Well, a new rant already, mostly because I've been getting a large amount of worried e-mail over the last one. This will be an actual rant, rather than the pre-suicide note everyone thought the last one was. (And I swore I wouldn't write anymore. Hah!)

All summer, I have encountered a disturbing amount of people who feel it their life's work to correct the mistakes of others. Who feel they have to blab on some topic just because they can. Basically, they're know-it-alls. And all of them have made me stop and wonder "Am I one of those people?" I know I am a know-it-all...but do I ever push myself like that?

Cases in point...there is a newsgroup I visit and occasionally post on. I used to be alot more active, but lately my heart just hasn't been into it? Why? Because it seems to be populated with nothing but back-biting lecturing. The people I never liked are the only ones who post now. No matter what is posted, no matter how casual, someone comes back with some stinging reply about how wrong it is. "I think you mean *this* not *that*" when the intent is perfectly clear, it's just someone being a shit because they are a self-proclaimed expert. Or worse, some long-winded, talking around in circles until you finally give up on the discussion altogether. Anyone who actually says "Let me take this a step further" in a newsgroup post should probably never be allowed near the Internet again.

Though, at least they *do* reply. What I hate the most are newsgroup members who blatently post something that is bound to garner replies--and then skip blithely off into other topics when it does. With that little air of snobbishness that says, "I don't have to reply, you'll never change my mind." I hate that. If your gonna spout some crap, you should have the balls to come back and defend your argument. But that's another topic...

Another case in point. I took my brand new pair of hockey skates to the rink and set out on the ice. I had skated there a week or so before, in rented skates that tore up my ankles so I was anxious to try my new Bauers. I am not the best skater in the world--and not nearly as good as I thought I was. Some woman comes up to me and points to my skates and informs me that I need to tighten them. "I've been watching you and that's why you can't skate."

I politely inform her that they are brand new, and can't really be tightened any further. She proceeds to give me a long lectue on how I'm ruining my edge, wrecking my skates, blah blah blah. My sister jumps in and says "Look I play hockey, this is her first time on the ice and when they get broken in, she'll tighten them. She's fine." "Well, I *teach* hockey," the woman blithely informs us and goes back to a guy we see now is her hapless student. Later, as I'm unlacing my skates to go home, she approches me again and demands to know what size my skates are, and how she's sure I don't have the right size...when she finds out they are 2 sizes smaller, as they should be, she then demands to see my skates and informs me that the blades are crooked and now *that* is the problem, not the size. Amazing, isn't it, how the argument suddenly shifts? "I would hate for you to give up the sport," she says comfortingly, handing back my skate. "Well, I wasn't exactly going professional," I reply and she laughs and trips off. Guess what? I had five guys that night look at the skate blades and report they were fine. And that she's well known at the rink for being a loony, something I had suspected already.

It doesn't make it any less annoying that the know-it-all is insane, because it was just another instance of the hockey wannabes that populate this city. You can't go into anywhere in an Avalanche hat without someone lecturing you on Patrick Roy, or graphite sticks.

There is no arguing with a know-it-all. Everywhere I turn, there's someone pointing out how I used "as" instead of "like", how I don't know anything about Europe, that my skates are crooked, that my favorite player sucks. And I wonder if I am one of these people, if I bite people's heads off when they say Czechoslovakia instead of the Czech Republic.

And if I have, God am I sorry. I have seen the error of my ways and I will never, ever do it again...and I will be the first to lead a movement to brainwash these people of all their knowledge--real or imagined--and make them do something more useful...

Elisabeth