Nerd Nerd Nerd Fame Nerd Nerd

Before I get into this post, may I just wave a big hello to the drug store post office guy I spoke to yesterday. Hello Post Office Guy! Take no offense at what you are about to read!

Yesterday was Wednesday, which meant that, if I mailed a card by the end of the day at the post office, my mother might just get her Mother's Day card on Friday, which meant that I might not get a replay of how all of her friends' children had sent them cards, called them, made them supper, taken them out to dinner, and had otherwise been attentive children, but, oh no, not that this reflects on you, dear.

If you did not notice, that was not a real sentence. Continue not to notice that. Thank you.

Not to say that I would not acknowledge my mother on Mother's Day, which Hallmark has made such a great day for spending and guilt by absentia, but I am not all that good with remembering these sorts of things. I am hard-pressed to remember the Palinode's birthday, Canada Day, or my paternal grandfather's death (which occurred on Halloween, and which I attended. How hard is that?), so I feel that I should be forgiven for being a little less than punctual due to my natural inability to remember numbers on an artificially imposed calendar system.

So, I amazed myself and, in the near future, my mother, by purchasing a Mother's Day card, writing a note inside it, and being at the post office to mail it in time. I felt proud and grown-up and on top of things, in general, until I walked up to the post office counter.

Hello, Post Office Guy (aka POG) said.

Hello, I said back.

I found your blog, POG said.

Gah.

I love having a weblog. I love writing for a weblog. Within the world of weblogs, I think I am doing pretty well. Key words: WITHIN THE WORLD OF WEBLOGS. I do not know why it sounds strange in regular, non-internet life, but when someone approaches me in public and voices the words your blog in front of other people, I suddenly feel like the biggest nerd who ever nerded. In fact, I feel like a nerd who has been singled out as a nerd out loud in a public nerding out that makes me feel nerdy. When they say I found your blog, they may as well say I found your YOU ARE A NERD.

So, POG said that he found my blog in front of a small line up consisting of the guy behind me, and the guy behind me smirked, and the floor wowed beneath my feet. Such is public nerd-dom. The floor will not actually swallow you. Instead, you will want it to swallow you, and then it will promise to swallow you when it dips beneath your feet, but then it won't, because you are a nerd, and if you can be a nerd at the post office, you can be a nerd anywhere. Fuck.

You're Smootsie, Smatzie, Schmootie? Smutsy? Schmootsee?

I raised an eyebrow.

Schmetzie? Schmutzie? POG finally hit on the pronunciation, which few people get right: shmuht'sē.

I nodded along while trying to look like this had nothing to do with me.

Guy behind me? Still smirking. Fucker. I could feel someone spelling out NERD with a laser pointer across the back of my head.

So, I paid for my stamp, and I tried to balance out the scale of Fame (I have been recognized in public) versus Nerd (I have been recognized in public because of my blog) in my head as I left the drug store. By the time I hit the anti-theft security gates at the door, I came up Nerd Nerd Nerd Fame Nerd Nerd.

Damn.

Still, there was that public recognition bit. Not bad. Despite the smirking you-are-such-a-blog-nerd smirking guy. I bet his claim to fame is no-one's-told-me-my-bald-patch-is-way-obvious, which neither fits neatly on a t-shirt nor is quick to type, so there's that.

So, POG? Don't feel bad. You put the Fame in Nerd Nerd Nerd Fame Nerd Nerd.

Labels: the here and now