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Pass The Tuck -*- Copyright 2008 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
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state, and country.

All rights reserved.  See the bottom for distribution rights.


Pass The Tuck


***
10:53 23 Nov

     I slowly made my way out of the dream and back into my body,
because someone was talking at me and touching me.
     *Pam,* I identified before I opened my eyes.
     And, I recalled, we'd had sex.
     Which was good.
     Which was why I tried to roll into her, to continue the sleeping or
the sex or whatever, and found she was sitting on the edge of a couch-
bed in the basement.  Luckily, I managed to find this out WITHOUT
falling off.
     "Mike says you need to wake up," she said gently to me.  "You have
therapy in an hour, and you ought to eat something first?"
     "No."
     "Come onnnnn..."  She ran her fingers through my hair, several
times.  Then she kissed my face.
     "Mmmmm."  That was what I wanted.
     Then she stopped; so I tried to reach for her, to pull her closer,
and that didn't work, and then I realized that I was pretty much awake.
*Damnit, she tricked me,* I realized.

***
10:57 23 Nov

     Pam was dressed for church - which I hadn't noticed right away -
everyone else was gone, and my folks and George were moving foodstuffs
out of the other half of the basement, via the cargo hatch.
     "I really have to go," she said, sadly I thought.
     "Me too..."
     Pause, in which we stayed embraced.
     "Can, um, can, next-  I mean-"
     "Um-"
     "Not next, Mike said you had family coming, but the one after
that?  Can I come over again?"
     "Yeah, sure, definitely," I assured her, which I thought entitled
me to grab another kiss.
     Or five.
     "Oh, hey," I mentioned when I thought of it.  "Susan yesterday, she
got her nails done, and all you have to do is sign a release form.  So
like if you wanted to come see me some Saturday and get your nails done,
you could."
     "Oh really?  That would be cool..."  We looked at her nails, which
were not that great.  "Can you like do wraps?"
     "Uh, well, next semester," I admitted.
     "'Cause mine suck."
     I sucked one, and it didn't seem bad to me.  Heh.

***
11:19 23 Nov

     "Oh..."  Pam and I hadn't had sex LAST night; it had been last
WEEK.  Because, last night I was in the basement with most of my friends
and I was pretty sure I hadn't had sex in front of all of them.  Mike
would've beaten me badly, and then I was sort of afraid what Kathy would
say.  And Julia.
     I stuck my face in the water again, in hopes I'd wake even more up.

***
11:52 23 Nov

     "I heated some of the leftovers," Mom informed me as she handed me
a plate.  "Now eat."
     "Mom!  I'm running-"
     "You have time, if you stop arguing," she informed me, in a tone of
voice that suggested I'd better stop arguing.  So I did.  "Did you sleep
well?  The girls said you did."
     "Um, I guess...  I was asleep," I pointed out.  "Oh good," I said
when I looked down and saw meatloaf, and veggies I liked.  I made it to
a flat surface where I could put the plate, and took the fork Mom handed
me, and assaulted the meatloaf.  "Mmmm mmmf," I remarked.
     "Glad you like it," Mom smiled.  "Oh," she remembered, "Mike said
he left some stuff in a directory on your laptop?  In home mike common,
he said."  She was skipping slashes, but that was a known bug of Mom's.
"He said they all stayed up late last night talking, and some of it you
need to know," she said, "but he didn't say what it was."
     "Mmm.  Okay," I agreed when my mouth was clear.  "Is he coming
back?  I mean for food-  I'm cooking today, right?"
     "Not tonight.  Aunt Cynthia's coming in from New Mexico this
afternoon, along with Marion."  Not my favorite aunt and cousin - Marion
was what Susan wanted to be if she could just purge all the sense that
Mom and Dad had beaten into her, although Marion had also gotten a
little better once she'd gone to college.  "So we have to set up the
basement for that," which was another thing I didn't especially like
about them, "and a couple of the girls are coming back to help with
moving food, along with some of the boys, if we need it.  You're
supposed to call Sabrina.  But remind everyone, not next weekend."
     "Yeah, I think Mike mentioned that last night.  Pam mentioned it
this morning," I said.  "Um," I said, because I didn't want to mention
Pam, I realized a little late, because it might lead to Questions.
     "Oh, and Mike also took off with a shopping list and some money,"
Mom mentioned.  "So you don't have to go grocery shopping today."  She
grinned in a sort of ferocious way.  "He also said he convinced your
friends to start helping with the food costs."
     "He did?  How'd he manage that?"  I'd thought he would need me for
torture.
     She shook her head.  "I don't know, but I'm sort of glad...  Not
that we don't want your friends over-  Keep eating, Eugene," she
directed, so I had some of the broccoli.  "But it is sort of expensive,
having all of them over for several meals at a time."
     I chewed until I could say, "But they paid for pizza last night,
and some of them..."  *Why am I defending this?*
     Mom was nodding.  "And I think that reminded him or something.
You'll probably have to get some stuff yourself, because you can pick
food out better than Mike can at this point, but they should be able to
start helping a little at least."
     "Wow."  I would've suspected Debbie, somewhere, except I was pretty
sure she hadn't been here, and very sure she hadn't been here last
night.

***
12:26 23 Nov

     Mike had indeed left a set of files in my laptop, including a
suggestion to move them to /home/common and copy them to one of the
boxen in my room, which seemed like a good idea.  Until I thought of
having two edits pending at the same time, which was Bad.  Which meant
cvs or something.  And I wasn't sure if he knew how to use cvs, or if it
was even feasible given the trapwork I had mounted on the network in
front of my computers.
     I'd have to think about it.
     There was also a thing on Christmas gifts for my friends;
apparently, among the MANY things they had apparently discussed until
five in the morning while I was sleeping, they had decided that they
would pool Christmas gifts and gift-wanted lists, so nobody would be
disappointed and nobody would have to shell out a lot of money.  "Dude,"
I remarked, extremely impressed.  "This is gonna help a LOT."  CVS or
something would help there too, checking gifts and payments in and out,
but there was no way.  I wasn't even sure if all of them HAD computers,
come to think of it.
     Mike had also gotten my pay envelope from Kim, stuck it in between
the laptop display and keyboard, and marked it 'STOLEN - 23 NOV - MIKE'
in the hopes I would formally acknowledge that he'd stolen it.  I had
decided that this was only worth two dollars, though; if he didn't like
that, he could try stealing it again.
     The alarm went off, and I cursed as I started packing the laptop up
so I could make it in for my twelve-thirty therapy appointment.  I had
another appointment when I got home sometime; Doc Treble wanted to
fondle me again too.

