Star Trek References for the Win

Someone posted my dad’s high school graduation photo, and it was remarked that he had “the Adams head shape.”

It’s true that my face is elongated like that. When I was a teen, I was visiting a neighbor who was mortified when her young child asked me, point blank, “Why is your head so stretched out?”

The child’s mother was doing the dishes at the kitchen sink, her back to me, but I saw her freeze in place, probably wishing she could sink through the floor as she wondered what my reaction would be.

I just broke out in a huge grin and made up a tale of having my head caught in “a Chinese rice picking machine” when I was her age, resulting in this slight deformity.

Satisfied, the child wandered away, after which her mother’s shoulders shook as she collapsed into laughter.

“I was so embarrassed, but then you handled that so beautifully,” she said gratefully, wiping tears as she turned to face me.

The more nerdy among us can guess what Star Trek episode had recently aired.