Nerds will be Nerds

I have always considered myself a huge nerd - except for in middle school, when I held out hope against hope that I would somehow infiltrate the "in" crowd. I'll leave you to infer how that turned out...

With that, imagine my joy senior year of high school, finally connecting with the wittiest, most awkward group of nerds thinkable, planning themed potluck lunches every other Friday, dressing up accordingly, dubbing ourselves the "Picnic Club", and SingStarring on the weekends. It was heavenly. No matter what vague or obscure reference was spat out, one of us would understand and reply in turn. No matter what harebrained scheme was concocted, everyone who could would be there in costume. The Picnic Club became my family.

It was tough to scatter like we did, most everyone at different schools, many of us in different states. I know I'll never find a group quite so singular and close-knit. A group of mondo-nerds, who have the quirkiest fun doing nerdy things. Geocaching, for instance.

Last night was a night like any other. All of the in town Picnic Club came over to eat pizza and act like pirates, perhaps to pop in some SingStar later. Then, all of the sudden, geocaching was mentioned. Geo what? The GPS driven scavenger hunt was explained, and with one look around the table I could tell we all had the same idea. Tuesday Night Geocaching. So we downloaded the app and headed out to parking lot after parking lot, searching for the tiny film canisters that housed treasures beyond measure. After our first find, we decided to head back to home base for some flashlights and headlamps (we're nerds, remember?). We also did some human geocaching and recruited Trant to our outing. (Poor Trant must quake when my name pops up as an incoming call on his phone. Quake with excitement, that is, because he knows something amazing is about to happen!!!) And we set off, all over Tyler, lifting skirts, PNG-ing, geocaching. It was ludicrous, it was silly, it was nerdy, it was Picnic Club.