Mr. Mansplain — Knew Your Field Back to You

Lyrics

Omni Hotel. Grand Ballroom.
October twenty-seventh.
8:15 PM.
There's a half-eaten mini quiche on a napkin.
It's getting cold.

He found me by the wilting ferns.
Asked what I did.
And I told him.
Quantum Microbiology.
And the title of the paper, the one that took four years.
He nodded, sipped his sparkling wine.
And then he started to explain it back to me.
My life's work.
His oration.

And you just stood there.
You let him.
My little plastic name tag, screaming from my chest.
"Doctor E. Petrova, Ph.D."
Just a suggestion, I guess.
A typo in the conversation.
You let him.
You shouldn't have.

His champagne flute was a conductor's baton.
"What you're really getting at is..."
"Actually, the core principle is..."
He never saw the letters after my name.
Just a smiling face, a vessel for his wisdom.
My quiche became a fossil on the napkin.
A monument to the moment I went quiet.

And you just stood there.
You let him.
My little plastic name tag, screaming from my chest.
"Doctor E. Petrova, Ph.D."
Just a suggestion, I guess.
A typo in the conversation.
You let him.
You shouldn't have.

And I played the scene out in my head.
The one where I stop him.
The one where I hold up my badge like a shield.
But the room is warm, and the wine is cheap.
And the cost of being polite is always paid by me.
He thinks he was charming.
He thinks he was helpful.

He's gone now.
Moved on to explain modern art to the painter by the ice sculpture.
I pick up the quiche.
It's cold.
Little name tag. We failed.
I shouldn't have.