I’m Married to a Geek

And I’ve been married to this geek for 14 years.  You’d think I would be used to this fact by now, however he always finds a way to surprise me.

I knew when we got married that he was/is this math genius, aka advanced math teacher at the local high school.

I knew that he could rattle off random facts making it hard to beat him at games like Trivial Pursuit.  80’s Music Games – forget it – he’s the King.  Thank you, thank you very much…ok, he doesn’t really say that, but I couldn’t resist.

Other Geek Indicators:

– When Gabi was little he would walk her up to bed to tuck her in, and instead of singing nursery rhymes, he’d have her doing addition and subtraction problems.  When I’d look at them, shaking my head, Gabi would say “What?  I like it!”  She’s just like HIM!

– The sad sigh that escapes his mouth when someone comments about how much they hate math.  He just shakes his head and says “That’s sad.”

– The smile on his face when one of his past students comes back to school to talk to him and tells him how college math was so much easier because of what they learned in his class.  From there, the conversation turns into a foreign language.  There’s no ‘Oh hi, how is college going?’  They talk Pythagorean Theorems and Stokes Theorem (and yes, I had to ask Tim how to spell these terms).

– The fun he has singing the Quadratic Formula with his daughters.

– And the final straw…

Picture this…

Sunday afternoon.  Tim up by the new garage door opener’s main box.  Me standing by the exterior keypad.

As Tim was pushing the button on the main box, I was waiting to input the Pin.   All of a sudden I realized that we hadn’t decided on what the Pin should be (I was tired, give me a break, ok?).  I yelled up to him saying “What numbers should we use?”  In response, he shouts out these random numbers and of course I, the ever-dutiful wife, immediately punch them in.

At this point I look back at him and asked “Why these numbers?”

He looks at me as if I’m stupid (ok, not really) and says “Because it’s … # to the third power… # to the second power and… # to the 1st power”.

To which my response was “WHAT?  Why would you set it at THAT?”  (My voice may have been a bit shrill at this point.)

His calm response “Because it’s easy to remember.”

{Head thunk}

“That’s not EASY to remember for me!  Why couldn’t we set it with a mix of our birthdates?”  (OK, by now I’m completely exasperated.)

“What if we mix up the birthdates?”  He earnestly asks me.

{Mental head thunk, head thunk, head thunk…against the wall.}

“We could have just tried again the other way and had it correct!!!”

“Pfth – no, this is much easier”, he states and then smiles.

AAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!  I felt like Charlie Brown lying flat on his back while Lucy held the football up in the air.

Needless to say, I have it written down and tucked in a few different places for when I need it.  Whether I actually remember where I put it may be the next blog.

{sigh}

I dearly love this man, have I told you how much I love this man?  I REALLY love this man.

{sigh}

Patty O

ps…for your added enjoyment, our children have tagged Tim as Sheldon and me as Penny.  I even came out as Penny when I took the “Which Big Bang Theory Character are You?” test.

Sigh…at least I have a good personality. 😉