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Tucknical Difficulties -*- Copyright 2001 by Ellen Hayes.

Any resemblance between the writings in this work, and any actual
persons or places, living or dead, are purely coincidental, except when
used for satirical purposes.

This work contains adult situations, adult language, adult concepts, and
possibly sex.  If you are legally not allowed to read materials
containing such things, then you will be breaking the law by reading
this.  I am not responsible.
Continuing to read this document, or storing it or reproducing it
in any format means that you explicitly affirm that you are legally
allowed to possess and read such materials in your city, county/parish,
state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


Tucknical Difficulties


***
00:59 26 Jul

     "I guess," he started, and startled me out of contemplating his
face.  "I guess, I mean... you're fun to be with."
     "Uh huh," I prompted.
     "You do crazy stuff... like with Amy, that kickboxing," I nodded,
"and you like dancing, and..."  He thought some more.  "And you're
pretty, I mean I think so-"
     "Is that it?  I'm just a pretty face to you?" I smiled.
     "No," he said semi-seriously.  "No," he said a lot softer, "you, I
mean, you're just kind of... I dunno, like, different."
     "So I'm pretty AND weird?"
     "Valerie," he groaned.  "Come on, I'm being serious!"
     "Okay, alright, so... so why..."
     He stroked my cheek with a finger, which made my eyes flutter
closed for a few moments.  "It's like," he said finally, "it's like
you're not afraid to be different, and so you're like, yourself.  Like
that dress tonight, I mean, maybe I was wrong and I shouldn't have said
anything about it, about you not fitting in, but I bet if I didn't you'd
have worn it there and not cared what anyone else thought about it, just
because you liked it."
     "Well, I mean, I'm not that advanced," I disclaimed, and he
chuckled.
     "See?" he said.  "That's what I mean.  You didn't say 'weird' or
'freak' then, you said 'advanced', like it was something positive, not
being worried about what other people think."
     I had to think about that too.  "Well, I mean, I do worry about-"
     "Me too, but-  Sorry."  I nodded for him to continue.  "But, uh,
it's like it's okay for you to be different.  In your own mind, I mean.
Even like Lisa, who's one of the weirdest people I know, I mean, she
tries so hard to look normal all the time, and she only lets it out when
she doesn't think anyone can see her."
     "You think LISA's weird?"
     "How many people do you know running their own business?"
     "Lots, I mean-"
     "At sixteen?"
     "'Kay," I admitted, "you got a point there."
     "But you, I mean," he turned the topic back to me, "you're like, I
mean you fit in, when you want, but if someone said something stupid
about radio I bet you'd correct 'em, and not worry 'oh what will they
think if I admit I know something about it?'"
     "That sounds like my sister," I replied, nodding.  "She knew a lot
more than she'd admit to people, and she was always doing stupid stuff,
I mean not real stupid like stealing cars or something, but just to fit
in stuff."
     "Yeah, that's what I meant," he nodded.  "And the babysitting..."
     "What?"
     "I mean, you're doing it, and you could get a lot better job doing
something like computers or electronics," he guessed, "but I mean it's
obvious you like being with the kids and stuff."
     "I do?"
     "Don't you?" he asked back.
     I thought about it.  "Yeah, I guess I do, kinda," I admitted. "I
mean they can be a pain, but they can be fun too.  Like showing 'em my
gear today, that was fun, and they were fun, I mean watching 'em look at
it and answering their questions and showing 'em stuff and things like
that."
     He nodded in confirmation.  "And with the little baby girl, I mean,
what's her name?"
     "Stella," I supplied.
     "Yeah, Stella," he nodded, "I mean it's really obvious you, I mean
this sounds stupid I know, but it's like you and her are really good
friends or something, and-"
     "Travis," I giggled, "she's just a little baby!"
     "And you like her a lot, don't you?"
     "Well.... yeah, I guess," I admitted.
     "You just... every time I see you with her, it's almost like she's
your baby or something.  I mean, it's like you really care about her,
and you do stuff with her like tickle her and stuff... that, I mean, a
lot of people, like mothers even, don't seem to pay that much attention
to their babies, not like you do."
     "Really?" I asked, astonished.
     "Really," he answered, nodding like he was completely sure.
"Besides, if you didn't like it, you wouldn't keep doing it, right?"
     I thought about it for a while myself, trying not to let just the
feeling of being with him distract me, and eventually decided he was
right.  "Yeah, I guess.  Do you like your job?"
     He shrugged.  "Dunno...  It's okay, I guess.  Not great, but I like
the money."
     "Why don't you get a better one, then?"
     "'Cause I can only work so much during the school year, and they
expect that, it's seasonal employment, so..."
     "Yeah, but, I mean-"
     "I mean I could," he added, "I guess, but it's easier to just work
during the summer and then concentrate on school."  That was true; a lot
of the girls had problems fitting in work and homework and a social life
sometimes.
     "Yeah..."
     "Are you going to keep working, babysitting, when you go back to
school?"
     "I hadn't thought about it yet," I answered honestly.  "I dunno...
Like you said, and then I dunno about how sitting would work if I had to
go there after school every day.  And Stella's too young to go to school
too, so someone would have to be with her during the day.  I don't even
know what Miz Parker thinks, either," I realized.  "Guess I better ask
Monday."
     He nodded.
     Pause.
     I kissed his chest, eventually, and he started stroking my hair.

***
02:32 26 Jul

     The muttered, "Oh crap!" simultaneously woke me up and alerted me
that something was wrong.
     "Huh?" I said brilliantly as Travis shook me off his arm.
     "Val, it's like two-thirty, you gotta go," Travis informed me.
     "Why?"
     He stopped, and I almost went back to sleep before he said, "Val!
Don't you have a curfew or something?"
     Pause.
     "Oh, crap," I sighed with feeling.

