Marco was handsome and hunky, which would have been enough to get me out of the party and into the back seat of his car. But then when he told me he was a researcher at NYU working on the genetics of single-cell yeast, the whole room went dark as love finally found me. I told him I nearly had a bachelor's degree from a major university. Unfortunately, it didn't impress him: it just made him assume I was smart.

He talked about his work for probably half an hour, thinking I knew something. Eventually he noticed the blank stare. "You do know that genes mean DNA means protein fabrication, right?" he asked.

I nodded. I'm not particularly stupid. I just didn't realize there'd be a quiz.

My first contribution to the conversation was telling him about a scientific study I'd recently read about. These scientists were testing how children mimic their parents by having kids watch two scenes starring their Mom. In the first, Mom walks into a dark room holding a bunch of packages. She goes over to the light switch and, because her hands are full, she flips it on with her nose.

All the kids think to themselves, "Well, that's how you turn on a light when your hands are full."

In the second scene, the mother isn't carrying anything, yet she walks over to the light switch and still flips it on with her nose.

And the kids all look at each other and go, "WTF is wrong with her?"

Now, this study is supposedly quite the milestone in behavioral psychology. By running this test on various age groups, scientists learned exactly when children develop the notion of WTF is wrong with her? See, if a three-year-old watches this, he'll go, "Oh. Hey. There's Mommy! Hi Mommy!" But if a three-and-a-half-year-old sees it, he'll be all, "WTF is wrong with her?"

Marco countered with his own favorite study. It seems some psychologists put on a puppet show for six-month-olds. In the show, a round-headed puppet tries to walk up a hill, but it can't. A triangle-headed puppet comes along and pushes the round-headed puppet, and together they make it up the hill. At the top, though, a square-headed puppet comes along and shoves them both back down.

Afterward, Marco said, the psychologist lets the baby pick out a puppet to play with. And what puppet do you think the babies always pick?

"The triangle-headed puppet," he said.

"That's amazing," I said. "That's incredible," I said.

And then some chick sidled up next to Marco and said, "Hey, honey."

I wanted to push her into the bean dip, but I'm no baby. "WTF is wrong with her?" I said.