A friend of mine from college once put an obnoxious guy at a party in his place with this rejoinder:

“You’re so dumb, you could fit the entirety of your knowledge into the naval of a Barbie doll and still have room left over for all of your life’s major accomplishments.”

Mic drop.

I have no idea if he just produced this off the cuff or if he perhaps heard someone else utilize it toward someone else who needed to hear it.

I thought about it this past week when once again I was left puzzled about something taking place.

“The total of what you don’t know…”

That led me to several things that are more ‘Why?’ than ‘I don’t know the answer.’ Probably because there isn’t an answer.

Bear with me.

Why is a portion of the sporting world in an uproar over Caitlin Clark’s inevitable march to the NCAA women’s career scoring record? Barring a horrible injury, Miss Clark will carve her name in the record books as the most prolific scorer to ever play Division I women’s college basketball. In fact, if you are reading this a couple days after it comes out, she may have already done it.

What is the uproar? Can we not simply enjoy watching one of the premier athletes of our time performing at a high level, without finding fault in her somehow?

Lighten up people.

Why is there such finger pointing over the revelation that former President Donald Trump’s company received nearly $8 million dollars from foreign countries?

Seriously. His company owns hotels. People stay at those hotels. They pay to do so. One of those hotels is in Washington.

It isn’t outside the realm of possibility that some of the paying guests were from other countries, right?

Trump, as all presidents are required to do, had no hands-on control over his business interests while he was in office.

He supposedly turned everything over to his sons. And I am sure they obeyed the letter of the law and never discussed the business of the Trump Organization with Dad when they stopped at the White House for Thanksgiving dinner.

May I show you this bridge that I am willing to sell you?

It’s cheap. Really.

Why is there a hulabaloo over Taylor Swift going to football games to watch her boyfriend play? If I were a betting person, I would bet that there are other girlfriends and even wives of players who attend games each week. They don’t get shown on screen when their player makes a play, but then they probably don’t come with umpteen gazillion followers on social media, at least two or three of which may go out and buy merchandise just because Taylor was wearing it.

The NFL is loving her and her fans all the way to the bank.

So have another (brand name beer) and (brand name snack food) (which is also helping the NFL’s bottom line, by the way) and just leave the young female/role model/entrepreneur to live her best life.

Why are the MAGA folks so incensed about Fani Willis, the woman prosecuting the former president’s criminal racketeering case in Georgia, acknowledging a personal relationship with a male member of her staff?

Is it because having such a relationship veers dangerously close to Mr. Trump’s own history, of being married to one woman and ‘dallying’ with another? And then doing it again? At this time, at least there aren’t any allegations of Ms. Willis paying off adult models and actresses.

She’s an adult. She went on vacation with someone on her team. If he were a defense attorney – an adversary – I would think many people would rightfully be upset.

But he wasn’t.

Seriously, why is there is never a empty Barbie naval around when you need one to illustrate your point?