Are you a know-it-all? Know-it-alls think they know
everything. They feel superior, are dismissive of others’ opinions, and
unwilling to listen to others. Know-it-alls like to hear themselves talk. This
behavior may become so ingrained that it becomes part of the know-it-all’s
personality. The bottom line is that they don’t know any other way to act. They
come off as self-centered, pompous and easily irk you. You bite your tongue
when they start telling you what you already know.
When I was 15, I was one of them. In the early 80s, Mum
had had let me drive her maroon Fiat 127 down the deserted roads of kyalo a
number of times, so I figured I could handle whatever ride that was thrown at
me. However, Moses our neighbour (I wonder where he is now), kept telling me
that there is a difference between a Fiat 127 and driving Dad’s Range Rover.
But what did he know? I knew it all.
When Parents went to work, I stole the Range for a
test drive. Getting it out of the garage and down to Ggaba road in Kansanga –
opposite Kobil petrol station where we used to live then, was the easiest part
of the drive.
Conversely, between Kobil and the turn off to Rainbow
School, if I had a smidgen of intelligence, I ought to have turned back, gone
and parked it. Except, who as a 15-year-old boy with a Range Rover, has any ounce
of intelligence? Cutting the tale short, I was NOT driving the Range Rover. The
Ranger Rover WAS DRIVING me. It had its own life and power. In the 127, when I
hit the accelerator, it took almost 5 minutes to respond and when it did, it merely
crawled. In the Range, one hit on the gas and in a micro second, it lurched
forward, snarling, angry and wanting to unleash the beast of a V12 engine.
Suffice to say, I ended up crashing it through the wall of my friends’ house –
Ian and Jonathan Musoke in Makyinde.
Gabriel, wanted to be a sportscaster on WBS. He’d seen
Ramathan Khan read the news and he figured he could emulate him. However, Khan
was at the top of his game with style, finesse and poise. Still, Gabriel believed
as a know-it-all, he could do better despite people telling him that being in
front of the cameras is not as easy as it looks.
When his debut came, no sooner had the signature music
tailed off than he’d fragmented into a sweat – a Tsunami of a sweat that gushed
down his forehead. And in all that panic, incredibly enough, he also forgot what
his name was and messed up on the autocue. We switched to adverts and dragged
the poor fellow who was wheezing frantically for air out of the studios.
Gabriel thought he knew-it-all. He didn’t. A few days later, he quit.
I spent some weeks in Kyankwanzi along with the most pompous
and aloof lads from Makerere University – Lumumba Hall who were know-it-alls. When
it came to guns and the AK-47, I can’t recall his name, but he knew everything
there was to it. Way before we trooped down to the firing range he remarked how
he’d been going to Sissa Shooting Club on numerous occasions with his army pals
to practice.
At the shooting range, Instructors directives were
explicit. Set the lever to single and not rapid fire, then shoot at will. We
all shot in single fire except, I know-it-all from Lumumba who had set his
firing mode to rapid. In the split second it took to reel off the entire magazine,
he lay there – crumpled, shell shocked and confused. As they hauled him still quaking
off the tarpaulin, I couldn’t help but smirk – “I thought you knew everything
about the AK-47?”
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