NERD SON AND FATHER: stereotyping, a history, an encounter

I made my way to the checkout line at my local Bloom grocery store, and much to my chagrin a nerd son and nerd father were in front of me.

I immediately identified the nerd family by looking at the nerd son. When I approached the line, a bag of grapes was being swiped across the beeping machine and into a bag. The nerd son immediately, and without hand-eye coordination, grabbed a handful of grapes and shoved them in his mouth, all while looking at the girl bagging them like, “Don’t tell my nerd father that I’m sneaking healthy food.” The nerd son was wearing jeans with a dress belt that fastened his pants securely onto his rib cage. His button down shirt tucked in. As mine eyes observed the nerd son a we bit more, I came to his face. He had glasses of course and a buzz cut. Wait…he turned around, and it appears to be a mullet. A buzz cut mullet. Our eyes locked and he knew he was guilty of being a nerd son. I imagine it is the same look he uses when he receives an A-.

I turned my attention to the nerd father. He was smiling and very pleased with life in general. His nerd attire matched his patented 1984 hair cut and glasses. Don’t be deceived. His looks in no way reflect the amount of nerd money he had in his pockets. As his nerd son continued to shove grapes in his nerd mouth, the father exclaimed, “Quit eating grapes!” Nerd son, frightened, turned around once again revealing his nerd mullet. The father was still smiling. “I just can’t stop this kid from eating healthy food,” he thought. I have never been yelled at for eating too healthy.

The cashier was having trouble processing the check and was looking for something. The nerd father, KNOWING what the cashier was looking for, rattled off a few numbers with a sinister grin on his face. Then with a, “HA! Beat you to it” look on his face, he said, “The state code. That’s what you’re looking for. It’s Utah.”

“Ultimate pwnage,” the nerd father thought to himself in his own nerd culture’s language. The cashier, enraged with his recent pwnage, regained his confidence when he asked me if I had a Bloom card, which I didn’t, and had to pay full price for my items.

The entire time the nerd father was smiling. I believe it is because his pockets were full of nerd money, and because he knew he didn’t have to worry about his son dating for a long time. This is why he raised him as a nerd son, and why he allowed the ultimate nerd mullet to adorn nerd son’s head. Also, he knew that his son would never get into trouble with his friends, because they were all make believe characters on a computer game. He also knew no matter what his nerd son did in the future, he too would have vast amounts of nerd money. He literally has no worries.

And without even knowing it, we have all been pwned by the nerd father’s wisdom.


please feel free to share your nerd thoughts, stereotypes, and encounters

How to: Pee Your Pants in 1st Grade

I remember it very well. I was just a child in first grade. I was a cool kid. I spent my first grade years impressing women with my strength by lifting their desks, constructing log cabins with pretzels on construction paper and being an unstoppable force in checkers. I had it all.

That day I had to pee. So pee I did. I raised my hand like any upstanding gentleman and asked my teacher if I could go to the bathroom. She said, and I quote, “No.” I couldn’t believe my ears. I have never heard the word “No.” I was undefeated in checkers, maybe she didn’t know. I knew I had to pee. I had to pee so bad my knees were shaking. I could barely focus on my math speed drills.

The teacher in all of her unstoppable, tyrannical power had already said “No.” There was no changing her mind. She knew what she was doing. She couldn’t wait to tell kids no so they could pee their pants. Despicable. I was panicking now. Contemplating peeing in my pants. Would the other kids see the pee stain in my khakis? Yes. It is very obvious when khakis have been peed in. I looked down, and let it go. It was such a relief. But after those sweet and glorious 30 seconds were over I was left with a puddle in my pants and a giant wet spot.

Time passed and my teacher came up to me and whispered in my ear, “Why didn’t you tell me it was an emergency?” Really, teach? Has a first grader ever had to pee without it being an emergency? Of course not. I was in the early stages of procrastination. I waited to the last minute to do things, including asking to pee. So when I had to pee, I had to pee. She tried to get me to wear some extra pants she had in the room. Forget it teach, your time of redemption is over. You will look at my pee pants, and you will remember this day for all of time. And also I hope some got on your floor and that you have to smell it when it dries.

I devised a clever plan to get me out of the room without the other kids noticing. I walked straight towards the chalkboard and was standing inches away from it pretending to read as I shuffled over towards my backpack. Once I got my backpack I wore it in the front. In addition to checkers champion, I was also a trend setter. An impressive resume. I walked through the halls with what could now be considered a frontpack and my grandma picked me up from school. I got to her house where I had a set of “play” clothes to wear. I changed into the dry pants. As I was stepping out of the door to go play, my grandma picked up my pee pants and said, “Kyle, why are your pants wet!?” I ran out the door without an explanation and satisfied that only my teacher and my grandma were in the know. It was a good day.

February 10th I moved into my friends townhouse so I could be closer to my internship. I am currently sleeping on a couch for two months. I have a space heater pointed next to me because there's no heat, my pants are hanging on a curtain rod in the kitchen, my shirts are hanging above a trash can in a closet downstairs and the rest of my clothes are on shelves in the bathroom or on the floor somewhere.

