bibliomom

As a good geek wife, I have learned to deal with the euphemisms of the computer world. Which is to say, when I call my husband to see if he might be stopping by the house sometime in the next week, I’m no longer surprised if he just yells, “It’s all blowing up!” into the phone a couple times and then hangs up.

Geek wife translation? “Sorry dear, things are really hectic at work right now. Don’t wait up for me tonight, because I might not be coming home until morning. If I make it home at all.”

Geek Life really is it’s own thing. But since I grew up a Navy brat, it wasn’t that hard of a transition: military life and geek life are both unique cultures almost completely removed from the 9-5 job set; both have their own jargon and special job requirements; and both are such lifestyle shapers that the culture affects not only the employee, but their entire family. And let’s not forget the bizarre hours that are almost incomprehensible to those outside of that life. In the military, it was “Dad’s on cruise for the next three months – if you’re really good, maybe he’ll bring you something from Japan.” With my kids it’s more like, “Honey, I know that Dad’s home for the first time in three days, but he was paged 120 times yesterday, and he’s still trying to get Zurich back online. Maybe if we’re lucky, he’ll play Xbox with us after dinner.”

But while my husband is a born geek, he didn’t come from geeks. (Well, at least not directly – his Grandmother was a main-frame programmer, but that’s another story.)

No, his family does construction. Serious construction. Concrete, steel, heavy machinery - the works. Let’s put it this way: when I brought my kids up their farm this last summer, they went out to pick cherries.

In the boom truck.

A thirty foot boom truck.

Needless to say, listening in on his phone conversations with his family is fascinating.

“Wow – that’s a lot of snow, Mom … Six foot drifts? … Well, yes, I guess the excavator would take care of that … ”

But this morning the collision of construction and computers was running full tilt.

“Well, it’s been a really busy week at work, Mom … Yes … Well, out of all of the services my group runs, all but one crashed spectacularly and publicly …”

“Yes, Mom – that’s bad …”

Sensing a lack of comprehension, he tried harder to explain:

“Okay, pretend you worked at a factory … You went in that morning expecting to see machinery clicking and humming along … Uh-huh … and instead, you opened the door and saw a giant wall of flames … .”

“No, Mom, it was wasn’t actually on fire … though that has happened before …”

I love my in-laws – they’re fabulous people. I love that they can bring an excavator down when we need to take out a diseased tree and are willing to drop everything to spend quality time with their grandchildren. Their current understanding of geek culture extends to: he makes good money and seems to be paying his bills.

I think I can settle for that ;-).