What I am

The day after Brandon’s office party, where I showed up wearing the elf hat and chugging the big ol’ mug of Guinness, one of his colleagues from another department came up to him.

“Was you wife drunk at the party?”

“What? No! Why? Because that giant mug of Guinness?”

“Well, we figured she’s got to be drunk wearing that elf hat and all of that.”

“Nah. That’s just how she is, man.”

“Oh.”

Brandon’s sergeant chimed in at this point that, yes indeed, Oakley is quirky that way, with or without the booze.

“Now don’t you be spreading the rumor about his wife,” the Sarge warned the guy.

Dude. What the hell!? I mean, just because I like wearing funny hats, that equates drunk? This guy must be hanging out around some REALLY dull people.

Look, dude. I wear that hat EVERYWHERE. It’s the holidays for god’s sake.

And then, there is always this thing about being the only geeky one in the office and sometimes in good company of other non-geeks. Suddenly you realized that you’re the only one who actually watch SciFi channel or “Chuck”, play or talk about video games, or understand the beauty of “all your base are belong to us”, “uber pownage” or Jonathan Coulter. (JC is my new music obsession at the moment, thanks to James.)

“Oh I wouldn’t spend that $50 on a game or spend all day playing it,” someone said. “That’s just like a total waste of time and money.”

That’s all relative, my friend. Some people use that same money and time in a bar somewhere, fix up a classic car, tweaking new speakers in their arsenal of sound systems, or do whatever it is that they do for a hobby. OUR hobby happens to be games. There may not be any finished product at the end, but hey we enjoyed those “wasted” hours as much as anybody else doing what THEY love to do.

I just hate it when people single you out because you’re different. I get made fun of all the times since I was a kid, just enough off the norm to not be normal. I embrace my abnormality, but occasionally people do really rub it in to you. I don’t make fun of you for being “normal”. Leave me the fuck alone on being geekier that you. Sheesh. But I digress.

I know I complain or roll my eyes sometimes when I go to dinner with Brandon and his bunch of geeks. It’s always game talk. WoW this. EQ that. What quest to do. What zone to run through. A gig of something. Megahertz of other. Funny clip of a chipmunk. How about that liquid helium footage.

But after spending a whole lot of time among non-geeks, I really start to appreciate all the geek talk. Suddenly, I’m back where I belong. With people who talk the same language and adore my elf hat.

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