***
02:56 26 Jul

     It wasn't pretty, but a set of scrubs from the car kit plus my Keds
ought to do to get past Dad, if he was still up, especially at three in
the morning.  Luckily, my favorite parking lot was even more deserted
than usual at this time, and I still had things like makeup-off-wipes
with me.  The clothes I'd taken off were stuffed into a garbage bag in
the trunk temporarily.  I hoped.  I needed to get a bigger pack...

***
02:59 26 Jul

     Amazingly, Dad wasn't up, or at least he wasn't in his office, so I
logged in at a console and sent him a rude email about stamina and age
and logged out, just to verify when I was home.  There was, I was sure,
some way to hack into the timestamping for the house mailserver, but I
hadn't found it yet, and I didn't really have the week or so to figure
out what the old goat had done, so it was a relatively secure measure
for now.
     Someday, though...

***
03:02 26 Jul

     Amy had apparently not been in bed long, because she sat up as I
came in.  "Tuck?" she asked sleepily.
     "S'me, go back to sleep," I told her, and she flopped down again.
I got some clothes to sleep in and headed for the bathroom to brush my
teeth and clean up.

***
03:11 26 Jul

     Ah, sleep.  With Amy.
     Not as good as sleeping with Travis, but better than being alone,
that was for certain.
     And then I had a realization that made me chuckle hard enough that
I had to stuff my face in a pillow...  Travis and I had gotten so
involved in talking, we'd forgotten to DO anything!
     I guess it was turning into a relationship.

***
06:00 26 Jul

     I beat my alarm until it shut up, furious that the stupid thing
didn't know it was Saturday and that I didn't have to get up-
     *Until nine,* I remembered.  *Damnit.*
     I spent some time desperately trying to reset the alarm with my
eyes closing involuntarily, and finally managed, and flopped back into
Amy's embrace, realizing, *I have to come up with something better than
this.  This is stupid.*

***
06:02 26 Jul

     An infinity of instants later, I had decided that the MacinClock
was going to have to be reprogrammed, and I had a basic idea in mind but
using the MacinClock meant that I'd have to write something for it and
THAT meant that I was going to have to brush up on the stupidity that
was MacOS.  Assembly was so much cleaner...  But what's the point of
having enslaved a MacinClock if you just went and put Linux on it?

***
09:00 26 Jul

     The alarm pulled me away from a bunch of wires and chips and a
small grayish demon that kept chiming at me, back into the real world.
     Such as it was.

***
09:22 26 Jul

     I stared at Kathy and tried to figure out what she was doing in my
living room at this ungodly time of day, along with a number of plastic
boxes that suggested she was moving in.
     "Morning, sunshine," she smiled at me.
     I was imagining things, I decided, and went to go get another Coke
in the hopes that the caffeine and sugar would wake me up and erase my
hallucinations.  It had to be a low voltage problem, I realized.

***
09:23 26 Jul

     *I must still be asleep,* I decided when I saw Mike and Susan in
the kitchen at the same time, smiling at each other.
     "Where are you going?" asked the dream-Mike as he turned to me.
     "Duh, therapy," I said, annoyed that _I_ should have to explain
things to my own subconscious.  "You should've remembered-"
     Mike took a swipe at me, which I blocked lazily.  I definitely knew
my own tricks, so it wasn't like it was a surprise or anything.  "Coke,"
I reminded everyone, and the phantoms got out of the way, which was
stupid on their part since the extra sugar fuel would dispel them once
it hit my brain.

***
10:02 26 Jul

     "Good morning," Sheila said, smiling at me.  I smiled back, trying
to make it look real, and got up.

***
10:12 26 Jul

     "So it sounds like you're looking forward to this trip," Sheila
summarized.
     "Yeah, kinda... I'm sort of worried that it's gonna hurt, but with
the pads and ev-"
     "Why would it hurt?"
     I stared at her.  "Have you ever gone camping?  I mean, like,
backpacking hiking camping?"
     She thought about it, then shook her head.
     "Try carrying sixty pounds of stuff on your back and walking ten
miles, more than three days in a row.  Sometimes your muscles don't
really start hurting until the third day.  And sleep on the ground with
no climate control.  That's not even counting the scrapes and stuff,
though like I said I'm hoping the pads will prevent most of that this
year..."  I shrugged.
     "Oh, okay, I see what you mean, then," she agreed, and I felt
better.  Sheila was immensely untutored in the ways of the world, and it
always made me feel a bit better when I could give her something that
would help her get along either in real life or in some of the weirder
circumstances that popped up sometimes.
     Like my entire life.

***
11:04 26 Jul

     I was more than annoyed at having to pay Sheila cash since I hadn't
remembered to demand a check from my parents before I left, but I did at
least get a receipt which not only proved I'd been but also proved I'd
paid cash, which neither of them would ever give me for something like
this, which meant by inference that I'd paid for it myself.  Or
something like that.  I was going to get my money back though.
     One would think that the phone calls Sheila was undoubtedly making
to my parents before I got home would be enough proof, but Dad usually
had some sort of lesson in mind, like 'Don't rely on the assumed
competence of others to ensure your good treatment' or something like
that.
     I should go home-
     *Oh, wait,* I realized.  *Travis isn't doing anything today, is he?
Not any more!* I decided.  I actually didn't know, but it would only
take a phone call to find out.

