The Nerd Within

          My parents have sort of become cool. They have lots of friends on Facebook now, and they actually check their feed at least once a day. I'm so proud to watch them blossom into iPad users and texters, who even occasionally season their messages with emoticons. It's enough to make me tear up. Yet there is one way in which they fail to be cool, and this failure burns at my heart with the ferocity of a thousand flaming suns.

To be entirely fair, this may be considered a dramatization.

          But what is their mortal sin, you ask? They have not read the Harry Potter books, nor do they care. At all. And they meet my enthusiasm for Harry Potter land with eyebrow-raised skepticism, despite my eloquent defenses of it. ("BUT THERE'S A HYPOGRIFF ROLLERCOASTER. YOU CAN HAVE A WAND CHOOSE YOU. THERE. IS. BUTTERBEER!") Granted, I'm not the biggest Harry Potter geek in the world. Despite the fact that I've picked what my house would be (Ravenclaw!), I think that the first few movies sucked, and I've never once dressed up as a character when I went to see them. There are bigger fans than me out there in the world. But at the same time, something about Harry Potter makes me all nerdy inside. 

          My boyfriend knew this about me, and to his eternal credit, he bought me an overpriced wand from Borders, which he immediately regretted as soon as I Wikipedia-ed the list of all the spells and what they did, and went around all day pointing at things with it and shouting the spells at the top of my lungs. 

           "Accio remote!" I would shout from the bed, and Boyfriend would sigh, roll his eyes, and irately get up, grab the remote, and bring it to me while I teehee-ed in glee. 

          

            "You know, I think you're abusing the privilege," he grumbled after I accio-ed several books, tea and his cat. 

             "SILENCIO," I shouted, wide-eyed, pointing the wand at his face. Annoyed to the breaking point, he struggled with me for the wand while I shouted "EXPECTO PATRONUM, EXPECTO PATRONUM," for all the good it did me, before he got it and flung it across the room before we went to bed.

               "Nox," I whispered sulkily while he turned off the light.

              "What did you say?" he asked, ready to get up and break his gift to me in two, like a big jerk Indian-giving jerk face. Jerk. 

               "Night," I shrugged innocently and went to sleep. 

                In the morning, the wand had disappeared, and was never heard from again.