Malcolm in the Middle is now On Top

Once upon a time, there was very little difference between geeks, dorks and nerds. The terms were interchangeable and applied to anyone with a high level of intelligence, weird or non-existent fashion sense, or a tendency to behave in a quirky fashion. Misfits in a land where one size fits all, these social pariah were given the cold shoulder; they were mocked, their lunch money stolen and their food trays dumped in the laps of their high-waisted trousers. Being labeled a geek, a dork, a nerd was akin to wearing a six-point star on one's breast. You walked to school alone, you ate alone, you masturbated in your bedroom while looking at pics of Nyota Uhura and sometimes Leonard McCoy...alone.

But then, along came Paul Feig and Linwood Boomer and that other guy, what's his name? The one with the glasses and reddish hair? He does something with computers, but I can't quite remember what...

And suddenly being scary-smart overshadowed weird looks and strange behavior. It might also have had something to do with making like a gazillion bucks on stocks that have split nine times since going public - let's see...if you were given 5,000 shares when you joined, first split is 10,000, second is 20,000, third is 40,000, fourth is 80,000, fifth is 160,000, sixth is 320,000, seventh is 640,000, and blah, blah, frickety blah.

Regardless, scary-smart is now our bread-and-butter. It physically occupies half the city of Redmond, and much of Bellevue, Issaquah and Seattle as well; its mental occupancy is worldwide. You are infinitely smarter because of that thin wafer of a machine sitting in front of you on which you tap out your monthly mortgage payment - a machine that scary-smart made; he designed it, he built it, and he's virtually programming it at this very moment.

Scary-smart can also now afford a business coach whose expertise lies in what to wear and how to act. Scary-smart drives a beemer (black) and has a maid (white) and a stay-at-home wife (size 6...for now). Scary's home is a showcase, except for that one room, the one in which he shuts the world out. In that room, Scary has seven computers (all running), 269 miles of coaxial cable, sixteen network switches and a variety of keyboards and mice that belong in a space station at the end of a very l o o o n g elevator cable he is designing from spare bits of carbon nanotubes.

And suddenly we are having to redefine what qualifies as "acceptable." The misfit your brother kept shoving into lockers is now your husband, and your son has more friends on Facebook than you ever had at school. Like Koothrapali who speaks only to Penny when he gets drunk from half a grasshopper, Smarty McSmarterson speaks directly to his former tormentors and tells them in a clear, strong voice, "Oh, yeah? How big is your portfolio?"