You know, Gary, the rebel without a cause who calls my iPhone “that fancy thinking box”?
So I snapped a pic in case I was hallucinating.
That’s Gary alright. Hell has apparently frozen over.
Somehow, his office, which has remained open during the apocalypse because they’re a life sustaining business, decided to entice Gary with an offer to come over to the dark side - which is, ironically, the white collar side of the plumbing business.
I’m laughing my ass off because the poor dude just wants to retire and instead they delivered him a shiny new laptop with his company’s entire customer history downloaded on its desktop.
Even funnier was, I had to be his IT guy. You have no idea just how hilarious the idea of me being the Casa Slick techie is.
And I was doing fine, until I hit a wall trying to connect all his weird VPN or VNP or VAPING or whatever that stuff is called.
Quick call to Queen Techie Julie in Seattle. Whoops, they’re three hours behind. I stopped and texted instead.
“Are you awake? Call me!”
As soon as I sent it, I realized I probably scared her to death. Who talks on a regular phone anymore? And who wants a hysterical text from their senior citizen parent in the middle of a senior citizen parent eating plague?
Julie, however, is used to me. She merely texted back “One sec bathroom.”
Julie was indeed Queen Techie because she was able to help me overcome the biggest hurdle, which was what the hell was my internet password?
Once that was established, Gary got on the phone with his office and I swear to God, he managed to hook himself up remotely. Even with absolutely no knowledge as to how to use the delete or backspace keys on a laptop.
“Rob, how do I get my name out of here?”
“Wut?”
“My name! I typed it wrong.”
Oh god. I tried so hard not to laugh, I really did. Fail.
“Is that funny to you, Poindexter?”
Ooh, ouch, he called me Poindexter. I grabbed a handful of pretzels and went back upstairs to my own home office purgatory.
I came down an hour or two later to check up on him and he was sitting crosslegged on the floor, smoking.
“All good?”
“This sucks,” he said.
Haha, welcome to my world.
“You know you don’t have to do it, Gar...”
“I know. It’s cool. I’m finished for the day. I get done at 3:00, remember?”
“Well, yeah, but it’s 1:00.”
He shrugged. “Who’s going to know?”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
I’ll tell him, don’t worry.
So this is very interesting to me. Gary always complains he hates his job and we’ve discussed his upcoming retirement this summer so many times I was sure it was a given. The apocalypse is affording him the unexpected opportunity of a fully paid early exit.
So why isn’t he taking it?
You know I had to ask.
“Because I live one day at a time,” he replied.
Oh.
“And a pandemic probably isn’t the best time to make a life decision,” he added.
That, too.
Holy hell. I’m thinking maybe he’s a grownup after all.
(Cue my kids, who are likely stealth reading:
“Okay, boomer 😂😂😂”)
