Confessions of a High School Geek

Brayden Krell

I'm a geek. There's no two ways about it. If there ever was a contest for "most geekiest geek in geekdom..." I wouldn't be third. I wouldn't be second. I would be first.

I was the last of a dying breed.

Sure there were plenty of wannabes out there...yeah, that one threw me off. There are actually people out there who wanna "be", nerds.

I think it started with Harold Ramis. You know, the guy in Ghostbusters who couldn't ever quite make it up to muster, until he saved everyone's ass and seduced the woman of his dreams (also a geek.)

Or maybe it started with Captain James T. Kirk. (Shatner, not Chris Pine)

If you ask anybody, they'd tell you that Kirk was no nerd. He was a suave womanizer, capable of setting his phasers to lust, faster than you could say "Romulan warbird"

If you asked me; (though I can't imagine you'd have any inclination to do so), I'd tell you that he was the best of us few nerds in existence.

I mean let's face it...Who else would be willing to jump around in a bright yellow leotard all day? Who else would assume that his Japanese pilot was a master of Karate? Who else would part his hair to the side, and...speak...in...pauses? I'm sorry, but these things all speak NERD to me.

Believe you me, if anyone was in a position to judge...it was Gerald Harrison Smith (that's me, by the way.)

So, with all the Star Trek reruns and conventions I could be paying attention to...With the upcoming animated Ghostbusters 3 that I could be googling...you might reasonably ask why I'm writing this.

The truth is; like any honest-to-god Nerd (with a capital N), I have an undying love for a woman far beyond my reach. She is in fact, so far out of my league that I'm not even sure we're playing the same sport. If my nerd buddies asked me which base I was on, I'd have to tell them I didn't even make the team.

It was pathetic, but that was in my nature. Hey, don't look at me like that. I have expectations to live up to.

I once spoke to her, (her name's Claire, by the way) and the conversation lasted about four seconds. Just long enough to tell her that I liked the socks she was wearing. Even my geeky buddies chortling in the corner had to cringe at that one, and they themselves were about as suave as Barney the dinosaur. An awkward silence passed over the cafeteria. My comrades sipped their apple juice in trepidation...

Somehow, my words and the voice with which I spoke them had managed to carry across the cafeteria. As a general rule; whenever things couldn't possibly be more painfully awkward, it always was.

Those were the rules of the jungle and make no mistake, high school is a jungle.

First and foremost...You had the jocks/funny guys. They were the kings. Indisputably, the very height of the food chain. If you had rippling biceps; a six-pack and/or a rapier wit, there was no doubt where you would stand...right in the middle of a crowd of girls.

Then you went down, down, down, and down. At the very bottom, you would find us. The nerds. The geeks. The pen-pushers. Well...

Not quite the bottom, actually.

Even further below us, were what were strictly known as "the gremlins"

These were the strange, twitchy sort of kids that you didn't dare approach, least they start frothing at the mouth and bite your kneecaps or something.

They were scary. I'd pick a fight with a jock over these guys any day. At least my chances of getting rabies were lower, when all I had to worry about was a pair of hammy fists.

It was alarming to think that they were lurking around the school, so we remained vigilant. They were rarely seen, and when they were...

Well, few students have lived long enough to tell the tale.

Though we weren't socially acceptable, we weren't the subject of much speculation. In fact, we weren't the subject of any speculation. That's what made us nerds.

It was fine by me. I had long since resigned to it, but if I could change anything...it would be my chances with Claire.

She had red-orange hair... I've heard it said, that the hair is everything. Some men feel an irresistible pull toward curly, flowing locks. Others dug straight and shoulder-length hair. Then there were the colors. Blonde, brunette, ginger and everything in between. It was like 31 flavors at Baskin Robbins.

She had a slim figure, and the most gorgeous blue eyes this side of Yavin 4. High-cheek bones and a little ski-jump nose. Her pink complexion only did more to enhance what was already sheer, unadulterated perfection.

So I approached her that day in the cafeteria, with my lunch tray. A little carton of milk, a little plate of spaghetti. With a side order of total embarrassment, please. My original intent had been to ask her to the upcoming dance. I had been urged, poked and prodded in the way that annoying friends do (well, we all call them annoying but in reality...you wanted them to bug you about it.)

I was the Millennium Falcon to your A-Wing Star Fighter. Clunky, awkward and clueless. I approached my target (arming photon torpedoes), and zeroed in for the kill.

But at the last moment, everything went haywire. Panic set in. Alarm bells were ringing. Utter pandemonium!

"Hi... Claire." (Insert nervous laugh here)

She smiled reluctantly. "Hi."

"I..." My jaw started flapping like a fish out of water. "I..." She raised her eyebrows in that quirky little way of hers. "Would you..." Mayday, Mayday! Houston, we have a problem! "I like your socks."

They were kinda cute. Little white ankle socks, with hearts on them.

Silence.

Oh boy...

"Um...thanks?" She said with another reluctant smile. How reluctant, you ask? Well, on a scale of 1 to mortified, she was definitely pushing absolutely horrified.

Crash and burn! I was done. I was toast. The vultures were going to start circling the bloated carcass of what little was left of my social life, any moment now.

Just then, there was chaos in the far corner of the room. Agonized screaming. Everyone's heads turned in unison, from my feeble impersonation of Casanova. (I mean really..."I like your socks" what kind of pickup line is that? Tom Cruise MIGHT be able to pull it off, but I hadn't a snowball's chance in hell.)

My embarrassment turned to horror, as I realized what the screams were about. A jock screamed in agony, thrashing about and crushing a Japanese exchange student to death.

"GREEEEEMMMMLLLLIINNSSS!" He shouted, as they swarmed over him.

There were many of them, and suddenly I knew what King Leonidas must have felt like as he rallied his 300 men, against the Persian Immortals. Except I wasn't a king. I wasn't a chiseled, bad-ass Spartan, and I didn't have 299 chiseled, bad-ass Spartans standing behind me. No. Instead; I had five pencil-jockeys who had all just wet their pants, and a humiliated Claire, who watched the chaos in a kind of horrid fascination.

They spread out through the cafeteria, muttering insanely as they cut a swath through the multitudes. One of them leaped on Claire, and she cried out. Her kneecaps were in danger of being nibbled.

I had to save her.

I took my lunch tray and smacked the Gremlin in the head. It was dazed, but unhurt. I smacked it again, and again until it finally turned it's attention toward me.

"That's right, you fiend! You've bitten your last kneecaps and I..." It prepared to leap at me, and I threw my arms up in protest. "Don't hurt me, please!"

It chose to ignore me, and one of them howled. They gathered, and vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Silence once again filled the cafeteria, except it wasn't my fault. The only difference, is that a horrified Claire had her arms around me....

Huh.

Not really sure what to do, I just kind of pat her on the back. She kissed me on the cheek, and I could feel my cheeks burn redder than the security guard uniforms on the Enterprise.

I pushed my glasses up with a nervous laugh, and decided that this was probably the weirdest and best day of my life.

-Brayden Krell, 2010