In-Depth

July Humor

• 07/01/1999

A truck driver hauling a tractor-trailer load of computers stops for a beer. As he approaches the bar, he sees a big sign on the door saying "Nerds Not Allowed – Enter At Your Own Risk!" He goes in and sits down. The bartender comes over to him, sniffs, and says he smells kind of nerdy. "What do you do for a living?" asks the bartender suspiciously. With a wave of his hand the truck driver replies that he drives a truck, and the smell is just from the computers he is hauling. Nodding his assent, the bartender says, "Okay, truck drivers are not nerds," and serves him a beer.

As he is sipping his beer, a skinny guy walks in with tape around his glasses, a pocket protector with 12 kinds of pens and pencils and a belt at least a foot too long. The bartender, without saying a word, pulls out a shotgun and blows the guy away. Shocked, the truck driver asks, "Why did you do that?"

"Don’t worry," replies the bartender, "the nerds are overpopulating the Silicon Valley, and are in season now. You don’t even need a license to shoot them." So, the truck driver finishes his beer, gets into his truck and heads back onto the freeway.

Happy to be on the road again, the truck driver is startled from his country music reverie by an accident that is taking up both lanes. He veers to avoid the accident and the load shifts, breaking open the back door and spilling computers all over the freeway. Quickly, he jumps out and sees a crowd already forming, grabbing up the computers. They are all engineers, accountants and programmers wearing the nerdiest clothes he has ever seen. He is frantic: He can’t let them steal his whole load! So, remembering what happened in the bar, he pulls out his gun and starts blasting away, felling several of them instantly.

A highway patrol officer zooms up with lights flashing and jumps out of the car, screaming at him to stop. Surprised, the truck driver asks, "What’s wrong? I thought nerds were in season."

"Well, sure," replies the patrolman, "But you can’t bait ‘em."

For a computer programming class, I sat directly across from a girl, and our computers were facing away from each other. A few minutes into the class, she got up to leave the room. I reached between our computers and switched the inputs for the keyboards. She came back, started typing and immediately got a distressed look on her face. She called the teacher over and explained that no matter what she typed, nothing would happen.

The teacher tried everything. By this time I was hiding behind my monitor and quaking, red-faced. I started to type, "Leave me alone!" They both jumped back, silenced. "Whaa??" the teacher blubbered.

Then I typed, "I said leave me alone!" The girl got really upset. "I didn’t do anything to it, I swear!" It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. The conversation between them and HAL 2000 went on for an amazing five minutes.

Me: "Don’t touch me!"

Her: "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hit your keys that hard."

Me: "Who do you think you are anyway?!"

Finally, I couldn’t contain myself any longer and fell out of my chair laughing. After they had realized what I had done, they both turned beet-red. Funny, I never got more than a C- in that class.

A girl walks into a computer store and starts browsing through the aisles, trying to choose a new computer. When she comes upon the department clerk, she says, "I would like to buy a computer to use in my new apartment. How much does this one cost?"

"Only one kiss per gigabyte of memory," replies the smirking male clerk.

"That’s fine," says the girl. "I’ll take one computer."

With expectation and anticipation written all over his face, the clerk quickly rings up the sale, boxes the computer, and then holds it out teasingly.

The girl picks up the box and, pointing to a little old man standing beside her, says, "Grandpa will pay the bill."