The Club of Exclusionary Über-Nerdness

Similar to that fine line between Genius and Stupidity, the exists an even more rarefied and nebulous border betwixt the Nerdy and the Cool.  Normally, I pride myself on circumscribing and delimiting this boundary, exploring its every nook and cranny, feets planted safely on the side of Cool despite such fearlessly-abandoned flirting with the Nerdy that the most stony heart of the the most snarky of Millennials would shatter like it was basted in liquid Nitrogen. 

That being said, I now am firmly convinced I reside within an exclusive club the paradoxically is increasingly unfashionable the more exclusionary it becomes.  And I may have crossed the border.

Imagine a Venn diagram.  You know, that’s the two big circles that intersect, forming three groups which then have shared and unshared traits. 

Only this Venn diagram features one humongous circle.  A tiny dwarf circle sits adjoins it.  If the first circle is the radius of the solar system, the second would be, oh, say the area of New Jersey.  The space of intersection, the portion where the solar system and New Jersey share the same turf, is about the size of the diameter of a Hydrogen atom.

Got that?  Good.  There will be a surprise quiz on it sometime next week.

What do these circles represent?  What is this intersection, this Club of Exclusionary Über-Nerdness?

 The big circle represents fathers with two daughters.  Maybe there are, conservatively speaking, 1.5 million of us here in the United States.

The second circle represents people who know the lyrics of “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins,” as performed by Leonard Nimoy.  There are, perhaps, a thousand of us here in the country.

Where they intersect is known as the Region of Fathers Who Have Taught Their Daughters to Sing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” as Performed by Leonard Nimoy.  There are six of us on the planet. 

For the life of me I can’t figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.  All I know is, the girls have fun singing it, though they know it is a thing which should be capital-F Forbidden outside the walls of my home.  If they ever want a social life, that is.

Your homework assignment is to google the above stated lyrics, if you are made of truly metal mettle.  Join the second circle!  And if you have daughters, teach them the ballad and become the seventh member of the Club of Exclusionary Über-Nerdness!