About two years ago my husband and I went to the electronics store to purchase a DVD burner and an iPod. He sent me to find the iPod, and went off in search of the DVD burner himself. I personally know nothing about electronics, but I memorized everything he told me to ask for, and I figured that I could lean heavily on the approach to male salespeople known as ” The Damsel In Distress.”

Unfortunately, I was in for a very rude awakening. Apparently guys who work in electronic stores are completely oblivious to damsels in distress.

(Important Side Note: The other group this doesn’t work on is Other Women. Say, for example, that you go to a dinner party at a friend’s house. And say that once you’re there you locate a guy and decide to focus your “Please rescue me!” energy on him. The guy may very well want to ride to your rescue, but he won’t have the chance to do anything about it. Because you will be dead. Because the woman to whom the guy belongs will have stabbed you in the face with her salad fork. But, I digress.)

So one day I was recounting this story to a friend of ours, with special emphasis on the fact that while I, personally, was passed over by at least three salespeople, the moment that my husband began walking towards me clerks flew over from all corners of the store, and were falling all over themselves to help him. (And yes, I am bitter.)

When I was done with my story our friend replied, “Well I know exactly why that happened. It’s because you don’t have enough nerd points.”

(Another Important Side Note: This is the same friend who, when told that I had become a Certified Life Coach responded by declaring that the entire profession of coaching is a made-up job.

My husband tried to mediate this little “misunderstanding” one day, and so he asked our friend, “Well, didn’t you ever wonder who you are, or why you’re here, or what you’re supposed to do with your life?”

And our friend replied, “Well, yeah. But then I turned ten, and I decided to become an engineer, and I was fine.”)

While on the one hand I was a little afraid to pursue this, I was also too curious not to find out at least a little more. And so, even though I suspected that I was about to open A Big Giant Can Of Worms, I asked him if there was anything I could do to increase my nerd points.

Our friend: Of course. For starters, have you named your computer yet?

Me (Yep. This was a really bad idea.): Um, what?

Our friend: Your computer. Have you named it yet? And if you want to earn a lot of nerd points, you can give your wireless network a theme, and then give all the computers on your network a name related to that theme.

Me (Hold me. I’m scared.)

For some reason (possibly the fact that I am Cripplingly Competitive) I just could not get this idea of earning more nerd points out of my head. So ever since then I have been excited to participate in activities that I thought might earn me some extra points (which just ought to tell you a WHOLE lot about me right there.)

And then one day I found this quiz that would tell you your nerd score, and I was so excited! Had I not just spent the last two years doing everything in my power to achieve an insanely high nerd rating? I’m gonna blow this quiz away!

Ha.

Here are my results:

All that effort, and I am only lightly nerdy. Of course, I blame the test.

Were there any questions on there about being able to differentiate between Klingons, Romulans, and their respective space craft? No. Or any points even just for being a girl and still watching Star Trek? Nope. Or any questions about the fact that, despite attending a liberal arts college and majoring in literature and languages, you were somehow able to figure out all by yourself how to turn a recording into an MP3 file and upload it to your website? Nothing.

So clearly, this test was flawed. Because it consisted mainly of asking you to identify pictures of scary looking, deceased old guys, and math. And math? And I? Are Not Friends.

Because truly, when it all comes down, there is really only one question a person needs to answer to determine their Nerdiness Quotient:

“Have you, at any time, ever participated in any activity, including the taking of this quiz, with the sole intention of increasing your ‘nerd points’?”

If no: Congratulations! You have a life.

If yes: Well, dude, that’s just kind of sad.

being a nerd, damsel in distress, engineers, My Mind Works in Mysterious Ways, Tech NO, technology, Using My Powers