***
12:33 23 Nov

     "Oh.  Was I supposed to come as Valerie today?" I remembered, WAY
too late.
     "Oh," Sheila said, "well, I said you should come however you feel
comfortable."
     "Oh right."  That was why I felt like I didn't have a clue and
someone was waiting for me to guess wrong so they could jump my shit.
"Um.  So is this okay?"
     "Are you comfortable in it?"
     I glared at her, but it didn't help.  Or work.
     Eventually, I gave up, and said, "Yeah, it's okay, I guess."

***
12:38 23 Nov

     "Well, do you like- I mean, are they..."
     "Really my friends?  Yeah, I mean I think so.  They- it's not like
they sit around insulting me and I'm grateful for the privilege or
anything..."  I was not going to mention stripping for them last night,
nor almost-naked photographs; Kathy had made me do it, but it wasn't
like she was making fun of me with it.  She'd had plenty of opportunity
and evidence to do so in the last year or two or whatever, and I'd only
been beaten the one time.  No one else had made fun of me either,
really, although Kim had been kind of pissed off when my weight had been
mentioned.  She had admitted that it wasn't my fault, though. When
pressed.  I still wasn't gaining enough, which annoyed me, which was why
I had pressed.  One of the reasons I'd pressed.
     "Well, good," Sheila announced, in case I didn't know that.
     Pause.
     "So how has your anxiety been?"
     "Oh..."  I realized that I should probably tell her about Friday
night.  Or at least parts of Friday night.  "Um.  Well, we- I mean, a
bunch of them wanted to go out Friday night..."

***
12:43 23 Nov

     "Were they doing anything threatening?"
     "No, and I mean, I knew that, at the time, but I didn't know- I
mean, when I THOUGHT about it, I could sort of tell... but it didn't
really make a difference, I still had to watch 'em.  All of 'em.  Which
is why I was up against a wall, so I could see- I mean, so I could
restrict the directions I had to scan."  She nodded like this was
utterly expectable.  I guess it was.

***
12:52 23 Nov

     "So did having your friends help?"
     "Well, kinda... I didn't really think about it.  I guess... I feel
safer around them than I do just a crowd, of, of strangers, I guess."
To say the least.
     "Do you think they would help you if you asked?"
     "No.  Well...  I guess it depends on what you mean by 'help'," I
explained.  Most of them would be useless except as cover in a real
fight, and cover was all nice and good but reduced my mobility, which
was my safety, especially when I wasn't sufficiently armed.  *I want a
GUN,* I realized, not for the first time.  That, however, was NOT
something I was going to say here.
     Plus, of course, using your friends for cover led to not having
friends real quick.
     "What could your friends do to help?" Sheila pressed.
     "Depends on which friend," I told her.  Mike, of course, I could
count on for anything except for irrationality.  I had the irrationality
to spare.  "Most of 'em...  I dunno.  I mean...  They keep wanting me to
talk about stuff, and I don't really want to.  I mean, my stuff, like
the mutations and thin-"
     "Mutations?"
     *Oh, jeez, how many times...*  "It's what I call everything that's
wrong with my body.  They want to talk about the meaning, the deeper
meaning, the societal implications, what it does to my psychology, and
everything else they can think of.  It's like English class squared."
     "Is that a problem?"
     I sighed, and wished Doc Treble could have found a therapist with a
brain.  Maybe there just weren't any.  "Yes, it's a problem.  They want
me to know what I think, instantly, automatically, and then when I say
I do they argue with it and tell me I'm wrong.  And they NEVER SHUT UP.
Once they get started," I was compelled to add, because they had,
finally, shut up about it, for the most part.  Even last night, they
hadn't talked that much about the English-lit type implications of what
was happening.  Admittedly I'd had to scream at them, but only the once.
"I dunno, I guess they're getting better about it..."

***
13:22 23 Nov

     "Yeah, I mean, I guess... they should be cleared out by Sunday, or
close enough, but I mean, I guess..."  They wouldn't ALL be cleared out,
and while it was appealing to take a holiday from therapy, I could
probably use it after having all the relatives invade our house for a
month.  Well, technically it was a week, but the more of Mom's relatives
in one place the more it seemed to dilate time, stretching longer and
longer until you wondered if the clocks AND the sun were both broken.  I
was glad, when I thought about it, that Dad didn't have any relatives.
"I mean, I guess I should come here next Sunday."

***
13:34 23 Nov

     "Christ what a waste of my life," I sighed as I got back out into
the cold outside.  "I'd do better with some gun range..."
     Now, THAT was a thought.

***
14:04 23 Nov

     Everyone was gone except Brian, who was not happy.  Neither was I,
because we had a list of chore-type things we had to do while everyone
else was at the airport.

***
14:48 23 Nov

     "God, you look like a-"  Whatever Marion was going to end with was
cut off by my sister, who slugged her in the arm.  Hard, from the way
Marion squealed and rocked from the impact.
     "Nice to see you again too," I lied.  I wanted to suggest she be
nice to me because I'd given her a place to sleep tonight, but that
would not work.

***
16:43 23 Nov

     "Tuck?"  Susan had caught me at a bad moment, as I didn't have a
clever retort armed, so she continued without interruption, "Could you
store some stuff in your room this week?"
     "Wh- oh."  Because she didn't trust the people that would end up in
her room to not fuck with it.  Which is why I utterly refused to move
out of my room, ever.  And why I had to put up with my siblings inside
it.  Normally I'd just have activated the bypass - with a barrel-style
key taken from a computer, that neither of them could pick and was on
the inside anyway - and unlocked the door semipermanently, but since
my parents had so graciously destroyed my property, the bypass wouldn't
work because the entire system didn't work.
     *Maybe I could...*  He'd just cut the power wires, and while it was
designed to open when the power was off - a safety feature my dad had
insisted upon, though he had let me wire the door into a critical
circuit that the other sibs had best not interrupt - a simple rewiring
should repair it.
     Except I either had to work with a live circuit, which was possible
death; or get permission from Dad to shut off that same critical circuit
breaker long enough to work on it.
     "Tuck!"
     "What?!  Oh, yeah, sure," I remembered.  "Brian already stashed
some stuff," I pointed, except you couldn't see the boxes behind the
bookcase.  "Remember to seal it."
     "No shit," she agreed, and left, apparently to go pack and/or seal
her stuff.  A good seal would show that I hadn't tampered with it, which
would prevent arguments about whether I had or not.
     I realized that the pod that had taken part of Susan's brain would
probably not have bothered with seals, but after a second I realized
that there was still enough of her original personality to worry about.

