Let's Be Done With This

I sense your concern. 'Patrick,' you are thinking, 'hadn't you been drinking for some time as well? Were you safe to drive?'

Allow me to further explain my situation. While I had been consuming beer for a prolonged period of time, I had been keeping my own pace, not being influenced by Professor Smith-Smythe's pace. This prevented me from becoming too affected at any particular time. While talking to Jen, I had further slowed my drinking, as I was getting full as well as because it felt weird to be drinking with this student. This allowed my head to further clear and prevented me from saying anything too stupid.

Also don't think that once we decided that I would provide her transport that we immediately rose and entered my car. Did we soon depart the bar? Yes. Did we immediately leave campus? No. I had to return to my office first and take care of a thing or two. Also we had to go that way because my car was over that way.

Big Ken was nice enough to toss us bottles of water as we left so we wouldn't dehydrate on the way there. Can I put my hand on my heart and say that I was stone cold sober when I got behind the wheel? No. Can I say that I had good reason to feel sober and safe? Yes. Between my pace, the time that elapsed between when I stopped drinking and getting to the car, and the rehydrating effects of the water, I did not feel any effects of the alcohol upon me. By that time, the heat was more of an impact upon me than the alcohol had been. While the heat made me tired and sweaty, it did not prevent me from driving safely.

My being coherent is important at this point for more than just the fact that my driving was not impacted. It means that I was at my normal levels of stupidity, unaffected by the stupidity multiplier that is alcohol. It also means that my memory is unaffected. Therefore when I say that I drove Jen the couple miles to her house and dropped her off without even so much as a handshake of physical contact between us, it is not me guessing or believing that these were the events that occurred, it is a statement of fact. I am not interested in debates about personal perspective of events or memory erasers. Why would someone rewrite my memories of that night? What would be the point?

Yet the accusations are out there. I was seen leaving the bar with Jen. Someone took pictures of the event and manipulated them to make it look like our departure was more friendly that it was. To my eyes, they aren't even that well done. Do I know someone who has wasted his life in an attempt to make me look stupid? Yes. Do I really need the help? Of course not.

Sarah Jean, let's just blame this on Eric and move on.

We're Doing What Now?

Everything worked out. The laptop probably needed to be reimaged anyway and, thankfully, Professor Pedrina had connected to the network causing the file synchronization program to run, updating his files on the network drive. Mrs. Schwanke was in a meeting and didn't notice any additional downtime due to the delay. Billy and I had a conversation about 'reading' and 'focus' and moved on from there.

“He never explained what caused the mix-up?” Jen asked.

“It's Billy,” I responded.”I don't think he knew. It just... happened.”

Jen shook her head as she worked on her drink. “He was talking to me. The reimage was my ticket.” This confused me and I requested more information. “Billy had a question about where Mrs. Schwanke's desk was and I was the only one around to ask. After he stumbled around waiting for someone else to return for a few minutes, I finally asked him what he wanted. He fumbled, stumbled, called me 'honey' at one point, tried to lean over my desk, almost fell, dropped his ticket and managed to grab my ticket when he picked up his. I'm not sure he'd ever spoken to a woman before.”

I couldn't help but laugh at that. Finally I responded with “Oh my. Well, I suppose that explains why he was more confused than normal.”

“Am I that intimidating?” she questioned.

This question confused me slightly. What exactly did she mean by 'intimidating'? I fought for as neutral a response as possible, which was a bit of a struggle given the situation. “I hesitate to speculate on anything regarding Billy and his reaction to people.” This answer seemed to satisfy her.

Awkwardly, Professor Smith-Smythe leaned over the table to speak with me. This involved having to politely wave Jen away and sprawl around glasses and napkins and such. This action managed to rob him of most of his dignity. “Thanks for the tour old man. Best one yet. Must dash.”

This declaration threw me off completely. “Are you okay to drive?” I asked, ignoring any compliment that may have been directed at me.

