Wash with a nickname-appropriate shirt
If you’re a regular reader of GeekDad, you know that we love ThinkGeek. Their selection of geeky products is second to none, their customer service is friendly and helpful, and they’ve gone out of their way to support geeky artists and musicians. And we knew they were generous people, but we didn’t know just how generous until now — not that we’re in any way surprised.
It seems that a 27-year-old man named Kevin Pratt-King (nicknamed “Wash”) was diagnosed a couple of years ago with a rare form of cancer that kills 99% of its victims within three years. Wash and his wife Tashi are both hard-core geeks and loved to leaf through the ThinkGeek catalog, but their situation made them unable to afford anything from it. Tashi wrote about this, and about the many hardships they’ve endured due to Wash’s illness, on her blog.
Somehow, probably via Twitter, the folks at ThinkGeek found out about the Pratt-Kings’ situation and decided to help them out in a way they were uniquely able to, by sending the couple a ton of awesomely geeky gifts, for themselves and their cats (they don’t have children). Suddenly, two geeks who had been forced by circumstances beyond their control to give up most of the trappings of Christmas had presents to give each other, with a few left over to give to people important to them.
In case you doubted Tashi was a geek…
And the ThinkGeek folks did this without any expectation of publicity, not even writing about it on their blog or Twitter feed. Heck, we’re in contact with several ThinkGeek-ers on a fairly regular basis, and we didn’t know anything about it until we saw a piece on Consumerist about the story.
So, major kudos to all of our friends at ThinkGeek! You did good. (And yes, that is the correct word choice in this case.)
Happy New Year, everyone!
Photos: Wash and Tashi Pratt-King