Every morning I wake up, take a shower, get my pants from the kitchen, get dressed, make 2 identical peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, place them in a brown bag, turn off my heater and walk to my car. It is always cold so I sit there a minute…wake up, and repeat.

I head straight towards traffic like a fat guy towards a donut. I devour traffic and submerse myself in it. After an hour of almost slamming into the back of cars, I arrive at Ft. Myer military base. I pull up to gate, get out of my car, open every car door, my hood, my trunk and they search my car and mess my crap up. I come to work at the USO of Metropolitan Washington. I do some stuff like type this story. Everyone thinks I am homeless because I eat 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day and sleep on a couch.

At 5pm a military bugler plays his bugle, and somewhere in the middle of his song, a giant canon fires and makes me jump. This is my cue to leave. I go to traffic. When I get back to my couch, where a Newt Gingrich cutout hovers over me, I wait for Joe. We then go to Metro Diner where we have been eating for free for two months on coupons that were supposed to be for thousands of people. We took them from a basketball game. They love us.

Recently I sat four rows from the stage of the Kid’s Inaugural Concert featuring Miley Cyrus, the Jonas Brothers, and some other people I cant remember. I am not proud of it, but I did it…and it was fun. There are some pics.

Also, here is a video of my roommates and my current house. It was actually a piece on the DL Hughley show on CNN. A crew came and filmed it, etc. I was at work so Im not in it. The shower you see is where I now shower, and the couch the black lady is sitting on is where I lay my head every night. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Sw3pmvebrY

How to: Survive One Night at Myrtle Beach with Absolutely Nothing

I was 18. Fresh out of high school. My family goes to Myrtle Beach every year. I brought 3 of my friends. My friends and I decided to stay another day while my family went home. The only problem is, we couldn’t stay at the house we were in, and we had nothing…
After a long night out on the town, I had to wake up early and clean the house before we had to get out for good. I remember I ate ice cream cake for breakfast on the porch. After that, I had to wake up my friends and we were out. We drove around trying to find a hotel for cheap for that night…
We drove down the “strip” where the hotels were. We would stop the car, and 3 of us would split up and run into different hotels and find out how much they were. We drove around forever and found nothing. After a while, my friend Eric ran back to the car excited. “I FOUND ONE, I FOUND ONE, $65!!” No way, we got in the car, and drove over to the hotel. 65 sounded crazy because everything else was about 200. We park the car, he gets out, walks to the office door and pulls. It’s locked. We sat in the car confused but watched him look around. We see him walk up to someone, talk, hang his head, and walk back to the car. He gets in the car and says, “She was a prostitute” He thought she worked there. We laughed a lot.
Upset, we decided to eat. We discussed where we would stay that night, then we decided to take a nap. We drove to a parking garage to what would later be referred to as “level 4 to the extreme.” It was extreme because my friend Eric slept on the oil stained ground in a sleeping bag and the rest of us slept sweating like crazy in the car with the doors open. Then we rolled around on luggage racks.
With no place to sleep that night, I decided to try Wal Mart. I had seen an episode of Saved by the Bell where they slept in a mall all night to score some U2 tickets. HA! Those kids… so we went to Wal Mart. We went to the bathroom and there was a guy obliterating the stall. U know how you can’t laugh because u don’t want to be rude. We were all silent laughing so hard we were crying.
After that we found chairs that turned into beds, we laid them out under the shelves so we could sleep there. It was a 24 hour Wal Mart.
Then we ate some more. We saw a girl that looked like a crazy caveman version of my friend. What up Andrea E.
We had to figure out where we were going shower. After all, we were going out that night. I decided to try the house we had just stayed at all week. I figured we could use the outside shower. New people were already there. We then snuck into an empty house’s outside shower. The water was off. We drove to a house where a man was sitting outside. We made Eric go ask him if we could use his shower. The guy said, “Oh yeah man, I was in high school once” He was also drinking and way too excited to have us shower at his house. That was a very awkward time for all of us.
We went out that night. It was crazy. We went back to WAL MART and it was way too busy to sleep there. We decided to drive home. We said we were all going to take turns, but as soon as we started driving, I fell asleep and didn’t wake up until we got home. Apparently we stopped a couple times and almost died, but I’m ok with not remembering that.

How to: Choke on Steak and Almost Die (with actual pics)

Many have heard. Many have not.

Last year, I was eating steak at a restaurant I won’t name: Texas Roadhouse. I stabbed the steak with my fork, placed it in my mouth and immediately began to choke. I threw up all over my plate and hands, but the piece of steak was MIA.

I literally thought I was about to die. I could barely breathe. I could talk, but was still choking on steak at the same time. “You silly steak part…” I thought as I gasped for air. I tried to throw it up. That did not work. I could not swallow water. I could not swallow my own spit, and I had to throw it up constantly.

“This isn’t good.” said Kyle to himself.

