MANUAL.

During each of my last two train rides, I've seen people reading the manuals for things they own. Last night a guy was sitting and reading the manual for his Honda Accord. People actually read the manuals? If you don't know how a car works, you shouldn't have bought it. The manual is there for you to look at when something goes wrong. But this guy was reading page after page, like it was a mystery novel. I guess your car is a pretty important purchase, so knowing more about it wouldn't hurt, but reading the whole manual? Strange.

Then this morning there was a guy reading the manual for his Texas Instruments Financial Calculator. I'm not even sure what to say about that. He didn't even have the calculator out, so he wasn't trying out different things or following instructions. He was just getting some more knowledge about calculators.

If I had to write a manual on not being a nerd, the first page would simply say:

Stop reading manuals. Including this one.

The book would be one page long.