The Day I Became A Nerd (Originally written June 27th, 2009)

Ever watch the TV show "The Big Bang Theory"? By far the funniest show on the boob tube, in my opinion. The main characters are a bunch of comic book reading, science loving, Star Wars fanatic nerds. When I come across people, guys mostly, who are entrapped with a book in a public place, I think of the characters from that show. I don't know why. I'm sure they are good, respectable human beings. But to me they just come across as nerdy. What are you doing at the mall sitting on a bench reading a book? Go home and read. I never, ever, found a book so interesting that I would take it out of the house to read it. Then again, I don't read much books IN the house either.

Anyway, today I became nerdy. Facing the idea of sitting in a laundry mat waiting for my clothes to wash, rinse, spin and tumble dry without anything to do made my skin crawl. So I decided to take a book. What book? Telling Stories by Joyce Carol Oats. Hey, I spent nineteen dollars on that book on Ebay for this class I better get some use of it.

Flipping through its pages I came across a story called "The Naked Lady" by Madison Smartt Bell, pg 160. It's a short story, which is perfect for me and those of us with A.D.D. I began. It didn't take long for me to realize that this writer had the worst grammar in the history of writers. If this person can write a story so could I, I thought to myself. I kept reading. Slowly but surely her story started to play out in my mind. It was a man telling the story so I had to give the man a voice inside my head. Based on the incorrect grammar and poor choice of words, this long bearded, over-all wearing, toothless hillbilly popped into my head. Read it. You'll know what I mean.

The story gripped me. I couldn't put the book down even though my clothes had just finished the spin cycle and were waiting to be put in the dryer. The characters were brought to life. I could hear them, see them, smell their liquor, laugh when they laughed (which made a few heads turn in the laundry mat). All in all it was a very entertaining story.

My point to this is yes we have so many modern technologies that have changed the way and will continue to change the way we get entertained. With the click of a mouse we have the world at our fingertips. Cell phones are not just for talking to someone anymore, you can find out if your favorite team won that day or take a picture and send it to all of your friends in the matter of seconds. But for me, and for all those other nerds out there, who have their heads buried in a book somewhere have found piece. Piece in knowing that that book in our hands can take us to places that no cell phone or Blackberry can possibly take us. We might be sitting in a mall or in a laundry mat but our minds are in a galaxy, far far away.