***
17:58 23 Nov

     "Nice to see you too," I lied.  I didn't mind my grandmother too
much, it was what she tended to bring with her.
     "Sarah said you'd been sick?" she accused me.
     "Yeah, but I'm all better now," I told them.

***
18:22 23 Nov

     "I am so not hun-  Oh, wait-"
     Susan was shaking her head too.  "Never works.  C'mon.  _I_ can't
leave until we're done eating," she complained.  "Oh shit...  I can't
leave at ALL."
     "What?!"
     "I have to go in tomorrow morning to a fucking doctor thing, Mom
said I have to go, SHIT!" she cursed and punched the doorframe, which
was a bad idea.  "Ow FUCK!"  I backed up to get out of range, just in
case she blamed me for her stupidity - it had happened lots of times
before.
     This time, though, she just glared at me and hissed, "Get out and
get down to supper or I'll kill you," before she left.
     "I want the pod back," I realized.

***
18:30 23 Nov

     Strangely - haha - I wasn't very hungry, and having Grandma and
Aunt Cynthia going wasn't making me happier.  Or hungrier.  Susan and
Marion were going at it too, off to the side, doing some kind of college
girl crap that I had no interest in at all, and what was left was me,
Brian, and Dad, and we were so separated we couldn't even really talk to
each other.
     The food was good, but it wasn't good enough.

***
20:09 23 Nov

     "Dad, I can't, not with them standing around in the kitchen."  I
kept wondering if I could somehow mop around their feet, and kept having
little blackouts that told me I really shouldn't do it or think about it
either.
     "Well..."  He looked around, like that would help.  "Can you do it
in the morning?"
     "N-  Um."  I had been going to ask-
     "You said you're up early lately?"
     "Uh, yeah."
     "I think they'll be out of the kitchen at five..."  In the morning,
he meant.  I really hoped so.  "Could you do it without waking them up?"
     "I could mop the kitchen floor, yeah; not the laundry."
     "You could do the laundry now," he mentioned.
     "I could, I guess..."  I wasn't looking forward to the idea, but it
would get me out of the way, which was a Good Thing all by itself.  "Oh,
speaking of laundry, is Sabrina coming?"
     "Not this week.  Too many relatives, hers and ours."
     "Her relatives are coming here?!"
     "God forfend," Dad said, making an unhappy face.  "Though-"
     "They wouldn't be Mom's."
     "Yeah."  There was a short agreeable pause before Dad added, "But
don't mention that out loud."
     "Jeez, Dad, how dumb do I look?"  Then I made a very stupid face.
     "New version of Windows coming out soon," he said, just to make me
gag, which I did.

***
20:21 23 Nov

     I failed to see how people could have laundry to do when they'd
just gotten here, until I remembered airports during holidays.  Then I
wondered if they wanted me to burn the clothes instead, but then I
figured they would've mentioned that.

***
22:11 23 Nov

     "Damnit."  I was only half done folding and hanging, and some of
the clothes wouldn't be done until morning anyway.  Luckily, we had
modified the dryer appropriately so it wouldn't buzz and wake everyone
downstairs up, whoo would then bitch and moan and wake everyone upstairs
up, which was most importantly me.

***
04:31 24 Nov

     "Mmmmmboy, chores," I remembered after I'd finished virtually
screaming in agony from the stretching.  I was regaining flexibility,
definitely, but I was paying the price for it too.
     Dad had sent email about NOT doing the rest of the laundry, that
other people could get it tomorrow - now this - morning, and that way I
wouldn't have to worry about waking people up.  But he had reset the
timers on the security system so the entire ground floor was open, just
in case the idiot relatives went there during the normal lockdown times,
which they had done at least once per visit before Dad finally gave up
on trying to make them pay attention and remember.  Even the lights
going out and people screaming in the dark and cocking shotguns and
stuff hadn't made it stick in their stupid heads.

***
04:56 24 Nov

     "Ngggh-" I cut myself off before I actually screamed, but inside I
cried out, *How could people POSSIBLY fuck up a floor THIS much in
TWELVE HOURS?!*  It was gross, and it had NOT been this bad before
Sunday.  Or Saturday-
     *When all those people were here, and Mike and George were cooking.
Never mind.  Fuckers.*  I was gonna have to mention this at school later
today.  Though today was a 'B' schedule day, so I wouldn't be able to
for many many hours.

***
06:18 24 Nov

     A Computer Shopper caught my eye, and I wondered why it was open
until I remembered talking to Sabrina about flight-sim stuff.

***
06:56 24 Nov

     "So you and Pam, huh?" Jill smirked at me.
     "What?"
     "You missed a lot, Saturday night when you went to sleep early,"
she said.
     "Shut the fuck up about sleeping," Kim snarled over her coffee at
us.  Obviously she hadn't done enough of it.
     We sighed, collectively, and headed in.  "I hate school," Jill
said.
     "But only two days this week," Kim said, sounding so non-Kim-in-
the-morning that I had to look at her to make sure she was the one
speaking.
     "Yeah, I mean, finally," Jill agreed.
     "Wh-  Oh, right.  Jeez."  Since I'd been in high school, attendance
the day before Thanksgiving had been about 2/3 normal, if that.  It had
been slightly worse in junior high, I thought, but I hadn't been
collecting data then. "Dobson does seem more... realistic than's usual
for a school."
     "Dobson isn't the school, dumbass," Jill remarked, with a swipe at
me that I avoided.  "The whole district woke up and figured it out."
     "After how many years?"  Heck, even Susan, if I recalled correctly,
had managed to get out more than once on Wednesday-before-Thanksgiving.
     "Fifty," Kim said.  "Amazing how fast they can move when they want
to, isn't it?"  And she smirked.
     That took me a while.

***
10:44 24 Nov

     "'Just' one and a book so far, but..."  I shook my head.  "It's
already getting worse.  Hey, Sabrina," I called.  "Wanna come with me
and Dad and out camping this week, to get away from relatives?"  It had
come to me in a flash just now.
     "Huh?"
     "Dude," Mike shook his head.
     "Yeah, but you don't have them all living in your house.  I already
had to go down at four-  Oh!  And you PIGS had better do more CLEANING
if you want more cooking lessons," I remembered.
     "What the fuck are you talking about?" Sabrina demanded.

