"That's All I Have To Say About That"

Sometimes my older brother is a little difficult to talk to. He's not stupid, but he doesn't really pay attention. He doesn't know when to use "its" versus "it's." He thinks "irregardless" is a word. And he spells things however he wants. His motto is, "Who cares? You knew what I meant, so it doesn't matter." But that attitude of apathy towards grammar, punctuation, and spelling is what makes English majors like myself have mental breakdowns.

But I try really hard not to get upset about that kind of stuff. I know I shouldn't hold everyone to the same English standards to which I hold myself. And there's nothing more annoying than a pretentious, self-serving English major who looks down on everyone because he thinks he's better than them (even if he is). And it's not like I never make any mistakes. I just feel like I avoid the obvious, blatant ones because I'm so aware of them.

But with my brother, it's other stuff that gets to me. For example, he gets most of his history references from films. And that would be fine if he ever watched documentaries. But he doesn't. He watches regular Hollywood movies and takes what he sees at face value. Which explains why he thinks Forrest Gump exposed the Watergate scandal and Rocky Balboa ended the Cold War.

And then I try to explain to him that those movies are just historical fiction. But he doesn't get it. He claims that most of that stuff is based on true stories anyway, so he's gonna go ahead and believe it. So whenever I have an extended conversation with him, I have to reward myself with something like a candy bar or coffee (or a sedative) just for making it through without a blood vessel bursting in my brain.