But... he's the ship's black man. Surely they didn't realize the ramifications of making him also the buffoon?

He also stole and boned the white dude's chick.

Tacoma Mall, I want to say 1999-ish? Certainly pre-9/11.

I'm wandering around blankly with a friend, both of us are in pretty much the last few months in our home town and likely to never see each other again, and we are enjoying a summer's day in an air conditioned mall. We've gone through literally all the stores twice, sampled the See's Chocolates several times, and we're at last in the knife and cigar store, for no real reason other than that it's there. Neither of us smoked and neither of us had any real interest in knives. However, it was, at that moment in time, cemented in my mind by the following incident, a weird moment between childhood and adulthood, realizing the fuzzy grey area between the trivial fancies of boyhood and whatever the hell else I'm supposed to be doing now that my balls have dropped.

As we turn to leave the store, the archetypical cheesy-yeasty-smell, trenchcoat, acne, t-shirt with an anime character on it nerd walks in, and walks up to the counter, and asks "Do you have my Klingon glaive yet?" The clerk, apparently having seen this kid before, and this question becoming a nuisance, says, "Yes, we have it, and I've told you before, I can't sell it to you until you're 18 or your parent or guardian is here and buys it for you."

The nerd SQUEALS, a high pitched piggy noise, and SCREAMS, "I TOLD YOU I'D BE EIGHTEEN TODAY, I WANT MY KLINGON GLAIVE." The clerk says "Fine, do you have any ID?" The kid starts crying. Bawling. He falls on the floor in a heap, and my friend and I are just standing there, staring at the situation. Genuine autistic freak out. Eventually security comes, and drags him out, and the guard asks "Is he with you?" and we said no. But the autistic, he looked at us, whimpering, "Right guys? Right? You know I'm 18?"

To this day I don't know what to think about it. I don't know if he actually thought we would come to his side or if he was trying to taint us with his nerd stink to come to his rescue. I have long wondered if he ever got his glaive.

Unveiling the Bat'leth

"IT'S TAPE."

Five for you, cog. Enjoyable reading. Hopefully we've come to the end of celebrating nerd-chic and may be swinging back to seeing it as it truly is.

An extra five for cognitive. I love stories like that, for some reason.

more stars for CD

Way better than my Highlander fan in the dojo story! Five!

*****

I'm imagining a scene where Worf is in some Klingon weapons store, and the clerk stonewalls him all "These blades are for Klingon hands only." And Worf gets angry and starts yelling "I am Worf, son of Mogh!" but the clerk just sneers, then Riker comes up and says "You heard the man, Worf." and cuts in front of him and buys a bat'leth.

YES.

2 1/2 for cognitivedissonance, 2 1/2 for Syd.

Worfs will cut you wide open.