Sources at a midwestern dinner table confirmed Tuesday that local man Brandon Toomey, who first heard the phrase “Strait of Hormuz” on Sunday evening at roughly 7:42 p.m. Central, has now positioned himself as the household authority on Persian Gulf shipping geography, regional naval doctrine, and the historical price elasticity of Brent crude.

Witnesses described Toomey clearing his throat, lowering his fork, and beginning a thirty-eight-minute explanation that began with “OK so basically” and concluded with a rough sketch of the Persian Gulf drawn on a napkin in steak juice.

According to his wife, Toomey had spent the preceding 36 hours rotating between three cable news segments, two podcast episodes, the comments section of a maritime tracking website, and a single Wikipedia page whose URL he had bookmarked under the name “Stuff to Know.”

“He keeps saying ‘tanker traffic’ like he’s been managing it personally,” reported his sister-in-law, who had asked a follow-up question about the news in what she described as “an act of catastrophic optimism.”

At several points during the explanation, Toomey gestured vaguely toward an area of the table he identified as “the choke point,” and at other points toward a salt shaker he repeatedly referred to as “essentially Qatar.”

When pressed for the location of Bandar Abbas, Toomey responded that it was “on the Iranian side,” which observers later confirmed was technically correct in the same way that Detroit is technically in the Western Hemisphere.

His teenage daughter asked whether Iran shares a border with Pakistan. Toomey answered “complicated” in a tone that suggested he had absorbed the rhythm of cable news commentary without any of its content.

Toomey reportedly closed the dinner by stating that “this is honestly the part the media isn’t covering,” moments before quoting a media organization at length.

At press time, Toomey was opening a third browser tab and beginning a deep dive into the Suez Canal, which he believed to be relevant.