I’ve got a bunch of geeky-themed T-shirts. A typical example is one that has a picture of a spaceship inside a mason jar. If you’re aware of the old tv series “Firefly”, you’d recognize that the spaceship model is called “firefly” and get the joke.

None of the friends who we vacation with are geeks, so they usually don’t get my T-shirts.

Some of my T-shirts are funny without being especially geeky. One didn’t have a graphic on the front but on the back was a picture that made it look like I’d been stabbed in the back. It also had the caption “et tu Brute”. I thought it was funny.

It didn’t go over well. I found myself having to explain Julius Caesar’s alleged last words and Shakespeare. I’d learned this snippet from a kids’ comic book (“Beano” of all things) when I was less than 10 years old and I’d assumed that everyone else also knew this.

Wrong. Only one person had any idea what I was talking about.

I was feeling somewhat frustrated with myself for not understanding our friends.

I tried to lighten things by saying “This one wasn’t supposed to be a puzzle.”

Wrong again. As the words left my mouth, I realized that some might think that this was insulting.

Maybe I’ll just go back to blank T-shirts.

At least I didn’t tell them about the comic book.