My Name in Elvish

I wore my Lord of the Rings t-shirt into the grocery store the other day. The checkout fellow kept giving me strange looks, and I asked if there was a problem.

"Just admiring your shirt," he said.

I glanced down to see what I had on. "Oh, Lord of the Rings. You a fan?"

"Oh yeah. My brother used to read it to me before bed every night," he said. I asked him if he'd liked the movies, and he gave me a nod. "Have you read the books?"

"Sure, several times," I told him as he slid the groceries across the little beepy thing. "I have a copy on my cellphone to read while I'm at the doctor's office."

"Have you read the Appendices?"

"Of course," I said. "And some of the extra books too."

"I learned how to write in Elvish using the Appendices," he said. Then he asked me my first name. I told him.

On the back of my receipt, he wrote this:

"Cool," I said. "Thanks. I'd never thought to learn Elvish."

I came home and looked up an online translator. It gave me this:

A little prettier but basically the same.

Nerds. You gotta love 'em.