(I’m a customer in this story. I’m wandering around a marketplace, having done my grocery shopping there. I have some time to kill when I spot some cute leggings with a cartoon motif from a popular kids’ cartoon which has also many adult fans, myself included. I approach the stall owner.)
Me: “What’s the largest size of these leggings?”
Stall Owner: *looks at me up and down* “Well… I’m afraid I won’t have yours.”
(Thank you, kind stall owner! Not many people acknowledge adult fans…)
I am pumping gas one day with my two little boys in the car and a yellow and black car pulls up behind us. My younger son immediately shouts with happiness that Bumblebee is behind us, in car mode. As I finish pumping gas, he asks if he can say hi to his favorite Transformer.
When I ask the owner if it would be okay if my son says hi, he smiles and agrees as he’s laughing. My four-year-old is shaking with happiness as he says hi to the car and then skips back to ours.
I thank the guy. My older son, who’s stayed silent for most of this, says the world isn’t all bad.
(My whole family is made up of geeks. My mom and sister “pass” as normal unless you find just the right topic, but the geekiness is still there. Mom doesn’t seem to see it that way, though, and insists she just indulges the rest of us. I’m talking to my mom about a convention a friend of mine and her brother went to that weekend.)
Me: “It’s the first time [Brother] has ever done a full weekend at a con because his wife just doesn’t get the appeal and begrudges the cost, but [Friend] brought him as a combination birthday/Christmas gift. [Brother]’s wife is, apparently, a total… well, [Friend] and I call them ‘muggles.’ — people with no connection or interest in nerd things at all who just don’t get it.”
Mom: *brightly* “Like me!”
Me: *after a pause* “Mom, you spend all year putting together your costume for your weekend-long Steampunk murder mystery LARP. You are not a muggle; you’re just niche.”
(Yes, I’m aware that the usage of “muggle” is common online and in my generation. My friend and I didn’t invent it. However, opening that can of worms with my mother would have derailed the conversation into speculation about linguistic shift, as it has done in the past. And I stand by my assessment. Mom used to pick situationally appropriate songs for her D&D bard to be singing and was the reason we used to get so many story modifiers on our bluff checks. No one who has proper opinions on the point in time when it becomes more effective to Aid Another rather than to try and hit the monster themselves should really be calling themselves a “muggle.”)
My brother is a huge Doctor Who fan and attended a local science fiction convention where one of the former Doctors was holding a symposium. To my brother’s dismay, the symposium filled up just as he arrived.
He was sitting on a bench in the convention hall, dejected, when he heard a woman say, “Oh, you don’t want to go to that! It’s boring! Hang around with me, instead!” He looked up to see the actress who played a popular female companion standing over him. She spent part of her day with him as they went around the convention together.
Whenever I become too cynical, I think about how Catherine Tate made sure a disappointed Doctor Who fan had the best day ever. Donna Noble truly is a hero!
(I work in a grocery store. We have a regular, a nice older gentleman, who I’m pretty sure isn’t all there.)
Me: “Hi! Do you have your shopper’s card with you today?”
Regular: “No, I left it at home with my lightsaber.”
(Almost always, I smile and laugh a bit. One day, I decide to change things up a bit.)
Me: “Hi! Do you have your lightsaber with you today?”
Regular: “No, George Lucas took it away from me.”
(He is definitely one of my favorite customers.)
