The room fell silent.
My head snapped in Natasha’s direction, and I felt sick when I saw the look of fear wash over her suddenly pallid face.
I was in total shock. “Natasha, no! Oh, god. Please tell me it’s not true!”
“I… I… my parents brought us there once or twice. I was young, I couldn’t drive yet!”
Seamus’ eyes glowed steel blue. “Once or twice… A YEAR, you mean! ADMIT IT!”
My jaw hung open as I watched Natasha squirm in her chair, perspiring and fidgeting with her earrings. “Okay. Okay! So I’ve been to the Renaissance Faire a few dozen times. But I never dressed up! I never played the wench! I swear – we just liked to eat the turkey legs!”
After my initial shock wore off, I was struck by a bout of uncontrollable laughter. My eyes welled up and my side cramped as I hugged my knees and said, “Ohmigod Nat! You totally bought unicorn sand candles at Ye Olde Renaissance Faire! Oh… oh… you were such a nerd!”
Sadly, my hysterics were short lived. I had spoken too soon, for Seamus had only just begun his attack: “And you, Ms. Amadeo. It’s all real funny, isn’t it? Well, I happen to have it on good authority that, not only do you own Sims II, but you once played The Sims for six hours straight. Didn’t you?!”
Suddenly, I stopped laughing. I wiped my eyes and said, “Huh? Sims? Look, you’ve got it all… see, I… no, I was cat-sitting for Kim and…”
“ANSWER THE QUESTION!”
I looked around the room, and saw the mix of disappointment, disbelief, and disgust. I had no choice but to confess. “Fine! Yes! Yes, I played The Sims for six hours! But you don’t understand! You don’t know me! The Jenster Family was nothing before they met me! When I first took over, they were peeing on themselves and starting fires and missing work! I made them doctors and movie producers! Do you have any idea how much patience and time management skill it takes to get them to that level? I… I bought them a Jacuzzi!”
Lazlo pulled himself up off the floor, laughed a wicked laugh, and said, “Oh my god! Jenny’s the biggest geek of us all! I mean, I was sixteen when I played D&D – she’s still playing computer games at 34! Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Oh, I’m the biggest geek, am I? Well, what about Seamus, huh? Ask him about his obsession with movie trivia! He knows every director of every film ever made, and where it was made, and what the budget was! He’s like Rainman! Tell me that’s not geeky!”
Seamus jumped on the defensive, “Hey! Movies are cool! Everybody watches movies! That has nothing to do with creating pretend computer families and buying them pretend computer furniture!”
“Look, my point is that you and Lazlo and Natasha and I are all geeks in our own right. Heck, all our friends are – I mean, so you’re a movie dork, right? Now look at TuBlog – he owns almost 10,000 CD’s!”
Nat and Lazlo cried out in unison, “MUSIC DWEEB!”
“Exactly! And how about Vivian? I know for a fact that she played the lead in her high school production of Annie Get Your Gun!”
Again, the chorus cried out, “THEATRE GEEK!”
I nodded in agreement, “Right! So who’s left?”
Seamus volunteered another name, “What about Dr. Greene? What’s his story?”
This one was too easy. “Oh come on, Seamus! He’s a doctor, for god’s sake. He studies DNA and gene splicing for a living. He wrote his thesis on the sexual behavior of fruit flies!”
Natasha raised her hand and said, “Ooh – I know! I know! SCIENCE NERD!”
“Correct again! Thou art getting quite good, Lady Natasha.”
She continued, “Oh, and what about Farnsworth? He’s in, like, twelve different bands.”
We all rang out, “BAND DORK!”
Suddenly, we were all laughing and embracing our newly-confessed geekdom. It was no longer the D&D’s versus the Renaissance Faires, the theatre geeks versus the band dorks. We were all part of the same community of misfits. And somehow, in our collective otherness, we all just… fit.
We realized that there was no longer a need for labels – geek, dork, nerd, dweeb. It didn’t matter, because we had each other. After this emotional breakthrough we experienced, I really hated to draw an end to the evening, but I had to bid farewell to the group.
“Sorry gang, but I’ve got to get home. I have to post a new entry on the blog, and I’ve barely written half of it. See you all next week!”
I walked toward the door and noticed Natasha snickering. I turned to see what was so funny, and heard her whisper to Seamus and Lazlo, “INTERNET SPAZ!”

Filed under: General on July 7th, 2005