I don't know

I don't know.  It's a pretty simple phrase.  Hell, Ozzy wrote a song about it.  I'm really not sure what the words are, but I hum the melody right up to the chorus and then belt out... "I DON'T KNOW" before embarrassing my family further with some wicked, left-handed air guitar prowess (I'm not even left-handed, and they totally miss how much more kick-ass that is). 

 "mwawhn sheapson wu tannshid morr" - direct quote

I don't know.  It's three little words (four if you break up the contraction).  You'd think it would just roll off the tongue.  However, the older I get... the less I hear others use it... especially people over the age of 15.  How is that?  Am I just the dumbest person on the planet (debatable) or are most of the people I deal with totally full of crap?  (I guess those things aren't mutually exclusive, but humor me on this one).

I'm constantly finding myself in conversations with these geniuses.  You know the ones.  They're experts on... well, everything.  Did your furnace stop working?  They'll probably tell you how the fan casing is really the culprit instead of the motor that has black smoke pouring out of it.  Is your dog afraid of thunder?  They'll tell you that the time you flinched (showing weakness) during an F-5 tornado is the root cause of your dog's tendency to fertilize the carpet every time there's a slight mist outside.  And my personal favorite... you mention you're getting a tax refund, and they tell you how you've been loaning the government money... and if you'd only had less withheld from your regular paycheck, you could have turned that extra 17 cents interest into an ownership stake in a Puerto Rican Krispy Kreme franchise.

sticking it to Uncle Sam, every morning at 3 am.

These people are often the same ones who suffer from "one-upmanship syndrome".  Your good news is apparently a threat to their well being, so they will tell you BETTER news.  Your bad news is trivial because, I mean come on... they've REALLY suffered (and you should just shut your pie hole and count your blessings).  I recently shared some good, sports related, news regarding my nephew with one of these people.  Within 90 seconds I was told about two people in his immediate family who were bigger, stronger and faster than my nephew AND that the best my nephew could hope to achieve would be a meaningless existence playing semi-pro ball in some third world country.  The effortlessness with which this information rolled from his tongue was astonishing.  I felt sorry for my nephew after being presented with these "facts".

Hola Senor Pelotas.

The sad thing is that I'm usually drawn to these people BECAUSE they seem so confident.  Maybe because I'm so filled with doubt,  I seek out the person who seems to have more solid footing.  They know the answer.  They have the confidence.  It usually takes me a few years to figure out just how full of it they are.  At that point the damage is done.

Now in the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that I'm sometimes guilty of these crimes against humility.  However, my version is a little tamer.  You know that TV show we talked about?  The one where I said I knew what you meant.  I didn't.  I've never seen that show.  I saw part of a commercial for it and then extrapolated an answer I thought you wanted to hear.  Sorry.  It just seemed easier at the time.  And, oh yeah, that advice I gave you about refinancing your house... you might wanna disregard that, too.