Thursday, June 19, 2014

The Problem with Talking to Normals

Being a gamer, it should come as no surprise that I am a geek. I also have the good fortune of working with a fairly geeky crowd. As wonderful as this is, it can cause problems when I have to talk to "normal" people. I forget where I am and slip into my normal geeky ways, which the normal person has no way to cope with.

Just yesterday I had an appointment at the State Department to get a new passport. The lady there took my (original) birth certificate, and said that it would be mailed back to me with the new passport. The gamey/geeky idea hit me that documents have power. Instead of our normal world where documents reflect reality, I thought of an awesome fantasy scenario where the reality would reflect the documents! Thus the person who had the right document could control the universe by changing the document! (This probably isn't an original thought; indeed, if I recall correctly, the ending of The Never Ending Story is something like this).

So when she told me that she was keeping my birth certificate, I feigned a gasp and said "Oh, no! That means I haven't been born!"

The State Department lady was completely deadpan, and said "Of course you've been born. You just can't prove it for a few days."

Surely, I thought, no one can be this literal! She must be playing along! Encouraged by finding a government employee with such a keen wit, I followed with "Ah, well, if you want to make me younger, that would be awesome."

She gave me a blank look and replied, "That would be fraud."

That's when it occurred to me that she was neither playing along nor was she keen of wit. I smiled, and briefly thought of trying to explain the concept of documents controlling the world, but it seemed to me that the discussion would be lost on her. Instead I reassured her I wasn't looking for fraud, and I left.

It's hard to talk to normal people.