In Praise of Nerds

In Praise of Nerds . . . and Other “Night-Crawlers”

Two thirty-eight A.M. Doe-in-the-headlights and roadmaps to Philadelphia are now complimentary descriptions of my bleary peepers. I’m nineteen hours into my 10-hour make-up. My aching wrists are carpal-tunnel destined. I’ve been on the Internet for six straight hours. Surfing. Chatting. Down-loading. Lusting. Cyberspace is now a pseudonym for virtual insanity. Back to the present.

I’m starving. And it’s the boyfriend’s birthday in two days. I’m wide awake, and have a two and a half hour pocket of time. But wait! This is Indianapolis . . . the city of opportunity! The excitement and activities of Discovery Zones, of massage therapists, of enlightened minds. City of Computer Wonderlands and Victoria’s Secret Wonderbras. Guess again--- but only between the hours of 10:00am and 9:00pm can we enjoy these consumer delights. Indianapolis: Where the only excitement I can find in the middle of the night is to drive to one of our city’s E.R.’s and amidst all the chaos-- look for our version of Dr. Mark Green, and wonder if he is truly fulfilled. Yuck! What an existence. Question : is living between 11:00pm and 7:00am AWAKE possible?

What do we do between the other hours of 7:00am and 11:00pm? How do we operate in today’s world of human needs of eating, and meeting term paper deadlines without enough footnotes? (where the reference book needed cannot be downloaded from the Internet). How do we purchase a wedding gift for our cousin’s fifth marriage to another loser? And get measured by a tailor to get the new dress altered? Or get lipo-suctioned? And the extreme crisis of needing a perm or trim? How about that professional nail appointment, instead of praying that the pressed-on nails with Super-Glue will hold through the next appointment with the C.E.O.?

Are we limited as night owls, third shift workers, and insomniacs to the Meijers’, Wal-Mart’s, White Castles, and Village Pantries of this city to take care of our eating, grooming, and consumerism needs? So far, we are. Just because we are Midwesterners, doesn’t mean we all get up with the sun! Some of us are just calling it a day, when the 7:30ams sun is annoyingly trying to charm us-- through our dust-laden mini-blinds.

There is a growing population within this city that would definitely make good use of some all-night establishments . . . and I don’t mean places to shoot pool and indulge in vices ala carte. I am a respectable middle-class female (okay, I’m a computer-nerd . . . but don’t tell my mother . . . she so had higher aspirations for me).

There are the “have’s” , those who have a strong sense of belonging to the 9-5 world, . . . and the “have-not’s”. I am a “have-not” . . . I have not a clue to how I’ve made it this long in a city that is lacking, but boasts of services for the average consumer. I am trying to operate in a 9-5 working day, with roughly 6-7 hours left to struggle with the business of tasks, errands, commitments, luxuries, grooming, shopping, dining, cooking, home maintenance, classes, trips to the vet, aerobics, reading useless memos, auto maintenance, doctors appointments, numerologists---not to mention an occasional dose of mental-spiritual-enlightenment to make sure that I am properly prepared for the “hereafter”.

Is there a solution? I am trying to make a plea for all you 11pm-7am shift-workers. A protest that also largely is to include all the nerds, male and female, who crawl all over the http://www’s until the wee hours. We need a life. This is a material world. We are Earth People, though only tethered to the ground by a mouse cord. We have needs, both addictive and otherwise normal. While you’re all in your beds with sugar plum fairies dancing in your heads (or whatever it is that you “normal” folk do), we’re ignored.

If I eat another “gut-bomb” [White Castle hamburger, for all you “normies”] or buy another thing that’s on “T.P.R.” [Temporary Price Reduction from Cub Foods], I’ll scream. Merchants, restaurant entrepreneurs, shop-owners, auto-repairmen, public utilities, universities, life enrichment specialists, therapists—BEWARE! If you can’t meet us part way on our terms in this Indyland of Wonder - - - we “night-crawlers” will meet you at the Pearly-gates and usher you into the empty Cyber-hell of life that can be found on the face of a time-piece between 11:00pm and 7:00am . . . You will them be compressed to operate in a fraction of your allotted time. And that’s real-time, for all you non-nerds!

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