I don’t say that to brag or anything; I just want to establish that I am familiar with the sense of exhaustion that comes from a night or four of being propped up by exotic chemicals while you fail to find the words to describe the boundless love you have for your friends, loved ones, and gummi worms. I just never expected to wake up with that empty paper bag feeling after a weekend of Magic: The Gathering.

I haven’t reported on it much, but for the past few months I’ve been playing semi-regular games with a group of guys I met through Craigslist. I haven’t written anything because I like these guys, and let’s face it, this site relies on humiliation (if you prefer, you could say that the Underpants is full of crap…) I certainly did not avoid the subject because it makes my girlfriend embarrassed to be seen with me and because I’ll spend the next week answering questions like “so, do you guys wear capes? Do you have special magic names?” (Answers: “No,” and “Only in my head, where I am known as Zandalf*”)

To my excitement and Wonder Woman’s dismay, this weekend we had something of a sleepover. Through a friend of his family, one guy in the group had access to an empty house up in Schenectady (which I still can’t pronounce) and we planned an old-school nerd-out like it was 1997**.

It started off alright: six guys in a van, some jokes about humping someone’s mom in anatomically awkward ways, and some ideas for Magic-based drinking games that we had no intention of going through with. What happened after that is difficult to describe, but I should have seen it coming the first night, when I was about to challenge one of the guys to a rematch and saw sunlight coming through the window. The last time that happened I was playing dollar craps in Reno, and I actually had a surge of panic before I remembered that there wasn’t much chance I was down five hundred bucks.

The next morning we woke up around noon and went out to get food supplies. That was the last time we saw sunlight. By the end of the weekend, it was like we were in some bizarre suburban flophouse with junkies in the living room and fresh fruit in the fridge. Guys sorta slept…wherever. We would get up, find someone who was awake, and play. I don’t even think we were having fun by the end of it, but rationale had left us, and as tired as we felt, we kept on playing because it was what we were there to do.  We’re the type of guys who know that no one ever got extra credit by giving up easily.

How’s this for depravity? No one showered for the entire weekend, despite several working facilities (take THAT, nerd stereotype!). Our last morning I was woken up by a smell so bad it took me a minute or two to realize it was my own. Yet rather than use one of the two available showers, I washed myself in the bathroom sink and dried myself with my t-shirt. But first I made sure no one else was awake, because somehow that made sense at the time.

It was like my body owed me money. Between Friday night and Sunday afternoon I ate a piece of pizza, a peach, a chicken sandwich, a couple small pancakes and a bag of Raisinets. (No, I was not stoned.) Since that’s how people get scurvy, it’s not surprising that there were consequences, like on the drive home when I ripped a fart so nasty it woke me up, the second time that day that I had produced a smell I couldn’t sleep through. (That has to be some kind of record.) It probably had something to do with the fact that in the 48 hours we were gone, I hadn’t taken a shit. Not one. I think my body had a similar attitude as Wonder Woman, one of, “I think it’s stupid, but you seem to enjoy this, so go have your fun. But so we’re clear, you owe me a lot of attention when you get back.”

Now, anyone who knows me knows that I still giggle at my own farts***, but this particular one was so bad that I kept my head down and pretended I was still asleep. Normally, you fart in a van full of dudes and you’re going to hear a mixture of laughing, yelling, and the sound of punching. This time, one of the guys up front said, “Uh, that may have been me. I’m not sure,” and that was the end of the matter. From our demeanor, one would have thought that we had just shared some profound coming-of-age experience involving a dead body by the train tracks.

Three days have passed and I’m still not completely okay. The whole world seems a bit too bright, and Wonder Woman looks at me in a way that makes me think she won’t sleep soundly until I’ve been properly sanitized in boiling water and/or an autoclave. Someone could tell me I managed to contract mange and I wouldn’t bat an eye. When I decided to play Magic again, it was because I remember those days as pure happiness set to a Weezer soundtrack. Now I’m amazed I survived. It’s like if I went back to my pre-school and found a bunch of kids making Nikes.