***
11:09 26 Jul

     "Hello?"
     "Travis, it's me Val!" I smiled.
     "Hey, what's up?" he asked, sounding more awake than I thought he
would.  Of course, all he'd had to do last night was lock the door and
stumble back to his own bed.  He also probably hadn't been up for two
hours already.
     "Wanna do something today?  I've got the whole day free..."

***
12:29 26 Jul

     "Why do you carry all that stuff, I mean for hiking?" Travis asked
after we'd ordered food.
     "All what stuff?"
     "You know, all that stuff on the harnesses and in the packs and
everything..."
     That was an immense number of things, so I asked, "You want the
detailed piece-by-piece listing or the general overview?"
     "General," he smiled.
     There was a definite answer; I just didn't want to tell him yet.
There was stuff Dan and George didn't know yet.
     "Well," I did say, "we could go really light, like ultralight
packing, but this way we have a reserve capacity in case something goes
wrong, or we can stay out longer.  Like batteries.  Did you see the
solar cells we had on top of the big pack?" He nodded.  "That'll charge
two sets of four double-A's per day of sun, and that's enough to keep
the radios operating basically continuously.  So-"
     "Radi-OHS?" he questioned.
     "Two receivers give you DF capability if you do it right, and a
backup in case one breaks, and the space that would be taken up by a
transmitter on one is taken up by a crank charger on the other one.
Which is a backup to the solar charger.  See?"
     He didn't see, I could tell.  "I dunno, though," he disagreed.  "I
mean, one of the benefits of camping is that you get away from things
like radios."
     "What?"
     "I mean, you go hiking to get away from everything, right?"  I
nodded, puzzled.  "So, I mean, how can you get away from it all when you
take it all with you?"
     I wished that was true; if it had been, I'd have packed eight hot
showers and a TARDIS-style dimension portal back to our bathroom.
"Well, I mean, it's the easiest way to communicate back and forth if we
get separated, and then if there's some kind of problem we can either
hear about it before it zaps us, like weather, or call for help.  And
it's not like we listen to it all the time, I mean not for like normal
music radio or anything like that.  Mostly it's either National Weather
Service or our local net."
     "Still, I mean, you wouldn't have to carry all that radio stuff
with you, or the batteries either.  Doesn't that weigh a lot?"
     "Yeah, but what do YOU do when, say, someone breaks their arm?
Twenty miles out?"
     "Then we send a group to get help, and do the first aid thing-"
     "You guys don't carry drugs, though, do you?"
     "What?"
     "Morphine, Demerol, stuff like that."
     "No, that's-"
     "Yeah, see?  Can you imagine sitting there with a broken arm HOPING
that nothing happens to the group that went for help, and not being able
to do anything but just hurt?"
     "When did you ever break an arm when hiking?" Travis challenged.
     "I didn't, but my little brother did, when he was eight.  And we
were damned glad we had all that stuff then, man- tents and water and
stoves and radios and drugs and splints and sutures and my oxy bottle
and all the rest of it.  I mean, of course we didn't use everything we
carry all at once, but you just don't know what kind of problem you're
going to run into."
     Lightweights.  They just didn't get it, until they GOT IT, and then
they screamed and prayed for people like us to find them before they
bought the whole farm.
     There was a pause, I think as we both decided silently that the
other was a nut on this topic and to back away slowly.  At least I was
mature enough to let him be completely wrong without ragging his ass.
     Travis considered for a while, then asked, "How long have you been
doing this?"
     "Backpacking?"  He nodded.  "Since we were old enough to walk a
distance, which Dad defined at about seven years old.  Before that, one
of them, Mom or Dad, would keep the younger ones at a car campsite, and
the older ones 'got' to go hiking."  I grinned ruefully at how I'd been
tricked over the years.  "Which, of course, made us young'uns want to go
hiking SO bad, to show how grown-up we were..."
     Travis caught the joke and chuckled too.
     "Anyway," I went on, Mom and Dad were packing back in the bad old
days, before Gore-Tex was even invented.  Before any of us were born,
too; back in the seventies."
     "Jeez."
     "Yeah.  And Dad thinks he's like a modern Thomas Edison or
something, so he keeps coming up with ideas and testing them out, on us,
and the ones, I mean... the ideas go through like evolution; one person
will try something to test it, and the ideas that work out 'breed' and
we all use 'em, and the ones that don't 'die' and we don't.  The solar
panels work; having two receivers work; hiking staffs work better than
trying to find one at the trail...  Mike had the idea of using skating
pads this year, and I think they're going to work great, but Dad's not
buying any yet.  But he's been using knee braces for a few years, and I
just this year finally figured out BEFORE I went that I could use an
ankle brace.  As opposed to last year, when I remembered it while I was
hiking..."  I was definitely getting smarter in my old age.  'Bout time
too.
     "So how long can you stay out?" he asked.  "On the trail, I mean.
You said that was a consideration."
     "Longest so far is two weeks, but we had to cache some food and
resupply after about eight days.  That was, ah," I thought about it.
"Three years ago.  I think."
     "Good lord," Travis prayed.
     "With about two pounds of food a day, plus a bit of things like
soap and toothpaste..."  I shrugged.  "Forever, in that sense."
     Which was, of course, the point.

