Nerd Rant

Of course, this picture has nothing to do with my subject at hand. I just added it to draw your attention and keep it locked on my post with magnetic force. But since the photo's here, I might as well explain that the Spouse made fortune cookies last weekend. The fortunes said things like, "What's that smell?" and "When a cow laughs, does milk come out his nose?"

NOW pay close attention while I recount something that happened to me yesterday:

Between Sunday School and meeting, I was eating Rice Krispy Treats with a man we'll call M and three teenage boys. M held up his cookie and said, "These probably contain phenylalanine."

"Do you have phenylketonuria?" I asked, innocently.

All three teenage boys looked at me and said, simultaneously, "Nerd."

In the next split second, three things happened. First, I realized the boys were one hundred percent correct. Second, I took their accusation as a backhanded compliment. Third, M walked away. I don't know why he left so fast. M and I graduated the same high school, and it was a really, really high school. I mean, at our school we lobbed seven-syllable words at one another all the time. Words like Iainthelpingyoucheatinmath and canIhavesomeofyourgum were extremely common. The level of discourse was (I repeat) dizzyingly high.

After I recovered from M's disappearance, I launched into a soliloquy about how nerds get to design robotic lunar explorers. The three young men said, "Wow, cool." Their eyes said, "Get us away from this insane woman."

Over the next 24 hours, I ruminated on nerdness. (You livestock types will like that four-syllable job.) I decided that the Spouse is very intelligent, but he can't be considered a nerd because he doesn't blurt out everything he knows. Besides, during college he belonged to a fraternity in which any sign of nerdness was ridiculed mercilessly. This made life difficult at his school, one in which everyone took engineering and a favorite cheer at football games was "SECANT, TANGENT, COSINE, SINE, THREE POINT ONE FOUR ONE FIVE NINE! GO! FIGHT! WIN!"

Anyway, the Spouse has large muscles, which isn't nerdy, and if you call him a nerd he might run over you with his Harley. I am the nerd. I have little muscles and the one time I drove a motorcycle, I squeezed the throttle and brake at the same time. However, I do like to fling big words at people, which can be annoying. I guess I'm a word nerd, mostly.

My sorry nerd-like condition was confirmed the day my first son was born, but I can't tell you the story because it's a little much for a blog post. It's funny, though, and I'll offer one tantalizing hint - it involves ph paper and my doctor laughing at me during labor.

By the way, are you wondering what phenylketonuria is? Well, I can tell you because I saved my college genetics book, and this morning I pulled it out and it's open beside my keyboard!

Phenylketonuria, or PKU for short, is called an inborn error of metabolism. Sufferers of PKU lack an enzyme that breaks down the amino acid phenylalanine. So, phenylalanine builds up in their bodies and causes physical and mental disabilities. The sweetener aspartame contains phenylalanine, and that's why you'll see a phenylalanine warning on diet soda cans or other diet products.

PKU sufferers can avoid adverse effects by following a special, restricted diet with very little protein, since phenylalanine is a normal component of protein. I sure wouldn't want to have PKU. I would much rather be a nerd.