The defining moment was definitely when one guy asked what everyone’s biggest strategic mistake was. The guy next to him didn’t miss a beat before muttering, “coming here,” and no one laughed. They say that all you need for Magic is a deck and a friend, but I sure could have used a bath and a hug.

*For the love of pete, I don’t actually call myself ‘Zandalf’. I mean, c’mon, I don’t have NEARLY enough experience points for a name that cool yet.

Okay, really, there are no names. Or experience points. Seriously.

**When we were in AP Calc.
***I’m 28 years old.

Oh yeah – if anyone familiar with Magic thinks I wasn’t DYING to make a mana burn joke in this thing, you are sorely mistaken, sir.

On Saturday, I invited my friend Sarah to Brooklyn to hang out, enticing her with an offer of my delicious rainbow sherbet margueritas (patent pending).  I was actually low on tequila, but when it came to lies my pantry was very well stocked.  There was nothing to do at my house, but we couldn’t go out because New York had some apocalypse-caliber thunderstorms.  (Normally I pride myself on my superior electrical conductivity, but every once in a while it means I have to spend an evening indoors.)

On top of that, my cable crapped the bed about a week ago.  Only the major networks come in clearly, and since my two favorite shows right now are Project Runway and So You Think You Can Dance, you can imagine how bad the summer schedules are.  It makes me wish I knew how to read. 

I knew all this ahead of time, of course; I also knew that with nowhere to go and nothing to watch, there was only so long we’d be able to talk to each other without looking for some game to play.  (Actual time: fifteen minutes.) And as it turns out I’ve been playing an awesome game lately.*

So Sarah learned to play Magic.  And then she beat me.  Twice.

I guess beating me sounded like a whole lot of fun, because last night my roommate Mary agreed to learn how to play.  And then she beat me.

Seriously, I have to ask: what the hell is it with this game?  First there’s thugs playing Yu-Gi-Oh, and now women are kicking my ass at Magic.  I couldn’t be more shocked if I walked outside and saw a mermaid give birth to a fish taco.  Am I pissed about it? Sure, but only about as much as I was when my ex-girlfriend cheated on me and told me all about it, except this time I got to watch the disaster unfold right in front of me.  On my dinner table, no less. 

This was my plan, originally: Wonder Woman knows she can’t trust my opinion in these matters, but I figured if I could get some girls to start playing, particularly girls who would be around the apartment, then that would be enough to convince WW, and I’d be one step closer to my utopian relationship consisting entirely of humping, Magic and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Knowing that she will probably beat me at it should make Magic all the more enticing to Wonder Woman, but if she learns not only how to play, but how to beat me consistently, I imagine it would be like being given a car for your sixteenth birthday and running over your dog before you’ve left the driveway.  

This is a disaster.

*Well, not so much “playing” as “sitting in my room, reading the cards and wishing I had someone to play with.  And crying.”

I have to admit something: I tried online dating for about a year spanning 2002-2003.  I was ashamed at first, then amazed by the amount of time and effort it required, but in the end I couldn’t argue with the results: a series of dates with women I bestowed with well-deserved nicknames like “Limpy”, “Lumpy”, and “The Deuce”.  (The first two are pretty self-explanatory; the Deuce was named after my best estimation of her weight, a good sixty to seventy pounds more than she listed on her profile.*) The experiment wasn’t a total failure, however; I got laid… with a girl who punched me in the face TWICE during sex.  But that’s a story for a different time.

Now I’m turning back to the internet for a new type of relationship: Magic buddies.  For some reason it is now easier for me to have sex than it is to play Magic, a typo in the natural order of the universe I suspect came from Y2K. 

I’m certainly not the first nerd looking for a soulmate on the internet, but the only way I can think of finding buddies is to put an ad up on Craigslist, the internet’s answer to the Port Authority bus terminal, and the type of place I feel real comfortable leaving my inner child at 3AM.  With any luck, someone in the New York area will be sitting at their computer and be struck by a sudden urge to search for “Magic the Gathering” while they wait to see if anyone is willing to give them a blowjob in exchange for an eightball.  When they do, a lifelong friendship will be waiting for them. 