***
12:40 26 Jul

     "So what do you guys do, camping?" I asked.
     "'You guys?'" he said back.
     "Scouting?"
     "Oh."  He thought about it as I ate some more of my spinach chef
salad.  Just thinking about camping made me want to have fresh veggies,
and it was hard not to think about it since I had to go and get all the
food I was going to eat and repackage it, and that was going to take-
     "Mostly short stuff," Travis said, which confused me momentarily
until I remembered what I'd asked.  "Weekend, three-day stuff.  I've
done a couple of week-long hikes, but those were hard..."  Travis paid
some attention to his lunch.
     "Hard?"  That was like the minimum lately; Mom and Dad would have
had us hiking the Appalachian Trail over the summer except that first,
they had to work, and second, all us Tuckerspawn had threatened to
revolt by stealing their credit cards, duct-taping them to trees, and
hitching a ride back home and eventually collecting their life
insurance.  It would have worked if we'd used enough tape...
     Travis finished with that mouthful and nodded.  "I mean, not that
hard for me, but when you're hiking with a group of people, you can't go
faster than the slowest one."  I nodded in agreement.  "And it... I
mean, some of the guys in my patrol or other patrols I've hiked with
are, well, wimps."  We both chuckled at that.  "So, I mean, since I was
usually leading, I-"
     "You were?" I interrupted.
     "Ranking Scout," he said and shrugged.  "That sort of put me in
charge, unless there was someone else above me."  That was another
reason to avoid the Scouts, I realized.  Formal hierarchies usually
sucked, especially when not directly connected with ability.  "And since
I made Eagle at fifteen, I was-"
     "Fifteen?  Years old?" I interrupted again, then apologized,
"Sorry, I don't mean to keep interrupting."
     He patted me on the head, which took a conscious decision not to
try and bite his hand, and he smiled at me, which gave me quite a
different reaction.
     "Yeah, I mean, it was pretty hard to do, but I'm not the youngest
either."  He shrugged.  "So, like anyway, you know most trails and
stuff, you have to camp at prepared campsites, right?"  I nodded; that
was the regulation, anyway, most places.  "So we had to get from A to B
before it got dark, because I knew if it got dark I'd lose a couple of
stragglers in the woods."  He grinned, and I grinned back as Travis
inadvertently confirmed that night vision gear wasn't Scout issue.  Too
bad.  "So they'd whine about having to walk 'so far' and 'so fast'," he
whined in imitation, "and I'd have to make 'em go faster so we could get
there."
     "Bleah," I commented.
     He nodded.  "So what did your Dad do to keep you kids on the
march?"
     "Oh, we had the packs and harness and stuff, and we wouldn't carry
as much as they would until we got as big as Mom, and he and Mom would
take it a LITTLE slower, and Dad told US that if we didn't keep up, no
one would wait for us unless we were having an emergency, so if we
didn't keep up we'd have to use the survival gear we had and do the best
we could, and the latest he'd wait would be an extra day before he drove
home.  And left us there."
     "No way," Travis argued.
     "No one ever tested it," I shrugged.  "He SAID he was serious, and
Mom didn't argue.  I suggested a few times that Susan my sister try it
out, but she declined."  Vehemently, sometimes violently.  Susan was not
the biggest fan of camping anyway.  "We also tended to push each other
on, I mean the kids did.  Besides, the adults usually carried the good
food and stuff, and..."
     Years too late, I caught on.
     "What?"
     "I just realized!  They made US carry all the stuff like oatmeal
and our clothes and stuff, and THEY carried all the good stuff!
Deliberately!  They had the FOOD hostage!  Those WORMS!"
     Travis started laughing at that, and eventually I had to also.
Eventually.

***
13:19 26 Jul

     "So what do we do now?" Travis asked me as we walked out to a gray
sky again.
     "We could go back to your place," I suggested, and ran a hand down
his back to insinuate ideas of other things we could do once we got
there.
     "Well, actually," he said, and then he stopped.
     "Actually what?"
     "Are you really good with computers?"
     "Does the Pope shit on bears?"

***
13:21 26 Jul

     I hadn't thought it was that funny a comment, but Travis had.
Luckily, he hadn't quite fallen on me, so I could help hold him upright
as he got finished laughing.

***
13:22 26 Jul

     "No, I mean," Travis tried to breathe, and it was an effort not to
tickle him and make it worse.  I did somehow manage to restrain myself
though.  "I mean, my computer's, something's wrong with it, and if
you can fix it..."
     Life imitates art, I guess.
     And now _I_ was laughing like a lunatic.

***
13:50 26 Jul

     I draped myself over him and watched as he 'demonstrated' the
problem.  Or problems; he had several that I could see.
     "Do you have a screwdriver?" I asked him.
     "Don't you have one?"
     "Not in my purse, duh!  It's in my pack which I left at home!" I
complained before I noticed the grin.  He had to be tickled for this.

***
13:52 26 Jul

     "You know," Travis gasped, "if you'd stop tickling me you wouldn't
keep getting pinned on the floor."
     I thought about it, then grinned and tried to tickle him some more,
but apparently he was hypered up because he grabbed my wrists before I
could catch his ever-so-sensitive tummy, and then he pulled them over my
head.  "What if I don't want to stop?" I asked rhetorically.  Then I
noticed my legs were no longer pinned.

***
13:53 26 Jul

     "But if you fixed it then I could send you email or something!" he
begged.
     "Oooh, I need more of that," I drawled, and squeezed the scissors
tighter, making him grunt.
     "I took you out to lunch!" he said when he could breathe again.
     "I know!" I replied, and kissed the back of his neck.  "And it was
really good, too."  His neck was nice, and so I decided I'd kiss it some
more.
     "Valeruggggghhh," he moaned as I tightened up.
     "Naughty boy, pinning me on the ground and getting my nice top all
dirty," I crooned in his ear.  "Haven't you been a naughty boy?"
     "Nooouuggghhh," he reconsidered.
     "SUCH a naughty boy..."

