Everone fits in, except for her.

I have heard the phrase "I don't fit in" (or variants thereof) often enough to infer a trend. That trend is if there is a group of more than two people, one will be whiny.

"Not fitting in" to one's family is also cliché. To all those who have felt this way, at one time or another, I have this to say to you: I expected as much.

Families are small groups of humans who are forced together by law and DNA. How does anyone get the idea that members of a family should be identical? Our social nature drives us to quickly identify who is the easiest one to leave out in a situation.

Anthropologically this makes sense because if SOMEONE has to be eaten by the Tyrannosaur then we might as well be organized about the decision. Only the government would form a committee to decide how to respond in an emergency, the rest of us have already decided who we will collectively trip/push down in order to survive.

In my family of origin there were 3 children. It was a perpetual game of survivor where alliances were formed by who had the best toys (me) and who had the most in common (my sisters). Other variables were accounted like who our parents were angry with. I have learned your siblings will stand by you through nearly everything except when Mom finds out who ate most of the cookies in the pantry.

In my current family there are 4 of us. I might have thought that my "odd one out" days were over. I was wrong.

The other week we were gifted a larger television. The caveat was that it needed fixing. Despite the stakes being against me I actually fixed it without breaking it further or injuring myself.

As my wife was recovering from the shock of me being handy I gushed:
Me: "Guess what the TV has!"
Her: "A remote control? Your fist mark in the screen from a fit of frustration? Pneumonia?"
Me: "No, a DVI input!"
Her:
Blink.

Blink.

"So?"
Me: "You can connect a computer to the tv with full resolution!"
Her: "So?"
Me: "Now we can use the tv as a second monitor with my laptop!"
Her: "Why would we do that?"

Undeterred I presented my findings to my children when they arrived home.
Me: "Kids, guess what!"
Them: "What!?"
Me: "We can plug the computer into the TV!"
Older child: "COOL!"
Younger child: "Can I play webkinz on it!?"

As it turns out my wife is the one who doesn't fit in, provided it relates to what a computer can connect to. Now I just have to get the kids to lay off me while I try to get an adapter that will FIT that plug and then get their blasted Ubuntu build to have a refresh rate that actually MATCHES the tv.