I don’t see any way this could turn out badly.

*To be fair, I deserve some of the blame for the date going badly; I should’ve chosen a better way to greet her than “Whoa.”

The tournament was a “limited” tournament, where everyone gets a stack of cards and a half-hour to build a deck.  Not good; I take that much time deciding which brand of pasta to buy.  While the children around me went to work, I spent ten minutes just reading my cards and filling with levels of panic normally reserved for standardized tests.   I had to resort to Old Faithful (my usual bit of telling everyone in sight that I have no idea what I’m doing) and the guy sitting across from me offered to help.  Back when I first played, if someone had offered to help me build a deck I would have told him to go fireball himself, but back then I didn’t feel like a kid who can’t tie his own shoe.

I won’t even bother reporting how the competition went, except to say I lost.  I lost repeatedly. I lost to children and I lost to adults.  I lost the blowouts and I lost the close games.  I would’ve lost my dignity but I left it at home, where it’s been collecting dust ever since I started this mess.  And if the losing weren’t bad enough, I have yet to make a successful joke in that place.  That hurts the most.  I know my sense of humor is dubious, but I still take pride in it.  (Remember, I am a professional comedy writer.)  If I can’t win at Magic, at least I could be “the funny guy”, and usually my shotgun-like approach works; as long as I keep firing eventually I hit something, but everything goes wrong there.  I can only conclude that there is some sort of anti-funny enchantment or something.

What was noteworthy about the tournament was a moment halfway through my second match.  I was playing against a kid who was mopping the floor with me, when he turned to the elderly guy playing next to him and said, “Dad, you should play that differently.”  Dad??? DAD???

In fact, not only was this kid’s dad in the tournament, the dad was good.  I know my father thinks it’s great that he paid for my college education, but Dad, if you’re reading this, you should be taking notes, dude.  (Though there was a tricky moment when the kid called his father on an illegal move, and the dad growled through his teeth, “Why don’t you tell me about it later.”  He seemed about a half-second away from casting a Child Abuse spell.  The dad’s opponent and I shared a concerned look, but the more I think about it, kids need to learn not to mess with another man’s game.)

On an entirely different subject, I found out that thirteen-year olds really suck at handshakes.  Nothing but clammy, wet noodles.  One kid looked genuinely afraid, and then held his hand out palm-down like a woman.  There are a bunch of fathers and older brothers who are sleeping at the wheel here.

While the tournament was enjoyable, the whole reason I started going to Neutral Ground was that I hoped to meet a group of guys and join a regular game.   Yet despite my wealth of social skills, I was still paying money just to play against other people, and I was getting frustrated.  All you need is a deck and friend, but I never thought the friend part would be the tough one.

Which leads me to my second big Magic happening of the weekend: I got myself a magic-buddy.  (Possibly two of them.)  It was raining Sunday, and I used that as an excuse to go over to my friend Matt’s place and give him his first introduction to the greatest game of all time.  Even more encouraging, his (female!) roommate stuck around and watched.  She even seemed interested, though it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve misinterpreted the interest of an attractive woman.  I can’t wait to go back again.  I keep telling her that if she learned the game she would easily be the hottest Magic player to date (Wonder Woman doesn’t play), and I promise that she could swing by Neutral Ground any day of the week to find a legion of twelve year olds willing to do her amply-chested bidding.  

And that’s the beauty of this game.  There’s something in it for everybody.

I went to another draft tournament on Monday, where lots of new faces were sitting around the table, clearly divided into “rookies” and “veterans”. As I do any time I meet new people, I made snap judgments about their personalities based solely on appearance.

On the veteran’s side there was the Know-it-all, Fat Guy in Sweats, and Guy with ADHD. I’ve met ADHD a few times now; he’s always helpful and he even coached me a bit during my first tournament. I like him, but several times during Monday’s tournament I could hear him shouting the name of his favorite card, “Runeboggle”, regardless of whether he was playing it. It’s not even that good of a card. He just liked howling “Ruuuuuuuneboggle.” Remember: all you need is a deck and a friend.

