Once Upon a Geek

While on an eight-hour road trip with my wife, two children, and mother-in-law, this post sprung into my brain fully-formed.  It’s an excerpt from a job description for potential married geeks with children.

<<Excerpt>>

JOB DESCRIPTION

Position: Married Geek with Children

Section: Time Commitment

Applicant Prerequisites:

1. Applicant must have at least 25 years experience in geekery.  Interests to include (but not limited to): comic books; role-playing; video games; action figures; surfing the web; science fiction movies, TV, and novels; and movie/TV tie-in novels.
2. Applicants must be married to a non-geek.  Applicants whose spousal unit qualifies as a geek may be considered, however, several of the restrictions outlined below may not apply.
3. Applicants should have at least two children (some of which may be live-in step-children).  Applicants with only one child will be considered, however, until the number of children equal or exceed the number of parents the full-blown “children effect” is not as substantial.

Applicants must be willing to meet the following requirements:

Applicant is expected to give up most available geekery time.  Applicant must be willing to sacrifice geek-related activities in exchange for: chasing after children; helping with the dishes; bathing children; tucking children in bed; and all-around household chores.  Examples of lost geekery time include:

• Coming home after a long day at work, sitting down with an enormous bowl of Mac & Cheese and playing video games all night long. This will no longer be acceptable.
• Seeing geek-related movies on opening night in a sold-out movie theater.  Unless the spousal unit has a trusted babysitter, this is an activity for “remember when” discussions.
• Long leisurely visits to the comic book store will be infrequent going forward.  No more three hour discussions with comic shop employees as to who would win in a fight, Thor or Superman.  Applicant’s comic shop visits going forward will require careful planning and execution.  Economical usage of time is recommended; visit the comic book store during lunch hours, while out running errands for spousal unit, or take a few pico-seconds to stop by on the way home from work.  It’s recommended the applicants not take children to the comic shop unless the applicant wishes to spend the entire visit chasing the children or purchasing some outrageously over-priced action figure for the child.

“Alone Time” Addendum

“Alone Time” definition: The highly unusual instances (nearly mythical) in which the applicant find themselves without children, spousal unit, and/or personal/professional duties to perform.  Applicant must accept the only “alone time” they will have for the rest of their lives will most likely occur in one of the following places/circumstances:

1. In the bathroom - Whether it be using the toilet or taking a shower, this is one of the only times the applicant will be allowed to be alone.  Applicants are strongly recommended to read comic books or novels during toilet usage.  It may be the only time you get for reading the whole week.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by two-year old children banging on the bathroom door because they think it’s funny.
2. In the car - When not transporting children to or from daycare/school, the applicant may find themselves alone in the car.  Applicants are strongly recommended to use this time to their best advantage.  Recommended usage includes listening to applicant’s favorite songs, calling old geek friends who never hear from the applicant anymore, or listening to audio books/radio plays.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by the spousal unit calling on the cell phone.  Spousal units always seem to know when the applicant is alone in the car.  Said spousal units apparently believe it’s their duty to call the applicant simply because the applicant doesn’t have anyone to talk to in the car.  In order to maximize this infrequent “alone time”, it’s recommended the applicant not answer the cell phone, later claiming it was set to ”vibrate” and they didn’t notice.
3. After everyone goes to sleep - Once the children and spousal unit have fallen asleep, the applicant may find themselves with available time.  It’s highly recommended the applicant spend this time on the computer, watching TV, or reading comic books/novels.  Utilization of this “alone time”  may result in the applicant going to sleep at 2:30am.  Many applicants find the sacrifice of sleep in exchange for maintaining geek-cred to be worthwhile.  Warning: this “alone time” may be interrupted by sleep-walking eight year olds; two years suffering from night terrors; or spousal units awakening and confronting the applicant with questions like, “When are you coming to bed?” or “What are you doing up so late?”
4. Mother-in-law visits - This is the holy grail of “alone time”.  On rare occasion, the spousal unit will take the children to the mother-in-law’s place of residence for a visit.  If the mother-in-law lives out of town, these visits may include overnight arrangements.  Applicants are strongly recommended to make the best usage of this time.  Potential usages include: applicant hanging out with old geek friends they haven’t seen since they had children; going to geek-related movies; renting geek-related movies they missed in the theater while eating absurd amounts of bad Chinese take-out; and marathon comic book reading sessions/video game playing sessions.  Warning: applicants that are fortunate enough to experience “alone time” as a result of a Mother-in-law visit should prepare themselves for the resulting application of “guilt-trip 1.0″.  The “guilt-trip 1.0″ application will be initiated by the spousal unit because the applicant didn’t travel to the Mother-in-law’s residence with the spousal unit.  It’s recommended the applicant allow the application of ”guilt trip 1.0″ to run it’s course, but simply purge any resulting emotions once the discussion is complete.  WARNING: If the spousal unit detects compatibility errors with ”guilt trip 1.0″, it may diminish the frequency of future Mother-in-law visits.

<<End Excerpt>>

This excerpt was simply the section on “Time Commitment”.  Other sections include, “Financial Impact of Children and Spousal Unit on Available Geekery Funds”, ”It Really is Wonderful to Have Children… Seriously”, and “Conversational Geek”.  In the “Conversational Geek” section you’ll learn things like:

• Encouraging your children to refer to automobile acceleration as ”warp speed” or “hyperspace”.
• The challenges of explaining to a small child why Batman and Spider-Man will never team-up in a movie.
• If you find yourself explaining to your non-geek spouse the Star Trek timeline in regard to the original series, Next Generation, and Enterprise … you must realize they aren’t listening; they are just humoring you.

If you have any further documentation for this job description, please feel free to share!

And so my daughter’s TRUE education continues this week with a new toy.  You may recall a few weeks ago I did a post about my daughter’s new educational toys.  Well, this new one goes hand-in-hand with the educational value of those. 

I just love these figures!  They’re adorable!

Now if they’d only release a Wonder Woman.  I’d like my daughter to have some action figures that represent strong female role models.  Somehow I doubt they’ll make a Black Canary figure for this line.  Fishnets and a thong just don’t scream kid-friendly.

Maybe I’ll see if I can find a Storm figure from the Spider-Man & Friends line.

When you are raising a very young child, you always want to keep a few things in mind when purchasing toys. First, you want to be sure the toy is safe. Second, you should ensure some of their toys have educational value. When I say educational value, I don’t mean academic education, like “book smarts”. I mean real life, need-to-know, common sense kind of education. Y’know, the kind of stuff that people really use in life. In the pursuit of giving my 2 year old daughter the best upbringing, I made it my mission to get fun, safe, and truly educational toys. I believe I’ve reached the pinnacle of that mission. Sadly, from here on out I believe I’ve “jumped the shark” when it comes to vitally important teaching toys.

I proudly present my daughters new educational toys…

From here we’ll begin educating her on some important principles that will guide her throughout life. These toys can teach her important things such as:

• Truth, Justice and the American Way.

• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

• Criminals are a Superstitious, Cowardly Lot.

• It’s Against My Programming to Impersonate a Deity.

and most importantly …

• Together We Can Rule the Galaxy as Father and Daughter!

It’s very gratifying when you can educate the youth of today on truly important matters.