Game Kastle – The Blog

I think I grew up with the wrong kind of people.

Most of my friends have these stories about how they were made fun of for being geeks. About how they were teased for bringing out their magic decks, or abused for carrying around their D&D books. About being outcasts for taking GATE or AP or IB classes, getting straight A’s and having a personal relationship with their favorite teachers.

Well, that never really happened to me. The kids I grew up with? We wore our geekdom like a medal. We ate lunch in the Biology room, even when they were dissecting fetal pigs and everything smelled like formaldehyde and intestines. We discussed the relative merits of an artifact-based deck versus a control deck (way back in ’99, before all these newfangled rules.) I drew a Toreador rose and a Malchavian mirror on my backpack (Masquerade, please. Not that Johnny-Come-Lately Requiem nonsense). And no one cared.

Maybe it’s that at my school, the theater dorks ruled. Very few people could tell you our football teams win/loss record, but I guarantee they’ll remember the Spring Musical. The class presidents and student government was made up of all honors students. So us nerds, dorks, and freaks had the deck stacked for us to begin with.

I think that’s part of what I like so much about my job. I spend all day working with people who not only won’t laugh at me for my obsessions, they might actually know what I mean when I talk about the Camarilla, or my love for Hypnotic Specters. This store attracts the people who aren’t afraid of their own geekyness, the people who realize that painting and playing with little men doesn’t make you less grown up, less smart, or less interesting. It’s like the best parts of high school, with better hair, fewer personal problems, and a salary!

Most of the time, my job is a job. It’s work like anything else. There’s lots of hard bits, lots of annoying bits, and, just like any job, lots of bits I don’t particularly enjoy. But every so often, I am simply amazed they pay me to do this. When I get into a long discussion about Planeswalkers, or when I get to look at pictures of someone’s steampunk costume, or when I wax poetic about the merits of Don’t Rest Your Head I have to stop for a second out of sheer wonder.

I admire geeks who aren’t afraid of being geeks. I respect and enjoy the company of people who not only embrace, but celebrate their dorkyness. So keep it up! You are, collectively and individually, pretty much awesome, and you make my job less job-like. And I promise, I won’t laugh at you if you quote Star Trek. I may even quote it right back.

~samantha