The Smartest

I am sure you never doubted this, but I am the smartest person on the planet. Clearly, no one can be smarter than me, as I know - EVERYTHING.

How do I know this? (I mean other than because I know everything.) Because a 3-year-old said I did.

My sister called me the other day to tell me that my nephew had a question that she could not answer. He said to call me. "Mike knows everything," Nicholas said.

So wise, the children.

His question was regarding Robin of Batman fame. Nicholas wanted to know where he came from. My sister called me not so much to ask the question but, as she said, to give me a little ego boost. But I was not going to leave it as an ego boost. "He was a child acrobat," I said.

My sister laughed and said that I was just making stuff up so that I could keep my title of World's Smartest Human as Decided By Someone Who Wears Spider-Man Shoes. "No, seriously. He was an acrobat."

There was a silence on the other end of the line. My sister then commented that it appeared I did, in fact, know everything, or at least everything important to a 3-year-old.

I became the Sage One several weeks ago when Nicholas asked me this question: "Why did Darth Vader become bad?"

I looked at my sister and brother-in-law, who both shrugged. "We told him to ask you," my sister said.

At that point, I took Nicholas upon my knee and told him a story about bad influences and peer pressure and doing things that are not right but ultimately meaning you cross paths with Boba Fett. Seemed to suffice, and he anointed me as brilliant.

I guess it's just that I am full up on information that's important to kids. Among some of the amazing facts that I keep handy that thus make me an Einstein to the under 4-foot crowd:

* I know the best technique for the most effective double bounce on a trampoline.

* I can submerge something under water and manage to keep it dry using nothing but an ordinary household bucket.

* I know why Transformers are here.

* I can juggle (requires more brains than you think).

* I can spin a basketball on my finger (much like juggling, more of a thinking-man's game than you realize).

* I can quickly and correctly identify Smurfs, droids, Fraggles and most any animal.

* I rule at Wii.

Sadly, though, the ability to detect my brilliance does seem to diminish with age. For example, my daughter, who is 9, now routinely questions things that I say, which as you well know implies that somehow I might not be correct, which, as Nicholas will tell you, is not even in the realm of possibility.

One way I can certainly illustrate that for you: Onion cutting.

You see, my daughter likes to help me cook, and I certainly enjoy putting her through the rigors of the Mike Gibbons Cooking School (Motto: "Please do not cook Mike Gibbons"). One of her favorite things to do is help me chop the vegetables. Being the responsible dad I am, I plug in the electric carving knife and say, "Ten dollars says you can't cut the tomato in five seconds!!!"

Ha, I kid! Because that's what the unsettlingly brilliant do. (For what it's worth, one of the big parts of my cooking school is knife safety: How to properly slice without cutting yourself, how to make sure you hit the spinning wheel, but not the lady attached to said wheel. That kind of thing.)

So I have a very distinct way of slicing an onion. It involves removing the skin, slicing in half, turning it over, slicing into sections and then dicing it. My daughter had the audacity to slice it a different way. I told her that's not how you slice an onion. Her response, "But it ended up the way you wanted it, right?"

THAT'S NOT THE POINT!

So who knows. Maybe in a few years, Nicholas will begin to question some of my brilliance. But I'll know, deep in my heart, that I still know everything. And I can juggle.