Nerd Herds All Over the World Gather Tonight
A couple years back when the last Harry Potter book was coming out, my parents and I stumbled upon a very interesting phenomena completely by accident.
We were coming back from dinner somewhere past Fairfax around 10pm, and noticed that the Borders was ablaze with lights. While we're not an overly spontaneous bunch, curiosity forced my father to pull into the parking lot so we didn't have to lay awake in our beds wondering what the heck had been going on.
Night makes otherwise ordinary occurances different.* In the Chemistry Auditorium during the day? Normal. Being in the Chemistry Auditorium at night (playing capture the flag)? Slightly naughty, a little exciting. A walk during the day? Normal. A walk at night? Romantic and/or Creepy. Balancing your checkbook during the day? Normal to the point of mundanity. Balancing your checkbook at night? well... a little pathetic, but at least I was watching Fletch while doing it. (don't judge me!)
So when an otherwise not-night store is open at night (unlike Harris Teeter- the most fun grocery store EVER), something odd is going down. Never were those words so apt as to describe the Borders that night.
After parking miles away from the store (minivans as far as the eye could see), we walked in on a Borders in a state of slightly organized chaos. Chaos in which many people wore funny hats and capes and other black or purple flowy clothing. I had not seen that many nerds in one place since Quiz Bowl Tournaments in High School (I admit it. I was not only on "It's Academic!", I was also President of my HS team. Laugh all you want, but do you know George Sands's real name? Or the order and method of death for all of Henry VIII's wives? I am masterful, bitches, and can crush you with the triviality of my immense knowledge. We're moving on.)
My parents and I gawked at the scene. Hopped up on sugar and the second wind of being up part their bedtimes, children ran amok screaming. Someone was regularly shouting into the store microphone that a) this was a midnight party for the latest Harry Potter book, b) different sections of the store had different events going on and c) would ____ ____'s parents please come and scoop up their tiny darling who was just destroying the "____ for Dummies" section. Borders employees were wheeling around dollies stacked high with the book, batting away people (a majority old enough to know better) trying to grab one.
Intrepid people that we are, we waded into the frenzy to see the extent of the madness. There was owl-cookie-decorating and pointy-hat-making and Hagrid-drawing galore. You could also stand around discussing the latin roots of the spell words if you wanted, but you had to really want it because once you made like you were at all interested, a nerd would grab you and with a crazed gleam in his eye, talk your ear off like his mother had forbidden talking about it while he was living in her house. The shouting over the microphone regularly reminded us that the costume contest in the back was for CHILDREN ONLY. Which was only fair, because the children had no attention to detail.
Past middle school, a nerd is often defined by a fanatical interest in something that it is not socially acceptable to be fanatically interested in. Usually something fantasy, or sci-fi- Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars/Trek, or Lord of the Rings. (I argue that ppl who know sports statistics or the full cast lists of old movies or other obsessions are also nerds, but slightly more acceptable bc their obsession is related to something mainstream. Sci-fi or Fantasy is nerd to the core). With the publication of JK Rowling's books, a new nerd culture flourished. Those flourishing burst all over the Borders that night. The nerds were more excited than the children because they were among their kind. Each one was surrounded by people who also knew the burst of joy when realizing that "Diagon Alley" is really just diagonally broken in two, or who had ardent views on who should get togther: Hermione & Harry, or Hermione & Ron? And what about Krum? O, it was all too wonderful for the nerds. And the kids enjoyed it too.
This was all very amusing to us three bemused spectators, especially the near-fight between mothers over who's kid was a better Harry (my money was on the girl-Harry, if only because she had the glasses and the scar and other kid was just in a black graduation robe that pooled around his feet with a straight-ish stick) (also, girl-Harry's mom was small, but fierce).
My mother, who has not read the books and has never understood the whole Harry Potter obsession, turned to Dad and I and asked if we wanted to stick around to midnight and buy a book. But after a moment of consideration, we decided we could wait until 10am the next day. Or the day after that. After all, I'm proud of my nerd heritage, but I want to at least seem normal. And spending two hours listening to nerds talk about the intricacies of the plot-lines and their internet Ron-Hermione-'shipper fan-fic might totally blow my cover.
Tonight, the Barnes & Noble in town is having a Harry Party, but I don't think I'm going. If I've been to one, I can claim it was a fluke. Two, and I'll have to reregister at nerd headquarters. (and also because of the crime. White Plains is totally Yonkers-ing up, yo! It ain't safe!)
*(this equation doesn't work for everything- drinking during the day is less acceptable than drinking at night, same for eating dinner or sleeping).
On the Harry front, you gotta go watch this.
UPDATE:
Today I bought my HP book (I was walking past B&N on the way back from shopping, I swear) and even though I did not attend the midnight party, I still got the party pack. What's in this party pack, you ask? Why, I'll gladly tell you so that you can be green with envy:
We were coming back from dinner somewhere past Fairfax around 10pm, and noticed that the Borders was ablaze with lights. While we're not an overly spontaneous bunch, curiosity forced my father to pull into the parking lot so we didn't have to lay awake in our beds wondering what the heck had been going on.
Night makes otherwise ordinary occurances different.* In the Chemistry Auditorium during the day? Normal. Being in the Chemistry Auditorium at night (playing capture the flag)? Slightly naughty, a little exciting. A walk during the day? Normal. A walk at night? Romantic and/or Creepy. Balancing your checkbook during the day? Normal to the point of mundanity. Balancing your checkbook at night? well... a little pathetic, but at least I was watching Fletch while doing it. (don't judge me!)
