They say our love is wrong. They say something must be wrong with me, that's just a phase and that it'll all change once I meet the right woman. But they don't understand that what we have is beautiful and that I'm happy. I'm not ashamed of it anymore, and I want to say it loud and proud: I am a man, and I am in love with my new Motorola Droid.
Maybe that makes me a geek. I'm not afraid to admit that I am, despite that we now live in a world that is so vehemently anti-geek. Even as companies and learning institutions expand their web presence, I am still forced to put away my laptop in my classes by the e-Stalins of the Geneseo educational system. I'm not the only geek being persecuted.
Kevin T. Singer, a red-blooded geek whose only crime was intentionally bludgeoning his sister's boyfriend to death with a sledgehammer in 2002, lost his appeal Monday to be allowed to play Dungeons & Dragons in prison.
Singer, who has been a life-long fan of the fantasy game, was shocked when officials at Wisconsin's Waupun prison banned the game in 2004 because they were concerned that it promoted gang-related activity. That's right: they were concerned that Singer and the three other inmates he played with were forming a gang. I'm actually flattered that they think we're dangerous. If that's what makes a gang, my mother's basement must have been a crack den.
If they think we're pimply animals, I say we give them what they want. Let's be as bad as we can be. We have to start dealing antihistamines on the street corners, running numbers (on our calculators), and selling "oops insurance," if you catch my drift. As in, "It'd sure be a real shame if that new laptop of yours got a virus."
Then and only then will the masses see that they need us. Not because we fix their computers, not because we drive the economy with our purchases of DVD box sets and retainer cases, but because we are human beings just like everyone else. Unless we're Cylons, but that's an issue for another day.