***
11:38 24 Nov

     "Dude, did you read-"
     "And I sent you an email already, did you read THAT?" I shot back
at Mike.  "Yes I read everything."
     "Good deal."
     "And I know what to g-  Hey, Sabrina, go over there," I pointed at
her usual place.
     "What?" she asked suspiciously.  "Oh, right," she nodded before I
could say anything, but it was too crowded for her to go that direction
at the moment.
     "So when do you get to dump the tank?" Mike asked, pointing at my
back.
     "Oh, gonna try it next weekend," I said.  Doc Treble hadn't shown
up on Sunday like I thought; she was probably off in West Virginia
practicing for The Big One, like I'd rather be doing. "If this week
doesn't give me asthma nothing will, right?"
     "Too bad you can't keep it in your car somehow."
     "Yeah, but..."  It was too hard to keep it in a car because of the
low temps.  We'd considered a thermoelectric temperature-control box,
but that sucked power mightily, and then we'd either have to have it
shut off when the battery voltage got too low, which would only delay
the problems by an hour or so, or have it auto-start the car, which led
to other problems like encouraging theft and running the tank dry or at
least fuel bills way up.  And if I had to take the stupid box in and out
of the car, depending on whether I was at school or at home for the
night or weekend, that was almost the worst of all worlds.

***
11:41 24 Nov

     "Hey!" Pam said as she got close enough.
     "Hey," I said back, smiling.
     "Oh crap.  Shut the fuck up, willya?" Mike requested.

***
11:44 24 Nov

     "So what I was thinking was," I said, "was get her the controls,
which are the hard parts.  See-"  The damned bookmark had fallen out, so
I was paging through the magazine as fast as I could.
     "What about the, the program?" Pam asked.  "Isn't that expensive
too?"
     The older guys in our corner just chortled a lot.
     "Not a problem," I assured her.  "Ahah, see, this here is what I
was talking about."  I displayed the correct page for everyone to look
at.
     "What kind of computer does she have?" George asked.
     "Dunno, I don't remember.  PC type, but that covers a lot..."  This
was a problem, actually; I didn't want to ask Sabrina, because that
might make her suspicious, and that was assuming I could get usable
information out of her anyway, which was doubtful.

***
11:46 24 Nov

     "Hey, aren't you going to eat something?  It's lunch, ya know."
     "Oh, no, I forgot," Pam said.
     "Wanna share mine?  Mom cooked it."  It wasn't as good semi-cold
and old as it was hot and new, but it was far better than what the
cafeteria served for money.  Plus it got the plate out of the
refrigerator, and hopefully Mom off my ass.  "If you don't mind sharing
a fork."
     "Oh, no, that's okay," she said, smiling.
     I resolved to begin plotting against her.

***
12:21 24 Nov

     "Hey Tuck," Mike said.  "You know what you oughta do?  About
Sabrina's computer?  Ask Debbie."
     "Ummm."  She might could find out something useful, it was true,
but maybe not, and then someone would have to ask her, which-
     "Hey Debbie!" Mike called.
     "Mike!  Goddamn it..."  But it was too late, Debbie was coming over
with Kathy.
     "Hey, call me tonight?" Pam said.  I nodded, but before I could say
anything else she slipped away.
     "Tuck was sort of thinking," Mike said to Debbie, and Kathy who had
come over too, "about getting some flight simulator controls for
Sabrina, but he needs to know what kind of computer she has."
     "And whether it has a joystick port already."  If not, she'd need
an additional card.
     "Um," Debbie said, thinking.  "I'll let you know.  For Christmas?
It may take a while, if you don't want to ask her."
     "Right, no," Mike agreed.  "Spoils the surprise."
     "So what are you getting me?" Kathy asked, with a grin.
     "We're gonna tie George up and put a chain on him, and then you'll
have a new punching bag," Mike said.
     "Oh," I said as Kathy and Debbie laughed, "he's pissing you off
too?  I thought it was just me."
     "And Jill, and Kim, and Kelly, and Dan except it's hard to tell
with his character," Mike said, and sighed.  I sighed too, because Dan
was making his character amazingly annoying.  Totally within the bounds
of the character he'd built, true, but amazingly annoying.

***
14:53 24 Nov

     "Mom's- we have to go back later and talk to the principal," Ricky
groaned.
     "What?!  What the hell did-"
     "You said a bad word," Ricky smirked.
     "Stuff it up your... butt," I compromised, feeling much pain of
repression.  "Do I have to go?"
     "No, but like Dad had to take off work early and everything..."  He
looked sick.
     "Oh boy."  Both parents, way after school ended, but taking off
from work...  "Oh man."  Now I felt like Ricky looked.  "Okay, though...
are you in trouble?" I asked before I realized that I was starting the
car because I was suddenly desperate to get the hell out of there.
"Wait a minute," I ordered.

***
14:54 24 Nov

     "Okay," I said when I thought it was safe to talk again, because I
was speeding away from a school I didn't even go to.  That was kind of
sad, and kind of lame too, but I wasn't going to argue with myself.  And
I definitely felt safer the further away I got.  "Are you like in actual
TROUBLE?  Or is this one of those stupid parent-teacher things where
they're all concerned and worried about you?"
     "I don't know!"
     *How could you not know?*  "Are they talking about punishing you,
or looking worried?  Are they like mad at you all the time, like over
the weekend, or were they like giving you extra hugs and being extra
nice?"
     Ricky groaned, "They're being extra nice.  They even let me pick a
movie Saturday night."
     "Okay," I said, relieved.
     "WHAT?"
     As he continued to shriek at me, I yelled, "SILENCE!"  Which
worked.  *Must be my lucky day.*  "Ricky, if they're worried, that means
you're NOT in trouble.  That's the best you can hope for."
     "What?"  Now he sounded sick.  Again.
     "If your- BOTH your parents are going, after school, it's not good,
but at least YOU aren't in trouble."  Not that it was necessarily easier
to live through, with all the concern mixed with the absolute stupidity
of the school people.  And neither of the Parkers seemed like they had
much of a clue what this part of the real world was like either.  "And-
Look, there's nothing you can do, and there's nothing that's gonna
happen at this meeting that'll do any good."
     "Then why do I have to go to it?"
     I shook my head.  "It's some kind of stupid formality thing, like
they have to do it so they can say they've done it.  I don't KNOW,
Ricky, don't bitch at me-"
     "You said a bad word."
     I had a whole bunch of bad words I could say at the moment, some of
them in languages Ricky did not speak, but I managed to hold them all
in.  Somehow.  "Shut.  Up."
     Nice happy silence.
     And then I realized I had to go pick Stella up too, and I wasn't
going the right way for that.  "Uh, hold on..."