Then there were us rookies. Just as babies all look alike, we all had the same lost, resigned expression on our faces. We accepted that we’d never fully escape our nerd-dom, but we at least wanted to keep it at arm’s length. I still show up thinking, “I’m probably going to lose, but at least I’ll be the coolest guy in the room.” Then I see the thugged out Yu-Gi-Oh players and think, “Well, I’ll at least be the coolest MAGIC player in the room.” But unfortunately, in the “coolest magic player” contest, there are no winners; only losers.

After the draft, I got stuck playing the Know-it-all while Fat Guy took on Runeboggle and the other rookies set out to prove who was less incompetent. We shuffled our decks, dealt our hands, and after one look at my cards I muttered “I have no idea what the fuck I’m doing.” I meant it to be self-deprecating, but it stunk too much of truth for anyone to laugh. Luckily, everyone got distracted by the first of many mid-game “Ruuuuuneboggles.” It deserves mentioning that the veterans all seemed to think the “Runeboggle” bit was hilarious.

Early on, I found out that the Know-it-all really was a know-it-all. He’s a referee for officially sanctioned Magic Tournaments, and after five minutes of watching me trying to read his cards upside-down, he turned them to face me with a condescending, “Here you go. I know what my cards are already.” Well, I know what vagina feels like, but you don’t see me bragging about it.

Two minutes into the game, I realized my battle strategy was bordering on moronic. Like, invade-Russia-in-December moronic. I said this out loud, and Know-it-all could not have agreed faster. It was like he was dying to tell me how dumb I was, and just needed me to open the door. I took the chance to repeat that I have no idea what I’m doing, but it didn’t redeem me in any way. It actually sounded sad. The know-it-all couldn’t look me in the eye after that, and I conceded the first game.

Oh, I forgot. One aspect of the game is that often “tap” your cards (turning them sideways), to indicate that you are using them. Several times, The Know-it-all reached over and tapped my cards for me when I’d clearly forgotten to. Just like how my mom used to cut my steak. I’m quickly realizing that there’s no way to look good playing Magic, but there are a lot of ways to look bad.

While I was shuffling we got another “Ruuuneboggle” from ADHD. Now Fatty joined in. They were having so much fun I couldn’t tell who was winning. I don’t think it even mattered to them.

Then Runeboggle and Fat Guy were chatting with Know-it-all, and they asked him if he ever got to his “bomb”, or his “nuke.” The Ref said he could have, but it would have been unfair to use “tactical nuclear warfare on the ‘kids.’” Let’s be clear. He used the term “tactical nuclear warfare” to refer to a magic spell, and “kid” to refer to me. I want to get a two-by-four, name it “The Harsh Truth of Reality” and hit him in the head with it. Then I want to jump in my Batmobile and drive away while Catwoman gives me head.

I told him that I was probably older than him. In my head, this meant that I was owed some measure of respect, but that was because I failed to consider that I was in a store called Neutral Ground, playing Magic on a weeknight. His voice was full of pity when he agreed that yes, I was probably older than him. The score in both Magic and Life was Him: 1, Me: 0. It wasn’t even 8:15 pm.

He didn’t need the nuke in the second match either. My battle strategy wasn’t idiotic, but it didn’t matter. We were done so fast the Ref agreed to let me pick his brain for a while, after I reminded him for the tenth time that I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. After we had talked for a few minutes, I realized that he’s actually a decent guy. A bit of a dick during the match, but clearly he takes this stuff seriously. (About as serious as nuclear warfare, apparently. No harm in that, as long as he never holds anything more dangerous than a melon baller.)

While we were talking deck-strategies, Fat Guy pointed to the girl next to him and said, “She likes white weenie decks*”. The Know-it-all replied, “If she likes the white weenies…” and pointed to himself with raised eyebrow and tongue firmly in cheek. This joke… KILLED. Everybody cracked up. I was okay with him being better than me at Magic, but now he’s knocking them dead with Magic jokes??? Every time I go into that place it’s like the entire social food chain gets turned upside-down.