***
13:57 26 Jul

     I had extracted a promise of his support in my quest for World
Domination, and then he really did have to go to the bathroom, and so I
let him go.
     He scrambled up and ran for it, as if he thought I would interfere
in the emptying of his bladder.  *Not hardly.*
     I got up, brushed myself off - he was going to have to vacuum
again, especially the way I kept ending up under him on the floor - and
idly walked over to the computer to see exactly what was screwed up.

***
14:11 26 Jul

     "Uh huh," I mumbled to whatever Travis had just said.  This
computer obviously hadn't been worked on since it left the factory,
since it had all the screws in the case, and those were usually the
first items the god of computer repair took as a sacrifice.

***
14:38 26 Jul

     "Travis, this thing is sick," I told him.
     "I know!  That's why I wanted you to fix it!"
     "Travis," I said slowly, "some parts of this thing are dead.  As in
doornail.  We need replacement parts."
     "Like, how much?" he asked skeptically.

***
15:09 26 Jul

     "Can I help you?" the sales droid asked Travis.  I'd been forced
not to go to my usual hardware shop, since my usual hardware shop was
Dad's.  Naturally, I couldn't think of another place, so we had to go to
a place we could find easily, which meant basically Comp-U-R-A-Moron.  I
hated these places.
     "I need," I said, "a CD-ROM, two one-four-four floppies, and drive
cables.  And a three hundred meg or four-twenty IDE hard drive."  Step
zero: back it up.  Step zero-A: did the backup work?  Besides, he needed
more drive space anyway.
     The droid turned back to Travis and said, "Well, we do have a
service dep-"
     If I hadn't been so stunned, it wouldn't have taken me so long to
say, "Do you want to sell those items to me," I asked, "or should I stop
wasting my time and go someplace else that will sell me what I ask for?"
     He'd lost, and he knew it, but at least he gave up when all hope
was gone.  "What did you need?"

***
15:20 26 Jul

     "Travis, you're buying that stuff," I pointed to the boxes he was
carrying, "to fix your hardware, not new software.  You need to get
your system running before you worry about other things."  Like the game
software he was staring at.  "Besides, I can probably get you those
games if you really want 'em."
     "You can?"
     I laughed.

***
15:23 26 Jul

     "I'll buy the hard drive," I insisted.  "I need another one
anyway, and you can use this one for a while.  Or buy it back from me."
     Travis started protesting and I ignored him and handed the pimply
kid ten twenties.

***
15:25 26 Jul

     "Why did you do that," Travis asked sullenly.
     "Because!  You, WE, need to back up everything on your hard drive,
and this will be much faster and about as cheap as floppies, and I don't
want to consider a tape drive or CD-recorder right now."  Those
recorders were wonderful but expensive; even Dad only had two.
"Besides, they're even more expensive."
     Now he looked confused again, and I had to smile; he looked so cute
like that...

***
15:37 26 Jul

     "So what are you going to do with all this stuff?" Travis asked as
he unlocked the door.
     "Fix your computer?" I reminded him.
     "No, I mean-"
     "Watch and learn," I smiled.

***
15:53 26 Jul

     Travis asked me a question, which made me look up at him.  "Huh?"
     "I said," he said, "did you want something to drink?"
     "Uh, yeah, okay."  I got back to work.

***
15:54 26 Jul

     Travis asked me a question, again, which made me look up.  "What?"
     "Here's your drink," he said, handing me a glass with ice and
ginger ale.
     "Uh, thanks," I said, took the glass, put it someplace out of my
way, and got back to work.

***
16:23 26 Jul

     The case was back together again - minus the two-screw sacrifice to
the god of computer repair - and now I could work on his software.
"Travis, did you want..."  *Oh, God, I feel like such a whore asking
this.*  I swallowed and went on, "...do you want Windows 95 on this, or
what?"  It was just heavy enough a system that it could handle a
downgrade from 3.11 to 95 without becoming so overloaded that it
collapsed or melted.
     "You have 95?" he asked incredulously.  "I thought it was
expensive."
     *Dear God, he's a completely innocent babe,* I realized.
     "I mean," he went on, "don't you need a password to like install it
or something?"
     I held up a hand, and he quieted.  "Travis," I repeated, "do you
want Windows 95 on this, or Windows 3.11 again, or Linux, or something
else?  I need to install a fresh copy of the operating system, because
yours is trashed."  Something occurred to me.  "You don't have any disks
that came with this thing when you bought it, do you?"  He shook his
head.  Of course he didn't.
     "Uh.... I dunno.... which would be better?" he asked, looking
confused.  "What's Linux?"  I could not help putting my head in my
hands, which seemed to upset him.

***
16:25 26 Jul

     I wondered why Travis had gotten me a glass of ginger ale and then
let it sit, go flat, and dilute as the ice melted in it, but that's what
I was sipping as I sat on the couch with him.
     "Travis," I asked gently.  "Do you want to mostly play games, or do
you mostly want to do other things?"
     "Uh.... games?" he asked, like he wasn't sure and I would be.
     "Then you need Windows of some sort," I told him.  "Do you have a
lot of games now?"
     "No."
     "And you want to get more?"  He nodded.  "Then you need 95."
*Lady of Electrons, forgive me.*  But there was nothing I could do,
except possibly try and divert him from this path of Evil.  On the other
hand, even I had one damned box for games.  Plus another dual-boot to
test networking, but that hardly counted, since I could still do real
work on it.
     Of course, I had more than one box, and even more than two boxen,
which is why I was willing to sacrifice one to the forces of Darkness
simply to play games.
     On the other hand, it wasn't like Travis was going to be the next
Kibo or Torvalds anyway.  If he was, he'd have fixed the thing himself
already.
     "I do?" he asked, which confused me momentarily, then I nodded.