***
14:57 24 Nov

     When I'd gotten us going the right direction again, I said to
restart things, "Okay, so, this is gonna be about the stuff with those
girls."  Which meant I'd better have a low profile; which is why I'd
wanted to get away from Ricky's school.  Sometimes I did have good
instincts.  "And it's gonna be about, like, bullying and stuff.  And
they are gonna say stuff at that meeting that will not work."
     "Then why do they say it?"
     "Because nobody can tell you to just kick the sh- hell out of
people who are picking on you; they'd get in MASSIVE trouble for saying
it.  And if you say I said anything like that, EVER, I'll call you a
liar to your face.  Got it?"  I was at a stoplight, so I could turn and
glare at him.  "You don't EVER repeat ANYTHING about what I'm gonna tell
you.  Not to your parents, not to your friends, and NEVER EVER where
ANYONE could hear you that works at a school.  I mean anyone who works
at a school, ANY school, could hear you.  Swear."  He didn't swear.
"Swear upon your immortal soul, that you will not reveal this
information except to your own children."
     "Are you serious?"
     I wanted to hit him.
     "I mean, really serious?"
     "Yes!  Swear!"

***
15:00 24 Nov

     "Yeah, me-  Or me and Mike, we can show you.  After Thanksgiving,
though; we're kind of busy this week.  Hold on, I gotta go get Stella,"
I said as I parked and shut off the engine.

***
15:06 24 Nov

     "No, we get Wednesday off."
     "Awww MAN!" Ricky complained, by which I deduced he did not.
     "MaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-" came from the back seat.
     "SHUT UP!" Ricky screamed at Stella, who immediately started to
cry.

***
15:09 24 Nov

     "Because she's a dumb baby, Ricky, and she doesn't know what to do
when someone yells a- around her."  Which I managed to say instead of
'at her' because that could only do Bad Things.  Not like it wasn't bad
enough already.
     "But I wanna go HOME!"
     "Well, me too, but just let me get her calmed down," I said, trying
for nice soothing tones in my voice.  I also tried beaming, *CHILL THE
HELL OUT,* but I didn't think it was going to work.  On either of them.

***
15:20 24 Nov

     "What's that?"
     "It's a plate, Ricky, you-"
     "I KNOW that," he complained, "but it's not one of ours so where
did you get it?"
     "It's one of ours.  I took it for lunch today."
     "Oh man," he sighed.  "That'd be so much better than what I have to
eat..."
     "What's that?" Miz Parker asked.  "That's not one of our plates?"
     I thought about suggesting some coffee before they went to this
meeting, but when I thought about it I realized that the less anyone
thought, the better it would end up.

***
15:46 24 Nov

     Peace and quiet.
     Stella and I looked at each other.  I smiled at Stella.  She
screamed at me, then watched to see what I would do next.

***
16:02 24 Nov

     "How could she be out of garlic?  This is crazy."  Well, obviously
I had to go out and get more.
     Which made me tired, just thinking about it.
     I tried to cheer myself up with the thoughts of what I could fix if
I went to the store and got what _I_ needed; it helped a little.

***
16:05 24 Nov

     "Hahaaa!"  Now I had Miz Parker's grocery list.  Not like I felt
some kind of desperate need to ingratiate (SAT word) myself with the
Parkers due to this parent-teacher-administration meeting or anything.

***
16:43 24 Nov

     "Completely insane," I sighed as I got into the car and almost let
my head rest on the steering wheel before I remembered I might freeze to
it and get stuck.  Except it wasn't metal, and it wasn't THAT cold, but
it was too late.
     Rush hour crowds in grocery stores with children made me stupid, I
decided.  *And you're not the only one; it makes everyone stupid.*

***
17:27 24 Nov

     I shut the oven door and heard an echo, except it wasn't an echo it
was the Parkers' garage door.
     "Oh shit.  Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit-"  I stopped myself in
case one of them came in unexpectedly, and just breathed for a while.

***
17:29 24 Nov

     "So how'd it go?" I asked, trying not to sound panicked or worried
or anything like I actually felt.  They didn't look that upset, and when
I saw Ricky HE didn't look that upset either.  And he didn't have
visible bruises, nor was he moving like he was in pain, so I deduced
he'd kept his mouth shut.

***
18:38 24 Nov

     "Pie crusts?"  *That wasn't on my list!  How the fuck am I supposed
to guess this stuff if she doesn't-*
     "Well, I thought you'd know what kind to get," Miz Parker said.
     "I-  Oh.  Right."  She might be doing baking herself, for the
holiday.  "If you'd said before, or put it on the list, I could've
gotten it today."
     "Well, I can go get them if you tell me what to get," she said,
sounding uncomfortably like my mom.
     "Um... maybe you should go late tonight, like after ten."  Her
eyebrows spiked.  "It's insane in there right now," I explained.

***
20:04 24 Nov

     "Oh, right."  I finally realized why Sabrina wasn't showing up; we
had too many relatives here this week, and Dad had called it off.
"So..."

***
20:06 24 Nov

     "Hello?"
     "It's Tuck," I said to Pam.  "Busy?"
     "Oh hey, lemme-"  Apparently she flashed the hook, because she
said, "Val's here!" and I heard several girls say something like 'hello'.
     I sighed.  I'd wanted to talk to her alone, so to speak...
     "So what do YOU want for Christmas, Tuck?" Amanda asked.
     "Uh what?"
     "Christmas?You?DUH?!" she streamed in a rush.
     I sighed, as everyone else laughed.  When they finished, I
admitted, "I don't know y-  Hey, who has computers?  And Internet?" I
remembered to ask, because, stunningly, many people apparently thought
it was acceptable to have a computer without hooking it to the Internet.
*Hey, accounts-*
     "Why?"
     "Wha-  Oh, Mike had this idea, for a gift registry sor-"
     "Oh yeah, he mentioned that Saturday," Amanda finished before
anyone else could, though they all tried.

