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Bagel Friday is a holiday for my nerds. They love free bagels at work, and I love seeing them appreciate something outside the Apple product line.

If Apple comes out with a bagel shaped product I’m going to kill myself. Unless, of course, they kill me first for ruining Bagel Friday.

A few months ago, while cutting my bagel, I accidentally sliced my finger. Instead of using the blood as a cream cheese substitute, I dropped the knife and fashioned a tourniquet out of pink Post-it notes and paper towels. I finished just in time to see my Chief Nerd pick up the blood and skin covered knife to slice his bagel.

Inside my head I was screaming at him to stop.

Outside my head… not so much.

I watched as he consumed his bagel and a side of my skin. I wanted to stop him, but couldn’t move. I blame the blood loss.

Later in the day he started complaining about a stomachache.

Holy shit. I poisoned a nerd with awesome. Finally a technical skill to be proud of.

I still wasn’t going to say anything, but I started feeling like an evil cross between Microsoft Windows and every single evil comic book character.

I came clean.

He didn’t talk to me for days.

I didn’t let it bother me. I just assumed he was just super busy morphing into a super sonic Sarah.

I thought the incident had been forgotten, but last week the bagels came pre-sliced. The nerds were ecstatic, which I thought was weird. Typically nerds love using knifes. It’s like a mini-sword fight at the office.

It all made sense when a nerd exclaimed, “This is fantastic. If we could have pre-sliced bagels every Friday, I could keep so much of Sarah’s skin out of my system.”

My nerds are soooo unappreciative.

The nerds were talking about reincarnation yesterday. It wasn’t as spiritual as you might think. They use reincarnation as an excuse to talk about what animals they would like to be.

There were a lot of wolf, tiger and ninja requests.

Go figure.

I know ninjas aren’t animals, but you try telling that to a passionate nerd who collects medieval weapons. I really don’t want a Chinese throwing star lodged into my head.

One nerd is unlike all the others. He’s some sort of nerd hybrid who doesn’t believe in playing hypothetical reincarnation games.

I KNOW, RIGHT?

“Sarah, I don’t want to be reincarnated. After 80 years of life I’ll be done.”

“But what would you do in heaven?”

“Relax, listen to music and stuff.”

“I don’t think that’s how heaven works. I’m pretty sure you have some sort of job, like answering prayers for people.”

“Fine. I’ll be a soldier and fight Satan with a big, glowing sword.”

I should have paid closer attention to church as a kid. I had no idea the Bible was written by George Lucas.

Work has been incredibly busy lately. I’m not complaining… busy means profitable and working for a profitable ad agency is the key to my paycheck.

Busy is typically shadowed by stress. I work better under stress, but I have a harder time focusing than usual. Focus has always been a struggle for me. My mind is always in 20 places at once.

This isn’t schizophrenia people; this is called creativity.

Having problems focusing is bad enough in a normal situation, but when you work with nerds it’s far worse. If you follow my Twitter feed you know that nerd distractions are a constant battle, but also the best part of my day.

Last week I made a conscience effort to stay focused during a meeting. I tried to explain to an especially active nerd what I needed him NOT to do.

“OK, no pen clicking, humming, leg tapping or weird arm movements in this meeting please.”

“Sarah, you really need to work on your distraction techniques.”

“You not bugging the shit out of me IS my distraction technique.”

He looked at me like I’d just melted his favorite Star Wars action figure. The guilt was just too much.

“Fine. You can click your pen, but no more than four times.”

I’m pretty sure he clicked his pen a total of 27 times… not that was counting or anything. In related news, I’m making a trip to the store soon, you know, to find silent pens and a vat of red wine laced with Valium.

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Spiderman.”

“Oh, brother…”

“What’s wrong with Spiderman? He’s one of the more accessible super heroes.”

“What does that even mean?”

“You know, like, Spawn. He’s not at all accessible.”

“Who? Vince Vaughn?”

“No, Sarah, I said Spawn. Vince Vaughn isn’t a super hero.”

“Well he does wear ill-fitting clothing and dated Jennifer Aniston for a while. How could he land her without super powers?”

I think by now you’re starting to understand the awesome/weird that is my nerds. They make me laugh, and occasionally scream.

You would scream, too, if this is what you found waiting for you every morning:

Last week I caught one of my office nerds trying to imitate Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” dance. It was possibly the best moment of my entire life.

It sparked this conversation between two of my other nerds:

Me: “If you had to choose between being Beyonce or Jesus, who would you rather be?”

Nerd 1: “Hmm… that’s a tough question. They both have pretty good hair, but chicks are really into Jesus.”

Me: “Um, religious chicks are into Jesus. Those are the girls you’ll never score with anyway.”

Nerd 2: “I think I’d go with Beyonce, but I need to check with my wife to see if she’ll still love me. That’s the only thing stopping me right now.”

Nerd 1: “I’m still stuck on the girl part. I really don’t want to be a girl, but it would be so hard to be Jesus and probably not a lot of fun.”

Me: “Dude, I don’t think the atonement was supposed to be fun.”

The conversation went on for probably another 20 minutes. I love that they didn’t, for a second, doubt my question and just played along.

I have the best nerds ever.

“Sarah, I’m soooo going to mate you.”

“Um.. I don’t even know how to respond to that.”

“With absolute fear would be the correct response.”

“Well that’s obvious.”

“You do realize I’m talking about chess, right?”

“No.”

“Eww.”

This conversation is exactly why nerds shouldn’t be allowed to talk to real people. I think I’m going to have to run for public office and enforce nerd/non-nerd segregation in the work place.

I have a ‘no blogging about clients’ rule. Sadly, observing this rule keeps me from sharing some truly comical stories. It sucks, but I’ve worked hard to get where I am, and the last thing I need is to get fired for talking about clients online. Again.

However, rules were made to be broken, right? Didn’t someone once say that if you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space? Well that is the exact same thing as being called fat.

I hate being called fat.

I also hate being called a dog, which totally happened today.

During a client meeting one of the account executives brought in a plate of treats. After working through lunch to prepare for my presentation I was starving, so I dug right in. The client recommended the wheat-free ginger snaps. I tried one and loved it. And then he casually mentioned it was dog food.

Um, WHAT?

I wish I were kidding. I had a minor meltdown. It’s not every day a client feeds you dog food. No one could understand my concern, since the treats were made from human grade ingredients. WHO CARES? I ATE DOG FOOD. AT WORK. Life will never, ever be the same.

I can’t figure out if someone brought a cute puppy to work, or if one of the office nerds dabbled in black nerd magic to create the world’s best Halloween costume. I’m not snuggling the puppy just in case.