If, you every find yourself debating with yourself — while lathering up in the communal shower at the gym; or while shifting your weight from foot to foot at the DMV as you realize that although you’ve been there for two hours already, you’re still only halfway to the front of the line; or while placidly stirring a can of cream of mushroom soup into your favorite casserole — about whether or not I am, indeed, not a fraction as cool as you think I am but instead am a colossal dork, let me settle the question once and for all, right now.
Today as I walked jauntily down West End Avenue, a woman carrying a large white torchiere lamp approached me from the opposite direction. The lamp didn’t look very heavy, just a bit cumbersome. The woman was smiling. (As was the lamp.) So when she was right next to me, we smiled at each other broadly, and I said, with a grin wide enough to split my head clear open, “You’re carrying a torchiere.” Then we both laughed.
The question is thus answered, uhm, thusly: No. Jodi, you are not a dork.
Dorkdom would have been sealed had I mentioned anything having to do with the Statue of Liberty. Although I did consider working that into my witty one-liner, I decided against it in the 15 seconds that passed between my first seeing the torchiere-bearing woman and our brief encounter.
I’m afraid you’re going to have to keep digging to find dork dirt on me, my friends.