“Not to worry, my new friend is providing the transport.” He grinned wickedly and winked. “Ta.” Surprisingly quickly, they were gone.

While I was shocked, Jen was confused. “What just happened?”

“I think Professor Smith-Smythe just picked up your friend.” Admittedly I was torn between two responses, a 'that is so wrong' as well as a 'lucky dog'.

Jen also had dogs on her mind, although from her exclamation, it was the female of the species she had in mind. “That's just wrong! And creepy! And she was my ride home.”

“Do you have far to go?” I checked.

She was still sulking. “No, but it'll feel like it in this heat.”

There was nothing else for it. “I can take you home.” She politely protested and I politely insisted and that slowly become the decision.

Thank You Billy

It was a stupid mistake, one that anyone could have made if they weren't paying attention to what they were doing. For a long period of time, that well described Billy. Technically speaking, Billy is very clever. He knows his stuff regarding computers. His personal skills were a little limited but I hoped that becoming part of our group would help him with that, loosen him up a little as it were. The early stages of this loosening up faced us with a rather strange individual, and this is coming from me, so that should tell you something.

“I'm telling you, he's a serial killer in the making,” Dave insisted.

I gave Dave a 'cmon' look. “Billy may be bad but he's not that bad. He's awkward, not a killer.”

“He's a killer of moods,” offered 'Little' Anthony, so named because of his bulk. “We can be laughing it up in the call center and he'll walk in and it just crashes to a halt.”

“As much as I'm glad you can enjoy your work, that's not always a bad thing,” I noted. “Really, I need to quiet you guys down more often. I catch a lot of flax for you guys enjoying yourselves.”

“We're sorry,” Dave replied. “We don't mean to get you in any trouble,” 'Little' Anthony agreed with this declaration.

“Most of it is just jealousy,” I explained. “No one else gets to enjoy themselves like we do. When people walk in and hear the cheerfulness they assume we aren't working. I've got numbers that prove otherwise.”

I would have explained further but Billy joined us in my office. His gaze was focused on two pieces of paper that he held before him. We waited for a moment, expecting him to say something, but he just kept staring at the papers. Finally I said “Hello Billy.”

This led him to look up. “Hey. Yeah, so, I think I've got a problem.”

I expected more but he had returned to staring at the papers. “Is this the sort of situation where you're looking for us to determine whether or not you actually have a problem or do you know you have a problem and seek help resolving it?”

While Dave grinned at the overly polite way I delivered my request, Billy remained unaffected. For another moment he stared at his notes before he spoke. “I've got two requests for two different things and I think I mixed them up.”

“You think or you know?” I pressed.

“I don't think he knows,” Dave said wittily. Despite enjoying his statement, I shook my head slightly, trying to get Dave to knock it off.

If Billy noticed any of this, he didn't show it. “So I've got a ticket to load a printer driver on Professor Pedrina's laptop and another ticket to have Mrs. Schwanke's desktop reimaged.”

Things went quiet for a moment while we pondered the possibility that one of the high ranking officials of the university, as well as one of the more vocal members of the facility, may have had their laptop reset to an 'as new' state with all his accumulated files gone. The vulgarity that 'Little' Anthony exclaimed was understandable under the circumstances.

I leapt into damage control mode. “Dave, go check on the Professor's laptop, see if it's been reimaged. 'Little' Anthony, do the same for Mrs. Schwanke's desktop, see if she's still down. I'm gonna check the backup tapes, make sure we can restore the laptop if need be.” We bolted from our seats to depart. I paused for just a moment before leaving. “Billy. Do me a favor and just stay here. Okay?” He nodded. I dashed off, adding “And don't touch anything!”

An Unexpected Meeting

The blonde of the pair sat closer to Professor Smith-Smythe and the Professor did his very best to sit very close to her indeed. On my side of the booth was the brunette. Both were pleasant looking young ladies. Politely but hopefully in not too friendly a manner, I smiled at the brunette. “Hello.”

