- Aug 20, 2000
- 20,577
- 432
- 126
Today was the best day of work for a long, long time. Actually, it started off awful. One person never showed up, but it wasn't a big problem because there wasn't much in the way of customers (this is Best Buy's computers department). Bored, mostly alone and not looking forward to working until 10:30 PM with my supervisor.
The Encounter
About an hour into this moribund misery I finish up talking with one customer and a cute redhead approaches me from the side. She's smiling at me and I'm reasonably attractive so it's safe to check her out in an obvious way to let her know what I'm thinking. Cute - really cute - is I think to myself as she smiles and blushes. Professionalism be damned, yanno? It's a retail job!
Just as she's opening her mouth to speak my previous customer taps me on the shoulder and interrupts with "one last question." She smiles and blushes again and I smile back with an unsaid "just a sec babe..." passing between us. She nods and I answer the guy's last question, hell if I can remember it now.
Okay. Did I describe her yet? About my height, 5-10 (I'm 5-11.5), great smile and really engaging demeanour. Redhead with light freckles, dressed in a perky fashion, the girl next door. A friend of mine who's also working that day smiles at her and says, "Oh you didn't find the information yet?" Hmm, so obviously she's been in here before. Finally getting free, she smiles at me again and says, "I was wondering if you had any information on the Compaq 2180CA laptop you have here? Compaq's website doesn't have anything on it."
Well, that's already a plus in my book. She's actually done some form of research about what she's buying! With a girl this cute I'm starting to get affected by the urge to smile goofily back at her and say, "Okay sure, let's check it out on the computer," and walk her over to the sole system in the department with Web access. While I'm bringing up Google I casually ask her, "Was there something specific you wanted to find out?" She smiles yet again and replies, "Yeah...I was wondering if the 2180 had 512k of level 2 cache or just 256k? I know that most of them like the 2170 only have 256."
Wait.
She didn't.
She DID.
Oh. My. God. A cute tall perky redhead who's a geek and knows the significance of L2 cache? I am floored. Absolutely floored. My gaze travels to my coworker and he's got a goofy smile twice as big as mine and the girl's combined and I realize, she's been here before all right. She's been here before and put him under her spell. She is perfect. Oh my God, she is perfect.
All of that travels through my mind in about half a second and I switch my gaze back to her, smile and say, "Oh no kidding! What're you planning with it then?" Need information. Age. Name. Phone number. Key to her heart.
By now it's getting fairly obvious I'm fishing for personal info and she's getting giggly and laughing kind of loudly, but she plays along and tells me she's going to be doing some compiling on the system. "You a student too?" I say. "Yeah...computer engineering at Waterloo, second year." So she's 20 and in one of the most difficult technical programs to get into in Canada. Wow. I tell her to join the club, as I'm a computer science student down at Ryerson and my coworker, who's gone dumb and still grinning like an idiot at the back of her head, goes to U of T for comp. sci. as well. She laughs. And her father shows up.
He has the look of a father growing weary of protecting his all-too-friendly daughter from guys craving young geek girl blood. A split-second glance is exchanged between us and still smiling, he says, "Ah found nothing huh?" (I haven't even checked anything that's come up on Google at this point.) She realizes the party is over too and thanks me profusely for the help and says she'll keep looking. Maybe she'll be back someday! I give her a long last look, the girl whose name I never got, smile and wish her good luck. She giggles and they walk down the long middle walkway, out of the store.
The Aftermath
My friend/coworker and I retreat to the farthest back of the store and hold on to the wall for support. What an angel. Strangely, we got different things out of this - I'm elated that such women exist, and he's deflated by the knowledge she will never be his. Our supervisor, really not that bad a guy at all, is finally out of his meeting and with one look at my coworker (whose name, I should mention, is Ken) says, "She came back didn't she?" Ken nods and says, "Yeah...I think I need some time to cool off or something, I can't work like this!" Understatement of the century!
I'm out of it too and we're all still grinning like idiots - even my 35+ year old supervisor (ah, young love!) - as we make motions to move to separate sections of the department to cover it. The rest of the evening is an absolute hoot since our humour is back up on top and the customers who come in seem to get infected with it as well. The highlight of the day:
Customer: "Yeah, so I have a Dell."