***
16:38 26 Jul

     "This is the worst part, waiting for it to finish loading," I
explained as I sipped diluted ginger ale.
     "How long does it take?"
     "Long time," I half answered.  Some of the timing depended on the
speed of the system, including the CD-ROM and the hard drive, and some
of it was apparently controlled by a random number generator I hadn't
located yet.
     "So," he started to say.
     "I have to sit here and watch the stupid thing, in case it develops
a brain tumor and dies unexpectedly."  'Unexpectedly' being all too
common with Windows95, of course.  "Wanna read a book or something?"

***
17:19 26 Jul

     By luck, he had a working modem.  Not by luck, I knew all the comm
settings to use to set my floppy-based comm program to call my house so
I could Zmodem a lot of driver files down to his system, in order to
allow things like video cards to work.

***
17:41 26 Jul

     Travis said something, and so I turned to him and inadvertently
snapped, "What?"
     "I was just saying you really type fast," he said apologetically.
"Don't have a cow."
     Since I was installing a cow, a big fat disease-ridden cow, just
for him and at his request, I wasn't happy with the analogy.  "Yeah,
comes from being a geek all my life," I said flatly.
     "You're not a geek," Travis said like he was serious.
     I stared at him.  "What are you ON?"
     "Come on," he smiled, "you're like social and everything.  How can
you be a geek?  You don't even wear glasses."
     "Trust me, I'm a geek," I informed him, and went back to slicing
the worst rotted bits off the carcass.

***
17:45 26 Jul

     "So there ya go, sport," I said, and flourished at the now
demonically possessed computer he wanted.
     "That's it?"
     "Guaranteed to work for one year," I smiled.  "Not counting
hardware failures, of course."
     "Does, I mean, everything?" he asked, like he couldn't believe it.
     "Try something," I kept smiling as I got up.  "Anything!"
     He just looked back and forth between me and the box, looking
stunned.
     "Wanna play pinball?" I grinned.

***
17:49 26 Jul

     We were discussing what to do next when my pager went off.  I
reluctantly stopped kissing Travis, pulled away from him, and went to my
backpack.  I dug the pager out and looked at it, and it was giving the
number for the home line.  "Damnit!"
     "What?"

***
17:53 26 Jul

     "Hello?" Mom said.
     "Mom?  S'me."
     "Eugene, where are you?  We haven't seen you all day, and your
friends are wondering where you are."
     *Oh, crap.*  "Mom," I complained, "I'm working on someone's
computer, they should know that!  I told 'em again yesterday!"
     "Well, when are you coming home?" she wanted to know.
     "When I get done!"
     "Eugene," she warned.
     "Mom!" I complained.
     "Don't start with me," she said back.
     "Mom, I'm not doing anything!  I'm working on a computer and I told
them that I was working on a computer last night, and-"
     "When are you coming home?" she asked again.
     I desperately wanted to scream, but that would only make things
worse.  And, of course, the problem was not actually with my friends,
but with my mother.  She must have sensed me having fun or something.
Damnit.  "Um... a couple of hours-"
     "A couple of hours?  Can't you work on this tomorrow?"
     *Oh you idiot,* I thought gleefully, and said, "Hold on, lemme
check."  I then carefully held my hand over the microphone and called,
"Travis?"
     He came into the bedroom shortly thereafter.  "What?"
     "Wanna do something tomorrow?" I smiled.
     He thought about it.  "Um... yea- do you have to leave or
something?"
     "My family is calling me back to my doom," I nodded, and he
chuckled.
     "Well, let's..."  He stopped, and thought for about ten seconds,
then restarted, "Uh, come over early, okay?  Like nine or something?"
     "Okay, what do you have in mind?"
     He smiled.  "It's a surprise."
     "This better be a nice surprise or I'll tickle you until you piss
yourself," I warned him.  "In front of your friends."
     "It's a nice surprise!  Trust me," he insisted.  "You'll like it."
     I sure hoped so, or he was going to be awfully embarrassed.  "Okay,
now out."
     "Out-"
     "I gotta finish talking," I said, pointing at the phone I was
muffling.
     "Oh, right," he agreed, and he left.
     "Mom?"
     "Done yet?" Mom asked sarcastically.  "So nice of you to remember
you were on the phone with-"
     "Mom, I'll be home in an hour or less.  From when you hang up," I
added.
     "It'll be nice to see you again," she gloated.
     "Uh huh," I sighed.  "I'll see you in a while, okay?"
     "Drive carefully, Eugene," she said.
     "Bye Mom."

***
17:56 26 Jul

     "We'll have fun tomorrow," Travis mentioned into my neck.
     "What are you planning, you devious snake?" and he laughed, which
made me feel really good until I remembered again that I had to go home
almost instantly.
     "Just dress casual," he said.
     "Whyyyyy?" I started to whine, and then remembered that tomorrow
was Sunday.  "Damnit!"
     "What?"
     I shook my head angrily.  "I've got a permanent breakfast date with
some friends Sunday morning, and my asshole parents are expecting me to
cook for three or four hours for Sunday dinner.  My friends, too," the
scum.  "If I skip those, I'm gonna be in trouble."
     "What are you doing next weekend?" he asked.
     "Camping," I groaned.
     "Tuesday?"
     "Which?"
     "This one?"
     I thought about it.  "After work would be-"
     "No, I mean like during the day."
     "I work then, Travis, you know-  You work too!" I accused him.
     "I think I can get off one day," he said optimistically.
     "Well, I can't, I'm already taking a week off for a mandatory
walking tour of hell."  He chuckled.  "Travis, what are you thinking?"
     Completely unexpectedly, he asked, "Can I get Miz Parker's phone
number?"
     "NO!"
     "Please?" he smiled.
     I didn't melt; this was too ominous.  "NO way in HELL, unless you
tell me what you're thinking of!"
     "I want it to be a surprise!" Travis protested.
     "Well I don't!" I shot back.  "Not any more!  This is too scary
already!"
     Pause while he looked hopeful at me and I glared back.
     Travis deflated.  "Are you sure you won't let me make it a
surprise?"
     "I am completely sure," I assured him.