In an hour and a half the Know-it-all had beat me in Magic, wit, and humor. After that, I don’t remember much. I played a few games against another rookie, and I think I beat him soundly, but I felt dazed. I barely remember getting home. Certain things I’ve taken for granted so long that they seem like laws (tough kids don’t play trading card games; there is no such thing as a successful Magic joke) yet every time I go in there, these laws of nature go completely ignored. It’s almost… well, it’s almost like Magic.

(See? There’s no such thing as a successful Magic joke! HOW DID HE DO IT???)

(Seeing the other guys getting into it, I’m thinking I should buy stock in Wizards of the Coast, the company that makes Magic. You heard it here first.)

*In Magic, spells and creatures are related to one of five colors, blue, black, white, red, green. Each color has its own strengths and weaknesses, and are often related to philosophies. (Black: Death, Red: Violence, Green: Life… etc.) A white weenie deck would involve many smaller, faster creatures designed to beat opponents through death by a thousand cuts.

Went down to Neutral Ground yesterday.  Or at least I thought it was Neutral Ground, instead it looked like I’d wandered into detention.  There wasn’t a single nerd in the place.  Instead, the place was packed with kids with shaved heads, doo-rags, and graffiti on their backpacks.  The trash talking sounded like a basketball court, and on two occasions I thought there was going to be a fight.

Instinctively I was frightened. Here I am, returning to my childhood, and the kids whose attention I’d sought to avoid all through middle school were there!  In the nerdatorium!  The foxes were in the henhouse!  Then I realized the foxes were laying eggs.

That’s right. The tough kids were playing Yu-Gi-Oh, a similar game to Magic with Anime artwork.  It even has a cartoon show based on it.  And it wasn’t just younger kids, either; I would say that a majority of the guys were 15-18 years old.  They weren’t playing Magic, but who cares… THEY WERE PLAYING!  My initial reaction was to wonder how I could reenroll in high school.  Clearly the social dynamic had been flipped on its head, and somewhere there was a quarterback praying a janitor would come let him out of the locker the chess club had shoved him in.  I’d be PROgraMming KING in no time.

But back to me, your humble narrator.  I was there because Monday nights, Neutral Ground hosts a Magic “draft”.  Players buy a set number of card packs, open them up, take a card, then pass the rest to the right.  The next guy takes one and passes it on, repeating until all of the cards have been distributed.  This means that no one is playing with a super-good pre-constructed deck.  Then everyone plays, with thirty to fifty bucks going to the winner.

Experienced players participate because there are draft tournaments with prizes upwards of fifty thousand dollars, and this is good practice.  Inexperienced players sign up so they can get good cards, and who knows, maybe get lucky and win some cash.  I wanted to get some cards and see what type of guys are playing Magic.  (More on that in a second.)

But before I could sign up I had to… uh… I had to… geez, this is awkward…deep breath… I had to sign up for a membership to the national organization that runs Magic tournaments.  That’s right, I have a nerd card.  (pic to come later.)   Let’s move on.

Those of us in the draft sat at a table in the middle of furious Yu Gi Oh action, and after one look around, everything was back the way I remembered it: gawky, pimply white kids who can’t maintain eye contact for more than two seconds.   There was the Lovable Foreigner, the Dragon Lady (a dude; explanation below), the Sarcastic Know-it-all, the Nice Guy with Bad Complexion, and me, and it’s not like I’m bringing a lot of “cool” to the table.  Somehow I’m still playing the nerd game, while a couple of the Yu Gi Oh players were smoking weed.  This sucks.

I’ll skip the draft, and move on to the game itself.  (Each game, players start with 20 life points, and play to 0.  Rounds are best two-out-of-three games.)

