My favorite Bingo number is I-21. It's the only number that, when I call it, is a complete and completely truthful sentence. Every time I see its face on the little ball in my hand, I imagine all of the Bingo players in front of me asking my age. And then, as dramatically as possible, I yell out, "I 21."
I was thinking about that on Saturday, as I played Bingo at Hanover Terrace, trying to figure out any other fun numbers to say. After the game, I told the residents about my (now healed) pinkeye, my broken computer and my classes. And I accepted that I was being a huge nerd.
Thus, I felt quite strong -- but quite mixed -- feelings when I got home and learned that this is the week of the Annual Dartmouth College Geek Awards (held yesterday, Tuesday, as a matter of fact).
My initial reaction was sheer excitement and joy, for surely no one is more worthy of a Geek Award than I am. But then the sadness struck; I hadn't received any invitations or notifications or nominations. Somehow I'd been forgotten, ignored by the geek judges, the head geeks who must have planned the program.
I don't know how I could have been skipped. I don't hide my geekiness. I don't pretend to be cool. I embarrass myself in class. I will hang out in the library. I will eat in dining halls by myself. I wear pants and a coat even when it's hot out. And I don't work out.
All of that in mind, I started to think that maybe I was still in the running, maybe the nominations were kept secret, maybe I still had a chance. So mysterious and intriguing, the Geek Awards took over my thoughts and plans for the week.
I wondered if the guy I see everywhere (and affectionately refer to as the bird guy because he's always flying down some pathway) would be there. Or maybe the guy who dresses exclusively in corporate casual apparel would be receiving an award. Or pretty much any of my friends.
If I were in charge of the Geek Awards, I would create a Font Award for the person who knew the most about computer fonts, or maybe just the person who talked about fonts the most. (This is the award I would most like to win. And I would like the certificate to be printed in either Garamond or Capelli.)
As I stewed over the possibilities, I planned to give one of my best geek friends the Word Award (perhaps to be offered in a similar category as the Font Award). Though he often shines as a general trivia master, he's most well-known for his Scrabble dominance; he reads books about professional players and even convinces his friends to play the game, though we act only as pawns as he showcases raw talent.
In fact, this friend and I were perhaps in the running for Geekiest Pair this weekend as we spent all Friday and Saturday morning gearing up for the Not-For-Profit Career Fair. We were ready to go, dressed in our career-getting outfits and eager to be the first in line.
Naturally, we arrived in the Hop right at 11 a.m., only to realize that we'd misread the signs and missed the small print, which specified that the actual fair didn't begin until 1:30 p.m. The panel, as everyone else had figured out, was the morning event. (True geeks, of course, are not actually smart; we can't handle intricacies like small print.)
Distraught and disappointed, we passed up the chance for a nice lunch or a walk in the beautiful fall weather. We just went home to complain. And the frequent retelling of this frantically upsetting Saturday is what eventually made me check the Geek Award advertisement once again (in case of small print). You know what? It's not the Geek Awards at all. It's the Greek Awards.
Of course. I don't know how I could have been so silly, so nerdy, so inherently geeky as to assume Dartmouth College would offer an awards ceremony for dorks and weirdos. And thank God I figured this out in time. I was ready to invite all of my fellow geeks to check it out, to form a little cheering section for the award winners.
Still, I can't help feeling a little sad, a little wistful. I liked the idea of Dartmouth putting together an awards ceremony to celebrate the outcasts, the unusuals, the library-dwellers and the all-purpose dorks. We might actually form a pretty fun group: me, Bird Guy, Corporate Casual, my Scrabble friend and anyone else who wants to come.
Indeed, there's a little geek in all of us, but there's only Greek in fewer than half of us. So maybe we should take the initiative to start up some Geek Awards. Or maybe I should just start reading the small print on signs, and save myself and everyone else all of this trouble (while possibly finding a career -- not-for-profit, of course -- in the process).
