Nerding Out - Squared

"What, dear father, are you talking about? Look at this. LOOK." I violently pound the computer screen with my finger.

"Hey, don't touch-" Dad flicks my hand.

"Gaaahhhh, stop it." I flick him back.

"Do you have to touch everything?"

"Yes. Okay, seriously, THE LAST UNICORN is being made into a graphic novel and Peter S. Beagle is going to be there."

My dad shakes his head. "Chick stuff."

"Oh. Em. Eff. Gee. The Last Unicorn is one of the GREATEST STORIES EVER TOLD."

"Is not. You're delusional."

"Is so, and...you're bad at parenting."

"Stupid movie."

"Is not."

"You know, the biggest regret of my life is introducing you to movies. You waste all of your time on garbage."

"Worst dad ever. Can't you just support what I love?"

"Maybe if you tried loving something else."

"What, like The White Shadow? 'I'll be behind you every step of the way like a white shadow' or whatever? Come on."

He laughs. "Okay, that show great, okay? Great."

"Neil Gaiman's going to be there."

"Great." (Great is an oddly spelled word, don't you think?)

I squint at him. "You think Mr. Graham could get us tickets for the Kick Ass premiere?"

"Honey, I don't think I have that much pull with him."

"Pssssh, don't hurt to ask."

"No, really, I just don't feel comfortable asking. And with Jamie, it does hurt to ask. Guys are asking him for favors all the time. And I'm on his good side and I want to keep it that way, okay? And that's the end of that." My dad has been buying comics from Mr. Graham for like 25 years. I used to board comics at his store back when I was like ten or eleven while my dad helped him with accounting stuff, and Mr. Graham would slip me scandalously-packaged candy and overstocked comics.

And that is why I crave Devil Girl chocolate bars whenever people talk about Excalibur. Which is like, you know. All the time. I mean, just yesterday I overheard my coworkers reminiscing about the good old days when Shadowcat and had a pet spacedragon and lived in Great Britain with Nightcrawler and that freak parallel-universe girlspawn of Jean-and-Scott.

Okay, actually? They were discussing Precious, and I tuned them out because that movie looks stupid. I did not tell them it looked stupid, not outright. But they made the mistake of asking my opinion, which I gave uninhibited. I should really know by now that when I don't care about something everyone is fucking personally offended.

You'd think I ran over their baby with a lawnmower or something.

When some people hear that you don't care about something they love, they mortar corners in your wake and rip your stance ad hominem. After awhile, you begin to associate That Thing You Didn't Care About In The First Place with nothing but anger and fightin' words, which evolves into hate just because of rabid packs of fans who erroneously attribute words like "awesome" to things that are super mediocre (I'm looking at you, Dave Matthews Band and Avatar and Dan Brown and Ryan Gosling and 3D movies).

Perhaps, and I don't know if this has ever gotten through your oatmeal-and-shreddy-hambone retardo skulls, but perhaps you and I just have different opinions. This is fucking America. We're allowed opinions. Oh, everyone except for you. Because your opinion, by the way, is dumb.

Back at the ranch after my long, long digression:

"I guess I understand," I mope to my dad, "but you're still lame." (I almost forgot how this all started).

Basically Mr. Graham got my dad like superbackstagepasses for this thing. At first I was afraid of being not quite fangirl enough to go, but I'm geeking out over Chicago's first big comic convention.



I am a superdork.

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