The eternal plight of the physicist at social gatherings. While everyone else enjoys casual conversation, you're sitting there like an alert retriever, ears perked up at the faintest mention of "quantum" or "relativity." Then comes the inevitable moment when you interject with, "Well, actually..." and watch as everyone's eyes glaze over faster than supercooled helium. Your spouse has seen this routine so many times they could set their atomic clock by it. The real physics experiment here is measuring how quickly you can clear a table with an impromptu lecture on string theory.