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Jenna's 386
Wednesday, April 7 1999
Kim called me this morning at work and I told her exactly what I thought about her neurotic phone behaviour of last night. She seemed surprised, conciliatory and sad, in a way that seemed to indicate I was shredding the last vestage of her sense of self worth. I regretted everything I'd said the moment the call was over. The rest of the day pretty much sucked; my girlfriend was weighing heavy on my mind. I even felt a twinge of guilt when Leah, the Director of Online Promotions, shot me an unexpectedly probing glance from 50 feet away.
I'd driven to work in Kim's car, and the frame around the scenery during the whole ride home reminded me of my debt to her. I had to give her a call.
But Jenna the German girl grabbed me as I walked by her place, wanting me to fix her long-broken computer. I saw it as a possible romantic ploy on her part and didn't really want to play along. But I'd repeatedly told her I'd take a look at the godforsaken thing.
First, though, I gave Kim a call. "I suppose I should be so happy that you called me," was the cynical statement with which she opened our conversation. But she actually was happy. The call went well and we agreed to continue being in love. Not surprisingly, she'd had a miserable day, and I didn't want to be responsible for an entirely miserable vacation.
Jenna's computer was a lousy little 386 with 5 Megs of RAM. Its little lithium battery had apparently gone flaky and the computer had lost its CMOS settings. Those are easy to enter via the setup screen, and within a few minutes I had Windows 3.1 running just like the old days. Jenna was amazed. Her old husband, who now earns $90,000/year as a computer expert, had fuddled endlessly with the computer and been unable to resuscitate it. She was genuinely surprised to discover that I'm not earning $90,000/year. I left well before the length of my stay would have strayed into inappropriate territory.
(Before she left, the only girl whom Kim specifically begged me not to sleep with was Jenna the German girl. Jenna, a practicing Catholic, claims not to actually have sex, so I'd have to go down on her if I wanted any action with her. I just don't find the idea of such an act very appealing, though maybe some day I'll have fantasies about it. My best sexual fantasies are always about sure-thing sexual experiences I could have had but, for largely moral reasons - if you can imagine me having them - I didn't.)
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