Non-Conversations with a Physicist

So I don't know if it's because between slaving in a lab and then speaking only with my children for four months that I've begun to lose my communication skills, but I can't seem to communicate effectively with people anymore.

Example #1: My neighbor, in an act of service, came over to see if he could help me prep my house for winter this year. The converstation went something like this:
Neighbor: Hey, I have some plastic that I was going to use to wrap my air conditioner for winter this year. Would you like me to come over and we can wrap yours as well?

Me: You're going to wrap your air conditioner?

Neighbor: Yeah, to protect it from rust and things falling in it. You know.

Me: You want to wrap plastic around my air conditioner? The unit that sits on top of my heater?
Things get in there?

Neighbor: Well, yeah you don't use it all winter... if you protect it, it will last longer.

Me: The cooling coils that wrap around my ventilation system in my basement? You want to wrap plastic around it's solid metal housing?

Neighbor: What? No, but it's a good idea to wrap plastic around the heat exchanger that sits outside in the elements.

Yeah, so by now he's looking at me like I'm a real idiot. That's fine, because that's exactly how I feel.

Example #2: My wife's cousin is trying be a nice guy and talk to me about what we're looking at in the future. How much longer school will be, what we'll do then, yada, yada, yada. Part of the conversation went like this:

Cousin: So what will you do for AFRL?

Me: I don't know I'm still in school.

Cousin: Sure but what are you going to do for them?

Me: Well, supposedly it will be different research than I'm conducting right not as a student.

Cousin: And what type of research is that?

Me: Oh, lasers.

Cousin: That's all I was asking. So you'll be doing laser technology for them.

Me: Yeah.

As you guessed, by now he's looking at me like I'm an idiot. It's okay, I feel like one.

I think I'm going to give up on contact with the outside world for a while.