Basement Chronicles

Of Billiards and Balderdash

"You are the perfect drug"

Last week I saw the worst thing ever. After a longish day trundling along in the Arizona heat, I make my way back to the parking garage where Zac had parked his truck. We carpool twice a week, but even though he gets out before me I somehow end up waiting for him. This day's reason was that he was playing pool at the Memorial Union, ASU's version of a student center, except made near inaccessible by 50k students flocking to the prospect of a social scene and fast food.

He was nice enough to leave a message on my cell phone telling me this so that I wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the car. Apparently, my cell phone no longer informs me of phone calls, nor does it signal in any way that I have new voicemails. So naturally, I make my awkward little way through the sidestreets of downtown Tempe after perusing the latest Chuck Palahniuk selection at Border's. I end up waiting 20 minutes. I beat my Tetris high score. I clean up my contacts list. I even put in a reminder to scare the shit out of me a day before I take my next physics test.

Then I decide to change my personal greeting on my phone. You know, something witty. Something funny. Something more exciting than sitting in a parking garage with nothing but car alarms and searing heat to keep you company.

So I dial my voicemail.

"Hey, this is Josh, leave a message"

Pretty standard. But too quick for my non-dextrous fingers to press the bypass button to access my messages. I call back again, fully prepared now to think up something new and exciting.

"You have ONE new voice messages."

Damn. I listen to it. He's at the MU. I'm 20 minutes walking distance way. Oh well. Nothing better to do. So I trek back. I time it just right so I don't have to stop when crossing the street. I turn 20 minutes into 15 minutes. I cackle inwardly.

Finally, downstairs at the MU I find Zac playing pool with a guy from his biology class finishing up a game.

Then I see it. Or rather, sense it. A disturbance in the force. A whisper of a nameless evil. A cold wind, a murky shadow just out of the corner of your vision. You hear a pounding, like a husky 19-year old with bad acne jumping up and down on a tortured plastic platform. Then you hear the deafening crescendo of J-pop clawing at your very soul. The sweat from the walk freezes to your skin as your turn, slowly, ever so slowly, so as not to startle them.

DDR Nerds.

The most horrific of the geek phylum. So fiendishly twisted that Time Crisis 3 pathetically burns "INSERT COIN(S)" into its dust collector of a screen. So cruelly warped their acrid scent only attainable from hours of video game exertion fills the entire pool hall. So MONSTROUSLY SECURE that nobody would invade their domain that they leave their poor little Dell laptops unlocked while they spend a good 30 minutes trying to perfect that one special move.

And also, devoid of common sense. Trying to play pool they just sat by while we near poked them in a freakin' eye with our pool cues while numerous seating arrangements existed elsewhere. But no...while they are not "dancing" their young lives away, they must observe their brethren, carefully calculate their threat to their high score, and formulate a plan to trip them up in their moment of triumph. Or else, stand behind the current player and ghost their moves, "practicing" for their turn.

It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. And to make matters worse, there were girls in the group.

If that's what it takes to get girls, then hear me, right here and now.

Fuck that. Its not worth it.

There are rules to being a geek. And DDR nerds break every single one.

Needless to say, Zac made sure that they would find "I'm gay" written lovingly in Paint for their desktop, as computer vandalism should be.

Leaving school that day, I felt somehow better about life knowing what its like on the other side. The dimmer side of the geek spectrum. And that I'm no part of it.