If you speak Klingon, chances are you’re a nerd

Nobody wants to be a nerd. And nobody, not even a slide-rule-using-electrical-tape-on-the-glasses-plaid-pants-white-shoes-wearing goofball, wants to think of himself as a nerd.

I’m not sure how nerds got such a bad rap. Sure, in high school they didn’t get to date the hot cheerleaders, but so what? Most guys don’t. Nerds are – traditionally – bad in sports. Again, so what? The captain of my high school’s football team – circa 1976 – went on to play a little college ball, dropped out, and spent the rest of his adult life driving a waste pickup truck.

Bill Gates, on the other hand, owns Microsoft. Who got the last laugh there?

If not for nerds, there would be no personal computers, no cell phones, no graphing calculators (which supplanted slide rules in the pockets of nerds everywhere), no sci-fi conventions, no “Revenge of the Nerds” movies (which, after the first one, might not be such a bad thing, actually), no Scientific American magazine, no Al Gore … you get the idea. The world’s a richer place for nerds.

Yet nobody seems to want to be one, myself included.

This makes it all the harder to admit, that I am, in fact, a nerd. I know, I know … I seem to be the veritable embodiment of cool, right? Right? Anyway, it turns out I’m not. I’m a nerd.

I came by this realization a few weeks back during a conversation with a co-worker. The topic was, not surprisingly, that unassailable touchstone of nerd-dom, epitome of spazzishness, the geek Bible … I’m talking, of course, about Star Trek. The original television series, with Captain James T. Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy.

I’ve been watching Star Trek since I was a kid, when I would sprint all the way home from St. Isadore’s Catholic School to catch re-runs on my parents black-and-white TV. In the years since, I have seen every episode about a million times.

At this point, I’m pretty sure I could perform a Vulcan mind meld, if I really had to. (If you have no idea what a Vulcan mind meld is, congratulations! Chances are you are not a nerd. Feel free to go to the back of the class and play cards while we geeks figure out a way to map the human genome using only pocket calculators.)

Anyway, the aforementioned co-worker and I shared bits from our favorite episodes, series trivia (The “T” in James T. Kirk stands for “Tiberius,” but everybody knows that) and discussed the ramifications of warp drive from a physics perspective. It was while we were arguing over the possibility – or impossibility – of traveling faster than light that I experienced my “nerd epiphany.”

The Lovely Mrs. Taylor – who has never seen an episode of Star Trek, never used a slide rule, and never worn a Hawaiian shirt – has for years been trying to tell me, gently, that I am, in fact, a nerd. I never believed her.

But here was the proof. In addition to knowing that “T” is for “Tiberius,” I know that the first Vulcan mind meld was performed by Mr. Spock on a “Horta.” I know that Martin Landou (Mission Impossible) was originally offered the role of Mr. Spock. I know that Captain Kirk never actually said, “Beam me up, Scotty,” not in any episode.

In short, I know far too much about Star Trek not to be a nerd.

Driving home from the office, I got thinking about other things I enjoy, things that might verify or, better yet, disprove my nerd stature. The list was not encouraging.

I read Scientific American and Discover magazines. I own every book ever written by Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. I go to the planetarium at least once a year, and don’t get stoned beforehand. I have a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone and I sometimes use it in public.

I guess I wouldn’t so much mind being a nerd, if I were better at it. But I’m strictly a plebe nerd. Prod it though I may, my brain refuses to understand any math more complicated than a checkbook register, and even that sometimes hurts my head. I’ve read Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time,” but everything from Newton on might as well have been written in Sanskrit, for all the understanding I got out of it. My last real math class was ninth grade algebra, and I only passed that because Mr. Papke felt sorry for me.

So, not only am I a nerd, I’m the lowest kind of nerd, the “not smart” kind. I’m the nerd who’s enthralled by the realization that “God” spelled backwards is “Dog.”

I wonder if it’s too late for me to get on the football team.

To contact Mike Taylor with your questions, comments, or arguments in favor of using a shuttlecraft instead of a transporter when visiting alien worlds, e-mail mtaylor325@gmail.com or write via snail mail to: Mike Taylor, c/o Valley Media, Inc., PO Box 9, Jenison, MI 49429. Miss a week? More Reality Check online at http://realitycheck.shoutpost.com.