***
21:26 24 Nov

     "Gaahhhhhh.  How do they LIVE without headsets?" I asked as I took
mine off and rubbed my ears and the head around them.  It hurt, but I
knew from past experience that it would hurt worse with a regular phone.
And my hand and arm would hurt a LOT worse.  That was, in fact, why I
had set my headphones and microphone and pickle up.  "'Cause I don't
think any of them use one."  Maybe they should. Maybe I should suggest
it.
     "And then 'maybe' they'd want me to make one for them.  One EACH.
No."  Friends had a regrettable tendency not to pay for work like that,
even for just the parts.  And while we had a big stock of parts, it
wasn't that big, and Dad got bitchy if he wanted something and it was
gone.  Then he'd sic Mom on me.  Not to mention that the friends would
whine and moan about how long it was taking.  And then when it was
finished it either they had changed their mind about what they wanted
without telling me, or they claimed now they'd said something else; or
they had thought of about eight features that would've been not hard to
put in when I'd started but were impossible now.
     Dad had been less than sympathetic about all this; he said it was
standard business practice, if you let the client get away with screwing
you like that.  I'd finally started learning how to avoid it, and that
was when I discovered the benefits of claiming near-mystical powers and
supernatural abilities that mortal man could not aspire to - it made
shutting the clients up a lot easier.  Except with Mike, of course, but
then he usually got right in and did some of the building and designing.
     Well, I had to hope, because I was going to put together something
for the gift registry that could be used via Windoze and incompetents
thereof.  And I had to ask Dad about some kind of student discount, or
bait, for those that had computers but either no account or something
retarded like AOL.  That might make me have to set up modems and the
like, but I could also get Mike to do that, and maybe George or Dan, and
then they could work off their gifts that way.  "Hoooo..."  Which meant
cc'ing the idea to Mike at least.

***
23:38 24 Nov

     "Huh?  Oh..."  Dad had sent a reply, but I hadn't noticed it until
just now.  "And...  Yes!"  He thought it was a good idea, sort of,
except for the modem-settings-up idea, but then I reminded him (in the
reply I just noticed I'd started) that we could and would go to the
houses and actually touch the computer, which cut down the problems
about 95%.  "Heh."  How appropriate.
     Dad also said he wanted me to make sure the gift registry idea I
was doing was expandable and modular, and COMMENTED PROPERLY - he'd done
an ASCII box around this part of the email as well as putting it in all
caps - so he could offer it to other Freeholders.  "Bu-"  And then I
could get the space for everything on the Freehold systems and get it
backed up and so on.  "Oh."
     Now back to the BBS program I was writing.  I could discuss
licensing it to Dad later.
     Then I had an idea which almost knocked me off my chair, it was so
wild.  Then I realized, Debbie would want at least ten percent for
negotiating, and that might actually make me poorer at the end of it.

***
02:11 25 Nov

     As I finally got to the point I needed to print out the
instructions I'd written, proofed, taken screenshots for, and built a
document around, I realized I needed Mike's inkjet, which meant I needed
to tell him to make sure his computer was on and the modem was on and he
was off the phone.  Luckily, I checked the time before I called him.
"Whups!  Oh shit.  I have school tomorrow.  Today.  Oh hell."  *Maybe I
should just dump it to one of the printers in the admin area at school.*
"Oooh no, bad idea."

***
06:00 25 Nov

     "Bedoop!"
     "NO!" I shouted as I started upright, before I realized that I was
at home and in bed, not in a bathroom at school and in a lot of trouble.
     Well, I was definitely awake.
     "Bedoop!"
     "Oh shut the fuck UP," I complained.

***
06:28 25 Nov

     "Jeezus H. fucking Christ!"  It was COLD outside.  "Oh shit, please
don't let my car be frozen in..."

***
06:31 25 Nov

     It started, eventually, but it started.  "Amen!"  I needed to check
the battery voltages, but I'd have to do it later.  "In my copious free
time, ya huh."

***
06:56 25 Nov

     I pulled into a parking spot next to Jill - Kim wasn't there yet,
or at least her car wasn't - and parked and shut down before pulling out
my cellphone and calling Mike.  "Crap, I gotta stop doing this."  The
stupid cellphone had taken over my life and I hadn't even had it two-
     "Wha?"
     "Mike?  Tuck, important.  Need you to do something for me."
     "What?  NOW?!"
     "You want Christmas presents from the girls?"
     "Uh.  What?  What do you need?" he asked, apparently waking up
at the mention of Christmas presents.

***
06:57 25 Nov

     "I don't have a computer!" Jill complained, sounding really upset
about it.
     "You can always come over and use one of ours," I mentioned while
making a note to see what kind of cheap monitor I could come up with.
Monitors were the expensive part, really; we had enough of everything
else for at least low-level computing, like those not involving brute-
force cracking of passwords and backing up of businesses and the like.
     "It's not the same," she bitched.
     "I know, but it's better than nothing."
     "Wait," Kim demanded, "What?  What are you talking about?"
     "It's a computer based gift registry, so everyone can enter what
they want to get, for birthdays and Christmas, and then everyone else
can mark off what they're getting, or split with someone if they don't
want to get the whole thing.  Like, Sabrina-"
     Kim growled, "Tuck, shut the fuck up a minute."
     I shut.
     She had some of her coffee, which I hoped would help.

***
07:52 25 Nov

     "Okay," Kim said as we all made it out of the cosmetology
classroom, nearly last as usual.  "Tell me again what you were talking
about?"
     "What?  Nail-"
     "The gift thing!"

***
07:56 25 Nov

      "Jill stop SULKING!" Kim almost shouted.  "You can come over and
use mine, okay?  I promise I won't look."
     "Okay," she said, but she didn't seem like she meant it, or she was
happy about it, or something.
     I mentioned, "I was going to set it up so that anyone could access
their own account from about any computer.  So Jill could check it from
anyone's house."  Because I knew that some of them didn't have the
setups or the knowledge of how to log in or anything just yet.

***
07:59 25 Nov

     "Dude," Mike sighed, as he handed me a lot of paper.  "I stapled
'em too.  You fucking OWE me, mano."
     "I know, and I really appreciate it," I said sincerely.  "Did you
give-"  I stopped, because he was handing one each to George and Dan.
"How many did you make?"
     "I only made four or five, because you made a lot of errors in-"
     "I proofread it!"
     "Yeah, well, try learning to write English first."
     "Dude, no kidding," George said as he stared at his copy, as if he
was doing something productive.
     "Fuck-" but I got cut off by the bell.
     When it finished, Mike said, "We can fix it up today, I print 'em
tonight, and then we can hand 'em out tomorrow.  No I can't!" he
realized with glee.  "No class tomorrow!"
     "You never have class," George said, which was funnier than if Dan
or I had said it, because it was George.

