, I don't understand how y'all haven't blown it all to bits yet.

Not knowing is not enough to achieve stupidity. Stupidity also demands that you don't want to know. That when someone points out a mistake, you respond with hostility. She didn't just have her dates crunked up: she was correcting someone else's crunked-up dates at the time.

Sheesh.)