Ken: "Sorry."
LOL - thankfully the guy saw the humour and laughed at that too. The things one little encounter can do to brighten up your day...
The Encounter
About an hour into this moribund misery I finish up talking with one customer and a cute redhead approaches me from the side. She's smiling at me and I'm reasonably attractive so it's safe to check her out in an obvious way to let her know what I'm thinking. Cute - really cute - is I think to myself as she smiles and blushes. Professionalism be damned, yanno? It's a retail job!
Just as she's opening her mouth to speak my previous customer taps me on the shoulder and interrupts with "one last question." She smiles and blushes again and I smile back with an unsaid "just a sec babe..." passing between us. She nods and I answer the guy's last question, hell if I can remember it now.Okay. Did I describe her yet? About my height, 5-10 (I'm 5-11.5), great smile and really engaging demeanour. Redhead with light freckles, dressed in a perky fashion, the girl next door. A friend of mine who's also working that day smiles at her and says, "Oh you didn't find the information yet?" Hmm, so obviously she's been in here before. Finally getting free, she smiles at me again and says, "I was wondering if you had any information on the Compaq 2180CA laptop you have here? Compaq's website doesn't have anything on it."
Well, that's already a plus in my book. She's actually done some form of research about what she's buying! With a girl this cute I'm starting to get affected by the urge to smile goofily back at her and say, "Okay sure, let's check it out on the computer," and walk her over to the sole system in the department with Web access. While I'm bringing up Google I casually ask her, "Was there something specific you wanted to find out?" She smiles yet again and replies, "Yeah...I was wondering if the 2180 had 512k of level 2 cache or just 256k? I know that most of them like the 2170 only have 256."
Wait.
She didn't.
She DID.
Oh. My. God. A cute tall perky redhead who's a geek and knows the significance of L2 cache? I am floored. Absolutely floored. My gaze travels to my coworker and he's got a goofy smile twice as big as mine and the girl's combined and I realize, she's been here before all right. She's been here before and put him under her spell. She is perfect. Oh my God, she is perfect.
All of that travels through my mind in about half a second and I switch my gaze back to her, smile and say, "Oh no kidding! What're you planning with it then?" Need information. Age. Name. Phone number. Key to her heart.
By now it's getting fairly obvious I'm fishing for personal info and she's getting giggly and laughing kind of loudly, but she plays along and tells me she's going to be doing some compiling on the system. "You a student too?" I say. "Yeah...computer engineering at Waterloo, second year." So she's 20 and in one of the most difficult technical programs to get into in Canada. Wow. I tell her to join the club, as I'm a computer science student down at Ryerson and my coworker, who's gone dumb and still grinning like an idiot at the back of her head, goes to U of T for comp. sci. as well. She laughs. And her father shows up.
He has the look of a father growing weary of protecting his all-too-friendly daughter from guys craving young geek girl blood. A split-second glance is exchanged between us and still smiling, he says, "Ah found nothing huh?" (I haven't even checked anything that's come up on Google at this point.) She realizes the party is over too and thanks me profusely for the help and says she'll keep looking. Maybe she'll be back someday! I give her a long last look, the girl whose name I never got, smile and wish her good luck. She giggles and they walk down the long middle walkway, out of the store.
The Aftermath
My friend/coworker and I retreat to the farthest back of the store and hold on to the wall for support. What an angel. Strangely, we got different things out of this - I'm elated that such women exist, and he's deflated by the knowledge she will never be his. Our supervisor, really not that bad a guy at all, is finally out of his meeting and with one look at my coworker (whose name, I should mention, is Ken) says, "She came back didn't she?" Ken nods and says, "Yeah...I think I need some time to cool off or something, I can't work like this!" Understatement of the century!
I'm out of it too and we're all still grinning like idiots - even my 35+ year old supervisor (ah, young love!) - as we make motions to move to separate sections of the department to cover it. The rest of the evening is an absolute hoot since our humour is back up on top and the customers who come in seem to get infected with it as well. The highlight of the day:
Customer: "Yeah, so I have a Dell."
Ken: "Sorry."
LOL - thankfully the guy saw the humour and laughed at that too. The things one little encounter can do to brighten up your day...
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