She smiled bashfully at me. “Hello Mr. Thompson.”

The fact that she recognized me confused me. I focused through the dim lighting and my tiredness and the beer to actually look at her. It took a moment or two for me to recognize her and then a bit more for the faulty filing system in my brain to pull up her name. “Jen, right?” She nodded. Jen had worked as one of my interns for a few months before she found a job more in line with her major. Now that it wasn't a random person sitting next to me, I felt better and worse at the same time: better because it was someone I had something I could to talk about to and worse because this activity must seem that much more awkward to her. “Nice to see you again. How have things been going?”

It was a vague question and she gave me a vague answer. She shrugged her shoulders and stated “Okay I guess.” Jen took a moment to sip her drink and glance at her friend, who looked comfortable despite sitting far too close to the Professor for my taste. “Do you come here often?” As soon as she said the words, she groaned and rolled her eyes. “I'm sorry, I can't believe I just said that. I didn't mean it like that.”

I chuckled. “I understand all too well. Putting my foot in my mouth is one of my primary skills.” I paused to allow for a change in thought. “Are you taking any summer classes? You're from up north originally if I remember correctly.”

Jen smiled. “Yep! Just north of Green Bay. I got to visit home for a couple of long weekends but I've mostly stayed here and taken a couple classes.” In response to my politely inquisitive look, she explained “Keeps my internship going.” This made sense and I nodded my understanding. “How is everybody in the IT Intern pool?”

“Mostly gone home. Hours are pretty limited in summer but I get to have a few of the fellas around as we get things done.”

“Like Billy?”

I chuckled at the way she said the name. It was as if she managed to say 'Billy' and 'durr' at the same time. It wasn't really right to laugh but it caught me off-guard. And it was funny. “Billy might be back in the fall. We'll see.”

“You need the laughs that bad, huh?”

“He got better,” I reassured. “Better enough anyway.”

“I was shocked you didn't fire him after the reimage.”

I sighed. “Maybe I should have.” That was a mess.

Trouble Gets Deeper

Adding more people to the bar was making things worse. The noise seemed to attract the Professor's attention; pulling his focus from me and turning it to the growing crowd. “I say, charming young ladies you have here, really rather charming.” He turned to me for a moment, a lecherous gleam in his eyes. “It seems a shame to have this booth all to ourselves. We should be more generous, share this space with some of these ladies.”

I sought to give him a Serious Look. “Didn't you say you were married?”

“I don't see what that has to do with anything,” he responded. “Besides it looks like you might require some assistance in that regard.”

“I have a girlfriend,” I noted defensively.

“Is she here?”

“No,” I answered.

“Is she likely to be here?” the Professor pushed.

“No.”

He grinned. “Neither is my wife. I'm not saying we're going to pick any of these girls up, not necessarily anyway.” Before I could protest further, he began waving to a pair of young ladies walking nearby that appeared to be looking for a destination. “I say, plenty of room over here if you would care to join us.” After a moment of conferring, they walked over to join us. With a speed that belied the time spent sitting, Professor Smith-Smythe bounded from the booth and to his feet, gesturing grandly towards the seat. He gave me a Look, which encouraged me to rise as well, allowing the Ladies access to the interior of the booth. As we sat back down, we had them trapped.

Of Course It Gets More Complicated

I have no idea why I thought the Professor would only want one drink. I suppose I'd gotten so used to the idea that Professor Smith-Smythe was having such a lousy time that he wouldn't want to linger. We'd have the one, he'd be sick of me and of being in the school, and want to head back to his hotel or whatever.

What I hadn't reckoned on was the power of alcohol to make someone comfortable. I also hadn't reckoned on the Professor's ability to inhale gin. I mean, he clearly had some practice at this task. I very quickly became glad the man had his own money and was interested in paying for his own drinks. I picked up every third drink or so, when I was refreshing my own beverage, and this made me the best chap in the whole of ever. Or something.