***
09:00 25 Nov

     The bell startled me into making an undignified mouth noise, but
luckily the bell covered it up.  I'd been slipping into Deep Hack as I
worked on the gift registry software and interface and things.  Part of
me wanted to blow the bell off and just stay here, and part of me wanted
to go somewhere, like my car, and skip class in order to do something
useful for once with my school time, but I made my Will rolls and
managed to pop my brain stack into a working file, save all the files I
had open, and start packing up the hardware.

***
10:42 25 Nov

     "Of course I've got it on the laptop!  Bakkaaaaa!"
     "Got what on the laptop?" Amanda asked as she interfered with me
whacking Mike in the head by getting in my way.
     "The gift exchange thing!  I mean, why else HAVE a laptop?"  *To
write papers,* my treacherous mind presented, which depressed me because
I already had two papers to write over Thanksgiving and it wasn't even
lunchtime yet.  I was glad Dobson had given us an extra day off this
year, but he should've made it illegal or something to load us up with
long projects over the holiday.
     "What?"
     "Huh?"
     "You look really down alluva sudden," Amanda mentioned.
     "Papers."
     "Oh god," she complained as she got it.  Mike didn't look happy
either.

***
11:36 25 Nov

     "Nah, let's do out this gift exchange thing," Mike said.
     "Man!" George complained, bitterly.
     "Presents, George.  Loot.  Treasure," Mike tried to entice him, but
he wasn't having any of it.  Well, much of it.  "Just think about what
you guys want," Mike said to everyone else, "Christmas and birthdays,
and-"
     "We're doing birthydays too?" Kim asked.
     "Birtheee-days?" Paul asked, stretching it out.
     "Something Tuck came up with," she said back, smiling at him in
this very feminine-superior sort of way, like older girls did to younger
boys when they were being immature.  Then she patted my shoulder, really
obviously, to make sure that everyone knew who was responsible for this.
I closed my eyes so I wouldn't see people glaring at me, but it didn't
help because I could see them anyway.

***
11:43 25 Nov

     Pam put a hand on my shoulder, and when I caught up enough I picked
her hand up and kissed the back of it for a moment, before putting it
back on my shoulder and continuing.  She ruffled my hair a little before
she ran her fingers through the back, which felt nice.

***
12:13 25 Nov

     I was glad I had the laptop, because Mike had gotten everyone to
start talking at me about the presents they wanted, and I was having a
hard time keeping up with all of it even with a keyboard.  Especially
when whatever-it-was was spelled weird.  Worse, because I didn't have
the data format set for sure yet, so whatever I did, I was going to have
to redo.  Better, because I had managed to fend everyone off for five
minutes as I frantically wrote a little data-entry program stub that
would at least make me fill in the necessary data pieces in a single
order, so I could convert it later.  Otherwise, knowing me, I'd have
done it in several different orders, which would mean I'd have to hand-
convert it.
     "How fast do you TYPE?" Matt asked.
     "Huh?  Not fast enough," I managed to get out as I unloaded my
auditory buffer into the computer.  A serial interface from my ear/brain
would be the best thing, but I didn't have one.

***
12:22 25 Nov

     "Dude, I can't believe you were typing like that," Kathy commented
as we left for better climes, or at least better classes for me.
     "What?"
     "Did you take typing as an elective?"
     "What?  No, my dad said I couldn't."
     "Why not?"
     "Said I already knew how to type better than he did," which was not
true, "and that I could use the time to get something else useful, more
useful, like an art class or something.  He was being sarcastic, but he
still wouldn't let me take typing."  I sighed; he'd sort of been right,
but I could always use another A that didn't take any work or thought.
     "Man," she sighed, "I can't even think that fast."
     "Oh, sure you can," I told her.  "It's not hard.  I mean, you speak
at normal speed, as far as I can tell, so you can THINK that fast."
     "Yeah I guess, but...  Did you take like classes or something when
you were younger?  Or..."
     "I just did it a lot."

***
14:02 25 Nov

     I shook my head as I finally got to my car, still a little stunned
at the workload they'd buried us under for the holiday.  "Might as well
do this all the time, and just let us stay home."

***
14:56 25 Nov

     I told Ricky, "I have THREE papers and TWO sets of math problems,"
because physics was basically story math problems when you got down to
it.  "PLUS another book to read for English lit, and we have guests
coming in from out of town and I have to clean and set up for them to
stay at our house- AND I have to COOK!"  I'd blocked that out.  Not to
mention I was far more interested in this new software I was writing
than anything else.  Except Pam, but with all the damned holiday crap
going on in both our lives, I might as well be programming because I
wouldn't be seeing her.  Except I wouldn't be programming either.

***
15:13 25 Nov

     "Mmmmm, nice warm baby in her crate," I insisted to Stella.  She
didn't seem to believe me.

***
15:38 25 Nov

     "Aha, so she IS-  Oh."  Miz Parker had left a note under one of the
cans of fruit.  It said 'VALERIE' in large letters on the up part, which
is how I figured out it was a note for me.  "Oh well, this is better
than me trying to guess what she wants,"  I told myself.  Especially if
she wanted it done, because otherwise I wouldn't have done it, because I
had other things to do.  *Many, MANY other things to do.*  I grabbed the
note and read it.  "Yep, pie order."
     "What?" Ricky wanted to know.
     "Your mom wants me to make pies tomorrow.  Oh."  I discovered I was
babysitting tomorrow.  "Oh, no."  Instead, I was cooking and/or baking
tomorrow, because Miz Parker was staying home and babysitting, or
whatever you called it when the parent did it - my dad called it
'torture' - but I'd get paid the same.  "Hey, cool."
     "What?!" Ricky complained.
     "Your mom's staying home tomorrow, an-"
     "Aw MAN!"
     "And I'm baking, and I get paid the same, hahahahaaa."  I would not
be getting paid for baking at home, that was for damned sure.  "Oh..."
*Does she have the right stuff for baking pies?*

***
15:52 25 Nov

     She had most of it, and I thought I could do without the big slab
of marble, if I was careful.  She had even bought some of the Pet-Ritz
premade pie crusts, which is what Mom recommended.  They weren't going
to get their pie cut into twelfths, but that was her loss for not
telling me this a few weeks ago.  If I tried taking Mom's pie plates out
of the house on Thanksgiving, or the pie cutting guide...  My brain
refused to consider the idea any further.  I wouldn't like what
happened, my brain told me, and that was all I needed to know.
     I was not going to argue with it on this.