***
17:58 26 Jul

     "Hello?"
     "Miz Parker?" I confirmed, crossing my fingers.
     "Valerie?"
     "Hi, yeah, um, the reason I'm calling is, Travis had this idea..."

***
18:28 26 Jul

     "Hi!" Rachel said as I came into her room.  She looked like she was
getting ready for a date, which I wasn't, which was sort of depressing.
     "Hi," I sighed.
     "What's wrong?"
     "The parentals are demanding my, uh, my... my extrica- that thing
where they send prisoners off to a country to be tried for crimes?"
     "Extradition?"
     "Yeah, that's it.  They demanded I be extradited home immediately."
     "What did you do?"
     "Have fun," I explained.  "They can sense it, and they have to
interfere.  You remember, right?"  Rachel smiled at that.  "Anyway,
since you're here, I need to pick out something to wear for Tuesday,
Travis said he wants to do something and I need to dress casual but good
and, you know, attractive..."  
     "What are you doing?"

***
18:35 26 Jul

     "You sure?" I asked, holding both hangers up at the right heights.
     "Very casual," Rachel affirmed.

***
19:03 26 Jul

     "Hi Mom," I said, just to make the point that I'd come home.
     "Hello Eugene," she smiled.  "Nice to see you again."
     I managed not to roll my eyes at her, but it was an effort.
"Whatsup?"
     "Oh, I just wanted to see you for a while," she lied.  She was
actually jealous of me being out and about and wanted to put a stop to
it.  I knew her.
     "Well-"
     "Did you go to therapy today?" she asked.
     "Oho, yes I did, and someone owes me some money for it because I
had to pay cash," I said, dropping my pack next to me as I knelt and
started digging through it for the receipt.  When I found it, I closed
my pack back up and stood, handing the slip of paper to her.  She
scrutinized it closely for a while - I should have practiced my forgery
a lot longer before I tried it on Mom or Dad, but I'd been young and
foolish at that age - and she finally nodded and handed it back to me.
"I just wondered, since you didn't get a check today, and I thought you
might have skipped it."
     "Mmmm, no."  Medical appointments were another one of those
non-optional things with this family, though at least they let most of
them wait until we were in school.  Mom had actually come up with the
idea, but Dad liked it too.
     Since, Mom had reasoned, kids in general would rather give up a
school day than a summer day, and since it made no difference to either
of them since we had to be taken anyway (long ago), then why not do it
when there weren't crowds of families trying to get before-school
appointments, let us kids get at least a bit of compensation by having a
day off from school, and commit all doctor's appointments, dental
cleanings, eye exams, and so on, during the school year?
     This also gave them a chance to play hooky too; they tended to
alternate who got the half-day off, depending on who felt more stressed.
Once Susan had gotten her driver's license, she'd started fighting to
take me and Brian too, and Dad had let her take 'his' turns since he was
a professional bum by then and worked mostly when he felt like it.
     I would really hate him for this, except I was going to do the
exact same thing when I could arrange it.
     Anyway, Susan's 'assistance'  had not made me or Brian pleased,
since neither Mom nor Dad hit us to keep us quiet except under very
extreme circumstances, but on the other hand Susan had proven more
amenable to bribery of the 'Let's go somewhere for lunch' sort, and deep
down she didn't want to be in school any more than we did.  So it sort
of worked out.

***
19:04 26 Jul

     "Hey!" I mentioned in surprise when I saw that half my friends were
hanging out in the living room.  "Whatsup?"
     "First aid today," Kathy said lazily.  "'Member?"
     "Not hardly," I admitted.
     "Can we eat now that he's here?" Mike asked Mom, pointing at me.

***
19:59 26 Jul

     "Wanna go for a walk?" Mom asked casually.
     I knew better.  "MOM!"

***
20:24 26 Jul

     "And you hike with all this," Kathy said skeptically.
     I waited to reply until I'd rolled over and gotten upright again.
"Oh yeah.  Want to hear some of the screams of pain I remember from
past trips?"  She chuckled at that and shook her head.  "Wanna come
walking with us?"
     She stretched, which was impressive enough that I simply watched
until she finished, then smiled at me.  "It'd be good to get some
exercise," she said, which I think was agreement.

***
21:26 26 Jul

     "Well," Mike said overly casually, "I'm 'bout ready to go home, how
'bout you?"
     "Oy," I sighed.
     "That is pretty impressive," Kathy admitted.  "I'd've thought you
guys would have died already."
     "Ha!" I said weakly.
     "Ha yourself, Tuck," she grinned at me.  Then she changed faces.
"Ready for school yet?"
     "Argh!" I complained, and put my hands over my ears and ran away as
fast as I could.  Mike was right behind me.
     Kathy trotted for several seconds and got ahead of us.  "It helps
to dump all that stuff before you try to run away, you know," she
mentioned.

***
22:38 26 Jul

     Kathy watched as we all de-packed in the basement.
     The nice thing about such a heavy load was that it felt like you
could fly when you put it down.