That night, after hours of standing outside, I wrote a facebook note, that was a “joke.” It was actually my will. I tried to sleep, but I woke up at 4am, and I could not breathe. Scared that I was about to die, I drove to the ER and almost died on the way there. I almost passed out, and I was cold and shaking. They made me stand behind the counter in case I died. …Sweethearts…

Eventually they put me in a room. Gave me morphine. Morphine made every muscle in my body tighten, then relax. Morphine was so good. They gave me a medicine that would “loosen my throat” so the steak would go down. That didn’t work.

The next day, after I hadn’t been able to swallow anything, I went to the ER again. It had been 2 days with steak in my throat. I laid in the hospital room for 10 hours. They gave me more meds, but my skin was so thick because I was dehydrated that it made it very difficult to get the needle in my vein. That wasn’t cool. Then a doctor came to me and said they were going in to get it. I wrote a goodbye message on my cell phone that night. They wheeled me back to the OR. They gave me this medicine to knock me out. I said “Here we go.” And that was the last thing I remember.

I woke up, kind of…and the doc showed me a pic of the steak. It was nasty, round as a dime, and about two inches long. “Silly Kyle” I thought. Below is the tool they used to push the steak down.

I had to call the doctor and sign a release form for the steak pics, but there they are.

How to: Burn Your Dorm Down

Freshman year was the worst year of my life. One day me and two of my roommates were sitting in my room. I was on my computer; the other two were watching basic channels through static on a TV with rabbit ears.

From the angle I was sitting, I noticed a glow from the kitchen. I poked my head out of the door and calmly said, “Guys, the kitchen is on fire.” Almost too calm. They said, “What!?” and I said “The kitchen’s on fire.” They said “Run!”

So we ran to the kitchen. There was a pan on the stove that was engulfed in flames. For a few seconds we stood there, freaking out, not knowing what to do. I started screaming for salt. “SALT, SALT, WHERE’S THE SALT” as I opened cabinets and closets. I don’t know why I was yelling for salt, but I’m pretty sure I confused it with sand. Then I filled a cup of water and stood there, then remembered water on a grease fire was no bueno. My other roommate ran and got the fire extinguisher. But by that time, the cabinets above the stove were on fire, along with everything around the stove. As soon as he ran back into the kitchen, the sprinklers kicked on. My fearless RA, who was in his room with the door shut, came crawling out on his hands and knees while we stood around the stove. I would later laugh for hours about this.

We ran outside.

Thinking it was another fire alarm, the dorm evacuated slowly. My other roommate, who was in our apartment, came out soaked. He had fallen asleep and we had left him for dead. All the SALT screaming did not wake him.

We sat on the hill facing my dorm (East 4) and watched the water run out of our apartment down the back stairs. I laughed so hard. At that time in my life I found entertainment in the most horrible situations. “This will make a great story.” I thought. Others did not feel the same.

We called LUPD and the fire department. It took them 45 minutes to get there. By that time, our apartment, and the one below it were completely ruined by the water. They made us go, get our stuff, and put it in our cars.

We were all relocated. Everyone stayed together except for me. I was put in a dorm with people I didn’t know with 5 weeks of school left. With all of my belongings in my car, my new RA wrote me up the next day for skipping convocation. We exchanged words.

Later we would find out that it was $26,000 worth in damage. They tried to charge my roommate, but no one knew who started the fire so they couldn’t make him pay. As a memento of that day, I ripped a knob off the stove after they pulled it out of the apartment, and put it on my dashboard. It’s disgusting.

Then me and my girlfriend broke up. Awesome year guys, awesome.

How to: Attend a Black Dance Party

It’s been a year since I attended my first black dance party. Did I know it was a black dance party? No. Kyle, how can you say it was a black dance party? There were 4 white guys. Me, the two guys I came with, and one other white guy.

It took place in a shopping center downtown at a restaurant. Very random. Naturally I blended in like a chameleon. I strolled to the dance floor.

Dancing is funny. Based on my research, black people dance in large groups. Unfortunately, I was not in one of their groups. I tried, but that got awkward real fast. I danced by myself. Imagine a curly blonde fro in the midst of real fros. I was home. I felt the eyes of people around me. Eyes that told of disbelief, amazement and jealousy. “Why Lance, I am rather intrigued by the Caucasian- American on the dance floor. He exudes charisma, but yet remains suave and debonair as a fine young gentleman of yesteryear.” I heard a black man say to his friend.

A ruckus breaks out in the back. I just keep dancing. The music stops. The DJ makes an announcement for everyone to “be cool.” The music plays. The ruckus turns into a scuffle. “What’s with all the hubbub?” I says. The owner told everyone to go home, and that the cops were on their way. The ruckus in the back turned into a brawl that involved a lot of people. Everyone ran, and was screaming. I grabbed my one white girl friend, and all of us got outside. Suddenly everyone pours out of the doors, and there’s a fist fight. The cops pull in, everyone is still screaming and running to their cars.Rumors of guns and knives. I don’t know, but I got the heck out of dodge. Cops swarmed, I yelled “get in the car, get in the car.” And we drove home.

I was sad. I just wanted to dance. I considered doing an interpretive dance that would bring tears and peace to those in the room. They would have loved it. Instead…that did not happen. The end.

shoutout bill.