I was at Valencia the other day, doing Valencia stuff. I was walking through the main thoroughfare, when I happened upon two gentleman wearing football jerseys (probably). I overheard part of their conversation, "Dude, these replacement refs are ruining my fantasy league". I stop to give them a raised eyebrow. One asks, "You play fantasy football?". Without even taking a breath I replied, "No, that's a stupid waste of time".
That's when it hit me. Replace the word "player" with "character", "league" with "campaign", and replace the football itself with a +1 Loinhammer of Doom, and Fantasy Football becomes Dungeons and Dragons. Also called D&D, for the uninitiated. This cannot be allowed to happen. Growing up, the cool kids and jocks had everything; the hottest chicks, the early puberty and the popularity. D&D was the only way for the nerds and outcasts to feel powerful, or at least forget about their boobless middleschool years (this works for either gender).
Now, the jocks are hitting their thirties, and just now realizing they're not now, nor will ever be, NFL stars. The cheerleaders they dated in high school wised up and left during the summer after graduation. The jocks are now settling for the first person to say yes, and working at walmart, changing my oil. Their lives are but a shadow's reflection of what they thought it would be.
It's been proven over and over that nerds not only are the most successful high school archetype, but they've pretty much owned three quarters of the fucking galaxy since the eighties. I guess, secretly, this is our revenge, as a people. Nerds use their success to ridicule the failed jocks, just like George McFly used his to ridicule Biff Tannen in Back to the Future 2. That's our way of saying that intelligence trumps brute force everytime. Our decades too late comeback for all the ass kickings.
But now, apparently with the tables turned, I've become the cool kid. How the fuck did that happen? And if there was any doubt about my newly discovered social status, the evidence was clear on the faces of the jersey guys in front of me. After my comment, they had such an ashamed, repulsed look on their faces that I actually felt kind of terrible about it. Imagine me, wearing nerdy glasses, khaki cargo shorts and an old X-Men t-shirt, blatantly making fun of two former "kool kidz", both of whom could easily throw me across the campus like a lawn dart, and thats it. They don't get up and ruin my scoundrelish good looks, they have no comeback. They do nothing, and I win.
I mumble an apology and walk away like it never happened, pretending it's just the schizophrenia finally turning on me. Granted, I haven't played D&D in many years, having moved on to other mediums, (books, video games, etc.), but I still felt the need to defend an old nerd hobby. I understand there aren't many people whose lives have turned out exactly the way they've wanted, myself included, I've long ago had to give up my dream of being a dragon-slaying space pirate.
Even if i were unhappy with my life (I'm not), I wouldn't bastardize someone else's hobby. I wouldn't turn bowling into something where you fire the ball from a catapult, over a castle's well defended parapets to knock the pins down... Actually that sounds fucking awesome. Maybe I'm onto something. Catabowling?
"But it's just the price I pay
Destiny is calling me
Open up my eager eyes
'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside" --The Killers
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