***
22:42 26 Jul

     "I was sort of thinking of asking you guys if you wanted to go out
tonight, but after that performance..."  Kathy trailed off.  "What're
you doing Sunday night?"
     "I have a bad feeling that Mom'll want to go on another walk," I
sighed.
     "After one of your Sunday dinners, Tuck?" she grinned at me, and
Amy and Dan and Mike made appreciative noises.  "I've heard about
those."
     "Hmmm...  If I can fill her up...  Hmmm.  Amy?  What'd make Mom too
full to move?"
     "Like I know?  She's YOUR mom..."
     "Fuck you EVER so much, darling," I told Amy, who grinned back.

***
22:53 26 Jul

     Kathy had found a couple of people to hook up with to go dancing
after some phone calls, which I was sort of sad I was going to miss, but
on the other hand I might actually manage to stuff in something
approaching ten hours of sleep, which possibility sort of overwhelmed my
desire to do anything else.
     "Sleep well, Tuck," Kathy admonished as she gave me an off-the-
ground hug which left me breathless.

***
23:18 26 Jul

     While we were brushing our teeth, Amy asked, "You think Kathy likes
you?"
     I choked on toothpaste for a while, until I could spit and cough my
airway clear again, then I gasped, "WHAT?"
     "It was just a question, Tuck, you don't have to die over it," Amy
said, sounding half worried.
     "Don't ASK me things like that when I have goo in my mouth!" I
complained.

***
23:22 26 Jul

     "So?"
     "So what?" I asked back before I remembered.  "Oh."  I thought
about it.  "No way.  She's like you, thinks I'm like this big animated
toy she can play with."
     "I don't think of you that way!"
     "You do!"
     "Not!"
     "You are such a liar, Amy," I grinned at her.  "You're just
shamelessly using me for your-"

***
23:24 26 Jul

     I had Amy in my world-famous scissors lock and was calmly
discussing the reason it was a bad idea to wrestle with me, when my
bedroom door opened and Susan came in.  *I have GOT to change that
code-*
     "What the hell are-" she started, then saw us entangled on the
floor.  "What the fuck?!"
     "Over," I added, smiling.
     "What the hell are you doing?" she snapped at us.
     Amy started to say something, so I clamped down and she lost it.
"Having a discussion," I smiled.  "Amy's losing."  Amy hit my leg
several times with a fist, but that wasn't going to work.  If she
thought to try a modified thumb lock or prying maneuver on my big toe,
THAT might work, but for some reason I'd never mentioned this idea to
anyone in my family.  Heh.

***
23:25 26 Jul

     "She started it!" I complained.
     "I did not!"

***
23:26 26 Jul

     "I am never having children," Susan decided suddenly.
     "But he said-"
     "Shut UP," Susan insisted.  "And stop wrestling because I want to
go to SLEEP.  Or go do it outside or something."
     Amy and I looked at each other and thought about it, and Susan
huffed and went out of my room.  Amy kicked the door shut behind her.
     "Wanna?" I asked.
     She thought about it.  "Nah," she finally decided.  "I mean, we
already showered and everything, right?  Let's go to bed."
     "Shamelessly using me for a footwarmer-"
     She kissed me into silence.
     When she stopped and let go, she asked, "Does it bother you?"
     "Being used as a footwarmer or being kissed like that?"
     She giggled.  "Either."
     "Being kissed is nice," I decided.  "Though maybe it would be a bad
idea to do it in front of Mom."  Mom still hadn't talked to me or Amy
about us sleeping in the same bed, and I wanted to keep it that way,
preferably forever.  "As for the footwarmer thing..."  I shook my head.
     "Good!" she smiled.  "Now go to sleep!"
     "Yes dear," I said back.  All I got was a giggle as she got into
bed.  I followed her, and we ended up with her nose on my neck and her
arm around my side and belly.
     "I like this," I said after a while.
     "Me too, go sleep," she mumbled.  So I did.

***
08:26 27 Jul

     The pounding on my door was horrendous, and I yelped as I shot up.
"What the-"
     "AUNT SARAH!" Amy screamed from the pillows, "WE'RE UP!"
     It was quiet again.
     I collapsed back on the bed.
     "Damnit," Amy commented, and started to struggle out of bed.
     "What are you doing?"
     "Second half of first aid," she said, and then she snorted in
amusement.  At what, I had no idea.

***
08:31 27 Jul

     "Gee, and I'm all alone," I said to myself after Amy went out.
     Then I went back out.  Zzz.

***
09:04 27 Jul

     The pounding on my door, for the SECOND time that morning, drove me
into a fury.  I levitated out of my bed, smashing my head on the frame
of the top bunk which improved my mood not at all, and flew over to the
door to see who I was going to hit.
     When I opened the door, though, I was grabbed around my body and
swung about as Kathy yelled, "GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE!" right into my ear
from behind.
     I screamed a lot, but I wasn't sure if that was from the shock or
the pain of my ankles slamming into the walls.
     *I HATE waking up like this,* I decided.

***


Boxen: Fanciful plural of box often encountered in the phrase `Unix
boxen', used to describe commodity Unix hardware. The connotation is
that any two Unix boxen are interchangeable. - The Jargon File


Distribution:
No part of this work may be distributed as an original work by another
person or group.
Permission is given to redistribute this by electronic means, as long as
the entirety of the work (from the BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE header to
the END PGP SIGNATURE footer) is distributed, and credit is given to the
original author, me.  And no fee may be charged.
Archiving is permitted provided no fee is charged for access.

All rights reserved.


+ ==[--------   Ellen Hayes   @>--,--'---      ellen@barkingduck.net +
PGP DH/DSS keyfing: 33D4 156A AE39 53E2 0313  6714 2878 56A8 61B0 9CDC
+ http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes -=[1990]=- vicki .sig virus 11.4 +



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