While he must have been rather drunk, he remained impressively coherent. This was handy as he became rather chatty. He discoursed on his own facility, the price of gas in Birmingham, the problems he'd had with his wife, how rotten his son is, as well as his belief in the existence of the French. It was a fascinating set of diatribes that I wish I could do justice to here but the beer fades the details.

I lost track of time. People came and went. Suddenly I looked up and it was Happy Hour. When I realized this, I sobered up quickly from fear.

I don't do Happy Hour, not anymore anyway. Happy Hour generally becomes Stumbly Fall-Down Time and that's not very Happy. Not to me anyway. I snapped to attention, did some math, and realized I was in trouble. The place was filling up, the Professor was showing no signs of wanting to depart, and the booze was getting less expensive. I would have to act fast to avoid further trouble.

I tried to make a display of stretching and then finished the last of my beer. “Well, it's getting late sir. Is there somewhere you need to be?”

My 'subtle' attempt to steer him to other tasks failed miserably as the Professor was focused on the waitress that had just pulled up to our table. Over the increasing din I could hear him mutter “Oh I say” in a far too appreciative tone. In all fairness to him, this young lady was rather pleasant looking so it made sense to admire her, only it seemed creepy for him to do so, what with him being married and old enough to be her father and such.

While the Professor may not have heard me, she had done so. “Oh, time to go?” she asked with a polite smile.

“What? Leave?” The concept seemed foreign to the Professor. “Who said such a thing? Him? Man drivels, pay him no attention. Another round my dear.” He keenly observed her departure. Grinning at me, he noted “Wonderful place you've got here.”

I felt very tired.

This Should Be No Big Deal

The campus bar is not large. It's not really meant for large groups of people. It's handy, convenient, but there are so many bars in Milwaukee that there's no need for it to be really large. It goes well with the four lane bowling alley next to it.

Mid-week, mid-afternoon, mid-summer all combined to equal a mostly empty bar. Thankfully it was open as I had said. After I said it would be, it occurred to me that it often closes down during summer for remodeling and cleaning. While business gets slack during this time, it never goes away. Once Professor Smith-Smythe caught sight of the bar, his pace increased. He sped past me, making a bee line for a booth in the back. I gave a smile and wave to Big Ken the bartender who was in the midst of cleaning glasses. He nodded a response and met us at the table. “What can I do for you gentlemen today?”

“Gin and tonic,” the Professor responded. “You needn't be too liberal with the tonic.” He then winked rather obviously.

If this request seemed unusual to Big Ken, he didn't show it. He nodded to acknowledge it and turned to me. “Root beer,” I requested.

The Professor reacted rather energetically to this, forcing Ken to wait. “No, wait, I say, 'root beer'?” He repeated this a few more times, which made me wonder for a moment if he'd never heard of it before. “Dash it, you're not saying you're going to make me drink alone are you?”

“I'll be right here, you won't be alone.” Before he could argue my admittedly pedantic response, I added “I'm not allowed to drink while I'm at work.”

“What the deuce is the point of having an establishment such as this so convenient if you can't have a drink or two during lunch?” He sulked. “I can't drink alone, it's just not done.” A thought occurred to him and he perked up. “Say, you're supposed to be showing me around, right?” I confirmed this was the case. “And this is the end of the tour, yes?” More or less, he was correct. “If that's the case you're done with your work for the day, aren't you?” Triumphant, he turned to Big Ken. “Beer for him.” Being a good man, Big Ken waited for me to confirm this was acceptable before he returned to the bar. I was not fond of the idea, but this was the best mood I'd seen the Professor in and it didn't seem wise to break it. Besides, Cuthbold wants the Professor to have a good time, to go away with a favorable impression of the school, so, in a way, I'm just following orders. It'll just be the one.

One drink never hurt anyone.