the international language of … geek?
Originally written 05.03.2002.
there are some things; things like love, laughter, and friendship that span cultures and continents. there are other things that do this as well; things like herpes, genocide, and yes, chorus geeks. for those of you who are lucky enough not to know what a chorus geek is, let me elaborate. think drama geek, but instead of graciously constraining the loudly hyperbolic recitation of soliquoys to a window of a few months around the latest production, imagine a constant, 24/7, 365, auditory assault of song as if the singers were all misplaced refugees from the sound of music. when you get more than two of them together you get a horribly grating vocal caucaphony – like the locust, but without the leather shorts, and not even as good. imagine people singing the british equivalent of “she’ll be coming ’round the mountain” but with musical references for each verse. for example, one verse might be “she’ll be singing in stacatto when she comes …”, sung in stacotto, and the next, “she’ll be singing in falsetto …”, sung in, surprise surprise, falsetto. starting to get the picture?
this is what i was greeted with when i came home from my lab after a long day of pouring over iptables rules and perl code. it started innocently enough with pete and a friend furiously chopping fajita ingredients in the kitchen. they had even put chairs around the never-before-used-for-eating kitchen table. “oh, i’m having a few people over for dinner tonight,” said pete, “that’s ok isn’t it?” well of course it was, but this is the first i had heard of any such thing. so i started winding my way through the crowded common room trying to prepare my own dinner when i heard some frantic buzzing on the doorbell and, shortly thereafter, some frantic knocking on the flat door. i was greeted by three young girls, who were clad in evening gowns and were more than slightly tipsy. despite announcing themselves as “pete’s bitches”, they seemed harmless enough. that was, of course, before they broke into song. i ate my bbq tempe and salad in my room and prayed for a sudden, very serious, epidemic of strep throat centered directly around the kitchen of flat 29/5.