Since moving to Florida, I found that one of our neighbors is also a sci-fi geek. Whenever we bump into each other, we review the latest sci-fi that we’ve watched or read and appreciate each others geeky t-shirts.

One time, I was wearing a shirt that said

f(x) = |x|
avoid negativity

This puzzled my geeky friend so I explained that the “|” bars meant absolute value and then I explained what absolute values were.

My geeky friend said that even though he was pretty geeky, he didn’t meet the math requirement.

I replied that this wasn’t a problem because I wasn’t a gatekeeper. In fact, I said, I’m not a fan of Tolkien. I mean, the movies are OK, but I didn’t enjoy the books at all.

My geeky friend stopped smiling. It seemed that I’d crossed a line. I asked “Should I hand over my geek card?”

He didn’t ask for it, but he changed the subject pretty quickly.