I was first paired against Nice Guy with Bad Complexion.  He was also relatively new to the game and very tolerant of my constant state of confusion, being confused himself.  We were joking around, but he stopped laughing when I beat him 13-0, 10-0.  I can’t blame him.  It’s like he was losing at poker to the girl who keeps asking, “wait, what is it called when I have three of the king-y guys?” 

I on the other hand, was sure that I was going home with the cash, and only had to decide whether to buy Wonder Woman something with my winnings to convince her that this hobby is awesome, or spend it all on myself and gloat until my throat got sore.

Then I got paired up against the Dragon Lady.  To use another card analogy, there is a long-held and unfortunately racial stereotype about the Asian Female Blackjack Dealer, otherwise known as the Dragon Lady.  Dragon Ladies are the ultimate streak ender, and if you’re dumb enough to play them they will leave you drunk, miserable and broke.  Really, it has nothing to do with their ethnicity or sex.   Where other dealers will shmooze and joke around with you, Dragon Ladies are joyless, humorless, and ruthlessly efficient.  They don’t make as much in tips, but they make money for the casinos, which pay them well.   Games go by twice as fast when a Dragon Lady is dealing, and the more you’re playing, the more you’re losing.  On top of that, since they don’t talk to you, you have nothing to do but pay attention to the fact that there are less and less chips in front of you, and the ones you do have aren’t the ones with all the pretty colors.

It’s an extended metaphor, but this guy was a dumpy white Dragon Lady.  I lost 20-0, 12-0 before the other guys were done with their first games.  There was no gloating or any show of emotion on his part, and no matter what I said his only response was a nod.  I was no longer in the running for the money, and all I could think about was that I was out fifteen bucks, obligated to tell the story on Underpants on the Outside, and surrounded by kids who looked like they could kick my ass.
 
It just goes to show: you may never be able to go home again, but the nerdatorium is always just how you left it.

After ten years away from the game, I have decided to get back into Magic: The Gathering.

Some of you might be unfamiliar with Magic. It’s a trading card game, like Dungeons and Dragons for people who need pictures.  The title of this post is a reference to the game’s old slogan: “All you need is a deck and a friend.” I always thought this was Magic players taking a frank look at themselves and acknowledging that they tended to be awkward and anti-social, often with offensive body odors.  The slogan seemed to say, “C’mon, geek, all you need is a friend.  Just one. Even you have one, don’tcha?  How about the Asian kid who doesn’t speak English very well?  You two get along, and he always has good video games. Or the fat kid? He’ll play any game that doesn’t require him to run.  If you get them and the kid who plays clarinet*, you’ll practically be able to start a gang.”

If anything, the true power of MTG is that when I remember playing it, suddenly my early teens seem like an episode of the Wonder Years with a Weezer soundtrack, rather than years of desperation, bad outfits, and bacne.  Best of all, Underpants on the Outside provides me with a good excuse to get back into it.  After all, it’s definitely a nerdy hobby, and I think I could write funny stories about getting beat down by children and creepy adults. 

In any case, I could not be more excited about this.  In the early stages of this project, I was afraid that I’d never find someone to play with; if I ask them again my roommates will start advertising my room on Craigslist, and when I asked Wonder Woman she said no.  In fact, she threatened to dump me if I turn weird.  (I’m pretty sure she’s bluffing, but even if she’s not, after dating me for two years, I’m confident her standards of normal behavior have widened quite a bit.)

But with a little luck and a little research, I found Neutral Ground, a store in Manhattan with a large gaming room in the back.   I went there this weekend, and it was a dead ringer for Flights of Fantasy, the bookstore me and my friends used to go to trade cards.  There were the spoiled kids, harried moms willing to spend whatever it took for a moment of peace, and t-shirts referencing old Nintendo games.  It smelled sour and disgusting, and the tables were filled with uglies, greasies, creepies, stinkies… and me.  Weird thing though.  The slightly older guy with thinning hair who is obviously and desperately trying to hang onto his childhood…he wasn’t there.  I looked all around, but there was no sign of him. 

Yes, my birthday is next month.  What does that have to do with anything?

*Full disclosure: I played clarinet in the band, and you’d better believe I was first chair.