This evening, we are watching The Big Bang Theory, a series I find most amusing and entertaining.  If you don't know, four of the protagonists are a theoretical physicist, an experimental physicist, an astrophysicist and an aerospace engineer.  So - geeks.  Nerds.  Serious nerds.  Nerds with a capital N-E-R-D.  It happens that one of this evening's episodes finds the extreme nerds in their favorite comic book store.

I'm watching and I see something in the background staging, and I shriek, "Alan!  Look!  There on the shelf!  It's The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman!"

Alan, bored, "Yes, honey, I see."

"I OWN that comic!  I have all The Sandman!  [Sandmen?!?  Sandmans?!? ] Anyway, I own that!  That's volume two!"

"Yes, honey.  You've told me."

"You don't understand!  I own the original 1988-1991 graphics, I own the 1995 paperback collective and the 1999 recolored edition!  I TOTALLY own those comic books!  All of them!  Including that exact one on the wall!"

Alan:  "Yes, dear.  You realize you just totally outed yourself as a bigger geek than any of the geeks on the show, which is a show that stereotypes geeks in massive hyperbole, and you have just proved you're a bigger geek in real life than anything CBS could imagine in fiction."

Me:  (muttering)  "Whatever.  I still own all the Sandmans.  And two DC limited edition action figures."

Alan:  [facepalm]

Hell yeah it's mint-in-box.  That's how we roll in The Shire.