***
17:38 25 Nov

     "Wow, she is really late getting home," I realized.  "Probably so
she wouldn't have to feed YOU."
     "Breeeeee," Stella grinned, and ejected some of the food I'd been
'helping' her eat.  Then she banged on her tray and smashed some of the
escaped food on her hand.
     "Yeah thanks, I needed more of that.  Maybe..."  I looked, and if I
cut off the legs, her chair might just fit into the sink.  "Nah, then
you'd spray it all over the rest of the kitchen.  Bathtub," I realized.
"Ho ho HO!  You are so doomed."
     Stella looked like she had figured out what 'doomed' meant.
     "Not that doomed, just a little doomed."  It didn't help.  Then she
realized she had food on her hands, and decided it was sauce and that
she could eat her hand.  "Uh, no, sweetie, let me help-"
     I got too close, and she hit me with it, transferring much of the
food to me.  My head.  "Ow, DA-D-SH-*  Punching was right out too,
though I had to fight myself.
     Naturally, Miz Parker came in at that moment, and I considered
punching HER, but managed to fight that off too.
     "Sorry I'm late," she apologized.
     "Oh, no problem," I lied, remarkably well considering the
circumstances I thought.
     "What happened to your HEAD?!" she gasped.
     "Wha-  Oh."  I pointed at Stella.  "She hit me.  After dipping her
hand in her food."
     Miz Parker just sighed.  I was surprised that was all.  Then again,
it wasn't her hair.

***
18:27 25 Nov

     "So you're making pies tomorrow?"  Mr. Parker looked a little
skeptical.  Like, maybe I wasn't supposed to be.  Or, maybe, that Miz
Parker was supposed to be doing it.  Or maybe she was supposed to be
doing it and didn't want anyone to know.
     "Um.  Maybe you should ask Miz Parker about that?" I tried.
     "Oh, no, I just thought you'd be cooking at home.  Ricky said you
were off tomorrow."
     "The whole school is.  They got smart and figured out how many
people were taking off Wednesday anyway."  I sighed.  "I'll probably get
tapped to do stuff in the morning at home, and then come here and bake
and stuff.  But at least it's not there.  We've got like all of Mom's
relatives coming and living in our house until Sunday; it's getting
crowded.  So I'd rather be here anyway."  I thought it indelicate to
mention that my pay was also much higher here.

***
19:37 25 Nov

     This was exactly why I had wanted to eat at the Parkers tonight;
and almost certainly why I'd been told not to do so this week.  "No,
Mom, she's PAYING me to cook tomorrow."
     "Why didn't you tell me this before?"
     "Because she didn't ask until today.  Mom, it's not my fault.  If
she hates cooking this much, she should pl-"
     "She what?"
     "She just told me today!"
     "No; she hates cooking?" she asked skeptically.
     "It's TRUE!  She told me!  Um, h-  But she said not to tell anyone.
But it's true, I swear!  That's why she wants me to stay so late."
     "She does want him to stay late," Dad confirmed, and I almost
kissed him.  "And remember he was cooking there?  He was, the times I
was over there."
     I continued, "Yeah, they want me to cook like all the time, it's
part of the deal.  That's why I get PAID so much."
     "Well you don't have to cook there tomorr-"
     "I already said I'd do it!  She's COUNTING on me, Mom!  You can't
ask me to go back on a BUSINESS DEAL?!"  I looked to Dad for support,
and he was nodding.  I hoped that meant he was on my side.  "Look, I'll
be here in the morning Wednesday anyway, so I can just do stuff here in
the morning, right?"

***
20:04 25 Nov

     "God I HATE these people," I sighed.  They fucked up the house,
made everyone tense, we had to clean before they got here AND after they
left, fucked up anything they touched like computers, complained nastily
about everything, and could not be bothered to do ANYTHING themselves.
     Part of me realized I wasn't being entirely fair, but I screamed at
that part until it cried and hid in a corner.

***
20:09 25 Nov

     I had just calmed down enough to start programming when the phone
started to flash.  I almost took a bat to it before I realized that it
almost certainly was not more of my relatives, but was one or more of my
friends.  So-called friends.
     "Hahh, hahh, hello?"
     "Hey Val!" Julia called.
     "Hey," I said back.  "Who's here?"

***
20:39 25 Nov

     "Hold on a second," I said, because my Call Waiting had beeped.  I
flicked the hook and said, "Hello?"
     "Tuck!  It's Jill," Jill said.  "Wanna do something Friday?"
     "Wanna go gift shopping for everyone?  They're making a group and
lists and things," I countered, because that's what we'd been doing for
a couple of hours.
     "Uh, Fri-  Um, maybe..."
     "We were thinking REALLY early, to get ahead of the crowds a little
and maybe get done earlier.  Like seven."
     "Yeah, okay... you know most places don't open until ten, right?"
she warned.
     "Yeah, that's been mentioned."  I'd mentioned it.  "You'd be
surprised."  I had been.  Unpleasantly.  Still, this explained why Susan
was never around for breakfast on Friday-after-Thanksgiving mornings the
last few years.  "Hey, we're all call-linked here, wanna join?"
     "Nah, I gotta...  Um.  Anyway, call me tomor-  Can I call you
tomorrow night?"
     "Yeah... I should be home and done and stuff about eight."  I
sighed, because even on a holiday I had too much to do.
     "Okay, tomorrow, bye!" #click#
     I flipped back over and announced, "Jill, said she wants to come
probably, for the morning."  I didn't want to be in the afternoon bunch
either, like she didn't.
     "Did you get her gift list?" Sabrina asked.
     "I'll get it tomorrow," I said, and made a note to do that tomorrow
when I called her.

***
00:17 26 Nov

     "Oh, shit, right," I remembered, as I took a break from
programming; I had stuff to do tomorrow, starting early.  "Whups."
Today.  "Oh well..."  At least the programming was coming along as
expected.  I'd have to do some homework in here at some point too, but
that could wait.  "To sleep, perchance NOT to dream..."

***


"Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer.  There are
three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris." -- Larry Wall


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+ @>--,--'-----   Ellen Hayes   o===[--------      __      vicki .sig  +
                  -=[1990]=-                       \/      virus 13.6
+      http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes     PGP key: EFC9 5D55 (1996) +



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