I'm dating Bill Nye the Science Guy

Like I say over there in the sidebar, Scott is almost finished with a Ph.D. in chemistry. Since I've known him, he's always been very good in science - brilliant, actually - which automatically makes him a really big geek. But "Ph.D.", which stands for Piled Higher & Deeper, has set him on an irreversible path of nerdiness. It sneaks into his everyday speech more and more now:

Example #1 - He has a ridiculously sensitive olefactory nerve - I mean, he gets overwhelmed by two molecules clinging to my Yankee Candle Clean Cotton Car Jar, so it gets banished to my glove compartment. He also hates almost anything that comes from Bath & Body Works. That place is like his nemesis. (Yet, he still goes in there to buy stuff for me. What a nice guy.) He always says, "What's that stench? Smells like ... flowers!" We were in a theater once, and I whipped out some of my Look Ma, New Hands that smells citrusy. He wrinkled his nose and said, "What's that stench? Smells like ... esters!"

Now, I realize that the fact that I know that fruit oils contain a functional group called an ester and that I didn't say, "Oh yeah??? Who's Esther???" makes me geeky as well. But the fact that he'd just automatically say "esters" instead of "oranges" makes him such a giant nerd. I love him.

Example #2 - I was visiting him one weekend and made some pancakes for dinner. (Most couples have a song, we have a food. It's pancakes.) Scott observed, "These pancakes are really dense." I, of course, was obligated to defend my Bisquick concoction, so I said, "What? They're fine!" He proceeded to cut a piece of one and hold it up for evidence, and said, "Seriously! Look at the mass to volume ratio!" Bwah. Again, I love him.

Example #3 - When you're dating Bill Nye the Science Guy, you have to be careful, because anything that I say could inspire an impromptu quiz. Last week, it was colder than a stainless steel toilet on the shady side of an iceberg. Scott is about 4 hours away from me, so his weather is usually about the same as it is here. I talked to him on my way home from the lab one night and found out that the goofball actually walked to school that day (a mile or so.) I asked him if his glasses fogged up when he entered the building, and then I made a quiz-inspiring comment: "You know, I've heard that walking into a building backwards keeps your glasses from fogging." He said, "What takes place on the surface of the glasses to cause the fogging?" I was proud because I knew that one. Water molecules in the air hit the cold glasses and in losing energy to try to "warm up" the glasses (because equilibrium is a happy state) they crystallize. I wasn't off the hook, though. "So, what would be different about that process if you walked in backwards?" Well, the side of the glasses closest to your face isn't as cold as the other side, so the water molecules that hit that side probably wouldn't lose as much energy and may not crystallize. But they still hit the other side too, so Bill Nye the Science Guy determined that my source may have been misinformed.

The random scientific chatter makes Scott the perfect person to tell certain types of jokes, though. Like this one:

Q: When you see a flock of geese flying, and they're in a "V" shape, you know how sometimes one arm of the V is longer than the other? Do you know why that is?

I puzzled and puzzled, trying to come up with some explanation involving gravitational forces and air pressure, including several physics equations and maybe a diagram or two. Then Scott gave me the deadpan answer: "Because there's more geese on that side." Hardy har har.

By the way, I decided to call him Bill Nye the Science Guy for two reasons - #1, it's funnier to say than "Mr. Wizard" and #2, the mental image of me dating Mr. Wizard is a little creepy, because he's approximately 135 years old.