I had given the lecture many times without incident, but today a feminist was in the audience and took umbrage at something I said and called me a loathsome nerd, then reported me to the Dean, telling him I had used hate speech so vile she had fainted. There is only so much a man can take. Sometimes he just has to take matters into his own hands and let them know he is not a nerd, but that he is, in his inner being, an action hero, a Zorro secretly righting wrongs or Zorro’s opposite, a demon, stalking the streets with sharpened teeth and raking nails.

I will confess I hate that word
I hate it when I’m called a nerd
I know that’s how I look to you
A PhD from Podunk U
I didn’t want to go to Yale
For like all nerds I knew I’d fail
That’s why I lived alone so long
Afraid of always being wrong
But come the night I join the moon
And make them sing a different tune
With sharpened teeth, on darkened street
I lurk in shadow till I meet
The feminist who called me dull
She’s frightened, yes, and in the lull
As she lay dying I explain
How all my life I’ve been in pain
In sympathy she nods her head
Her breathing stopped but still she said
Your whiteness is beyond the pale
But worst of all is being male
I’m glad I got your lectures nixed
But there’s still hope, you can be fixed
I left her there without a word
And slunk on home, still just a nerd