So when an otherwise not-night store is open at night (unlike Harris Teeter- the most fun grocery store EVER), something odd is going down. Never were those words so apt as to describe the Borders that night.
After parking miles away from the store (minivans as far as the eye could see), we walked in on a Borders in a state of slightly organized chaos. Chaos in which many people wore funny hats and capes and other black or purple flowy clothing. I had not seen that many nerds in one place since Quiz Bowl Tournaments in High School (I admit it. I was not only on "It's Academic!", I was also President of my HS team. Laugh all you want, but do you know George Sands's real name? Or the order and method of death for all of Henry VIII's wives? I am masterful, bitches, and can crush you with the triviality of my immense knowledge. We're moving on.)
My parents and I gawked at the scene. Hopped up on sugar and the second wind of being up part their bedtimes, children ran amok screaming. Someone was regularly shouting into the store microphone that a) this was a midnight party for the latest Harry Potter book, b) different sections of the store had different events going on and c) would ____ ____'s parents please come and scoop up their tiny darling who was just destroying the "____ for Dummies" section. Borders employees were wheeling around dollies stacked high with the book, batting away people (a majority old enough to know better) trying to grab one.
Intrepid people that we are, we waded into the frenzy to see the extent of the madness. There was owl-cookie-decorating and pointy-hat-making and Hagrid-drawing galore. You could also stand around discussing the latin roots of the spell words if you wanted, but you had to really want it because once you made like you were at all interested, a nerd would grab you and with a crazed gleam in his eye, talk your ear off like his mother had forbidden talking about it while he was living in her house. The shouting over the microphone regularly reminded us that the costume contest in the back was for CHILDREN ONLY. Which was only fair, because the children had no attention to detail.
Past middle school, a nerd is often defined by a fanatical interest in something that it is not socially acceptable to be fanatically interested in. Usually something fantasy, or sci-fi- Dungeons and Dragons, Star Wars/Trek, or Lord of the Rings. (I argue that ppl who know sports statistics or the full cast lists of old movies or other obsessions are also nerds, but slightly more acceptable bc their obsession is related to something mainstream. Sci-fi or Fantasy is nerd to the core). With the publication of JK Rowling's books, a new nerd culture flourished. Those flourishing burst all over the Borders that night. The nerds were more excited than the children because they were among their kind. Each one was surrounded by people who also knew the burst of joy when realizing that "Diagon Alley" is really just diagonally broken in two, or who had ardent views on who should get togther: Hermione & Harry, or Hermione & Ron? And what about Krum? O, it was all too wonderful for the nerds. And the kids enjoyed it too.
This was all very amusing to us three bemused spectators, especially the near-fight between mothers over who's kid was a better Harry (my money was on the girl-Harry, if only because she had the glasses and the scar and other kid was just in a black graduation robe that pooled around his feet with a straight-ish stick) (also, girl-Harry's mom was small, but fierce).
My mother, who has not read the books and has never understood the whole Harry Potter obsession, turned to Dad and I and asked if we wanted to stick around to midnight and buy a book. But after a moment of consideration, we decided we could wait until 10am the next day. Or the day after that. After all, I'm proud of my nerd heritage, but I want to at least seem normal. And spending two hours listening to nerds talk about the intricacies of the plot-lines and their internet Ron-Hermione-'shipper fan-fic might totally blow my cover.
Tonight, the Barnes & Noble in town is having a Harry Party, but I don't think I'm going. If I've been to one, I can claim it was a fluke. Two, and I'll have to reregister at nerd headquarters. (and also because of the crime. White Plains is totally Yonkers-ing up, yo! It ain't safe!)
*(this equation doesn't work for everything- drinking during the day is less acceptable than drinking at night, same for eating dinner or sleeping).
On the Harry front, you gotta go watch this.
UPDATE:
Today I bought my HP book (I was walking past B&N on the way back from shopping, I swear) and even though I did not attend the midnight party, I still got the party pack. What's in this party pack, you ask? Why, I'll gladly tell you so that you can be green with envy:
- A cookie (option of sugar, chocolate chip or peanut butter) from the B&N cafe (actual cost: prolly $2)
- A poster of all the cover illustrations (which i promptly bent when tripping over the curb in front of the shopping center. A lovely woman from new jersey (at least that's what her accent and license plate said) stopped her car to help me up and apply bandaids to my scraped hands, so a special Ft. Awesome 21 (imaginary) gun salute goes out to the Garden State!)
- Some rockin' Harry Potter round ugly glasses without lenses (in case anyone needs them for a halloween costume)
- A green bracelet in the vein of Lance Armstrong's yellow bracelet that everyone wears. This one, instead of having an inspirational message enplasticed into it, just says "July 16, 2005" which will now forever go down in Julia history as the day the phrase "good samaritan" became "good new jerseyite."
- About 70 coupons, most of which are for cold stone creamery or ben and jerry's and therefore are complete useless to me as I hate ice cream from either place. Which is a really really good thing, because I already have an ass the size of south america.
- And last, but certainly not least, actually first in my book because I plan on using it the moment I stop writing this: a lightening bolt tattoo.
posted by julia at
9:10 PM
1 Comments:
That's your best post yet. I laughed continuously! -ck
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