Attn: Will Smith - Parents DO Understand

Allegedly, this blog is about dating (and living with) your very own nerd.  I say allegedly, because I'm the blog's author, and this is only the sixth post.  Seriously people, do you think Community knew what it was about six episodes in?

This may be the opportunity to highlight (and call out) the people who trained me to live with a nerd: MY NERDY PARENTS!

I never knew how much dear old mom and dad were preparing me for this cohabitation.  But I lived with them full-time for 18 years, and a few unofficial years after that, and I feel as if I'm more equipped as a result.

My mother is a two time Jeopardy! champion.  She knows the first line of every song ever written, and has this super annoying custom of singing a song that "relates" to anything you say.  [Sidebar: I say that it's super annoying mostly because I too have this habit, but I want my songs to last longer than a line.]  My mother is also a badass RN who has the highly disturbing habit of finding gross things to be awesome.  Never tell the woman that you may have a sinus infection unless you want several emails containing photos of the insides of people's faces.  ("It's so cool!  That's probably what your nose looks like!")

My mother also happens to be a bitchin' hippie chick lady who loves earth tones, Peter, Paul & Mary, and the beach.  Which is why when I really think of my nerdly up-bringing, I think of:

My dad.

Guys.  My dad.  When I was eight, my dad tried to teach me to solve for X in a homework problem.  I cried.  I then took it to school and my teacher laughed at my feeble tiny-brained attempt to understand algebra.  My mom eventually banned my father from homework help.  I don't want to give it all away, because I feel I have approximately 30 thousand more blogs with the theme of my dad being a nerd.  Not just a nerd, but my best nerd, and my first nerd.  

Neil deGrasse Tyson (in the running for New York City's greatest ever nerd) recently tweeted this simulated slide rule.  Don't worry, I was born in the Eighties and I'm not still not entirely certain of this tool's purpose.  But I included the link in a text to my dad.

My father responded with the subject line "UNsimulated".  The body of the email contained only the text, "The REAL thing!!" and this picture:

If you're going to take away anything from this post, take this: my father is a man who had a slide rule (obviously).  And a man who is proud of his slide rule (slightly less obvious?).  But more than that, he is a man who has his slide rule so readily accessible that he can send his daughter a picture of it in less than thirteen minutes.