Monday, January 09, 2006

Hastur in da Hizz-ouse

As if having one total dweeb in the house wasn’t enough (that’d be me), my daughter discovered my old Dungeons & Dragons stuff at my Mom’s house when we were visiting there over the holidays. She has my old Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual, complete with semi-nonsensical scribblings in the margin from yours truly. And now she wants to play D&D with a couple of her friends from school. I don’t know where my old Player’s Handbook is. Lost to the ages, I suppose. For a second I thought maybe I could make a fortune on e-bay since they are in pretty nice shape, but unless you equate “fortune” with making $9.95 plus shipping, I don’t think it’s worth it.

So she went and hung out with some friends the other night and they started a campaign. Since none of them really know the rules and nowadays you have to read seventeen books before you can even begin to roll your character, they didn’t get very far. Yesterday she begged and we went to a nice game store and bought her some dice. I think I’m going to get her this Penny Arcade t-shirt for her b-day.

Now, I’m totally OK with the whole D&D thing (it won’t lead to devil worship, I promise) and I’m particularly OK with my daughter and her fascination with nerds and geeks. She associates with them freely and has an “I (heart) nerds” t-shirt. Geeks are cool, after all and I’m a geek and I’m cool, dadgummit. Or perhaps not.

My problem is this:

The game store was filled to the brim with pubescent boys as you might expect. Just like the old days when I used to spends countless hours in the back of a non-descript strip mall store, playing all sorts of fantasy role playing games until I could no longer drink Mountain Dew or until the place closed, whichever came first. D&D, Gamma World, OGRE, and Car Wars, reprezentin’ in da hood, yo, MTV raps! Not a set of XX chromosomes to be found there except for my daughters’ as she picked out dice. The only real difference between the store of my past and this one was the row of computers in the very back beladen with World of Warcraft and one lone guy playing Diablo II. We didn’t have such technology when I was a lad. Closest thing we had was that really cool hexagonal paper. We were old school and all about the pencils and paper and imagination. These kids today, sheesh.

Anyway, the problem is this (not that stuff up there):

Sadly the other thing (besides lack of females in the vicinity) that hadn’t changed much was the pervasive smell of body odor. And not just normal body odor, like you might have and the end of a longish day heaving heavy bales of cotton around, but geek funk. Like guys who’ve gone days without water, soap and suds touching their nether regions and armpits and they still have Cheet-o stains on their fingers from dinner last night. Seriously, why can’t geeks and nerds and hop in the shower on a daily basis? I mean these are the same guys who know the innermost details of what level you have to be in order for your ‘zon to use a Windforce in Lord of Destruction (level 73, and tragically I didn’t have to look that up) but they can’t find their way to a bathtub to save their lives. It’s called Dial and Suave, my friends. Lather, rinse, repeat as necessary. Live it, learn it, make it a part of your belief system.

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