'The Man' Tales - I Juggled Life

I have been given two more awards this past weekend and have them displayed on my sidebar. I would like to thank Colours of Dawn and Rotten Correspondent for their generosity in bestowing these awards on me. I am humbled and overwhelmed once more. I have also been awarded a second Mwah from lovely Belle and a second Excellent award from Mzungu Chick. I have already posted Belle's name under my lovely kiss and will get The Man to put in Mzungu Chick's name as well. Thank you all for thinking of me. And again - Thank you to The Man for all his technical help and patience.





Even though I was going out every Thursday night, I still spent all the rest of my time in the chat room. I felt I knew the people better in my virtual world than I did down at the Country bar. I loved the dancing, and looked forward to my girl’s night out every week, but my heart belonged in the chat room. I hadn’t met anyone at the bar that caught my attention, but I had good friends inside my computer.

As the summer drew near I became anxious that my brother would be taking back his computer. I couldn’t afford to own one of my own and there was no way I could keep my brother’s. I didn’t want to give up my contact with my friends in the chat room and I began wracking my brain trying to figure out what I would do when the inevitable happened.

Chatting with people every night for four months forges bonds that are exactly like real life friendships. You learn who you can trust and who is honest, and you learn who isn’t. I didn’t want to lose Ayns and Dragosani because I didn’t have a computer and it looked like it might happen. Dragosani had become D for me because it was so much easier to type. When I entered the Parlor all I had to do was type D? and I soon had my reply. His ‘Yeah?’ still thrilled me every time and we would escape to a different room or stay and chat with the rest of our friends in the Parlor. Both D and Ayns lived in a time zone that was 2 hours ahead of me. Ayns invariably toddled off to bed after ‘typing quietly’ while his wife slept. D never tired and stayed until we had to shut it down for the night.

One night I had D call me on my brother’s 800 phone number just so I could hear his voice. I pressed the earpiece to my ear as tightly as I could to try to be close to him while I listened to his soft voice. I spent days thinking of our conversation and replaying the sound of his voice over and over in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I learned he was in university studying computer science and lived at home. I was intrigued by his intelligence and wanted to know more about him. On Friday nights, both D and Ayns listened to my tales of the dance floor. Ayns sometimes made jealous comments about being held close by a stranger, but D only asked if I had enjoyed myself.

Every weekend, Cid took me out for at least one of the days; either Saturday or Sunday. We would drive around the province and visit sites of interest that Cid had heard or read about. Sometimes we took a picnic and we would find a picnic table along the way and spread out our lunch. One Saturday, Cid decided we would go to Ram River Falls. These falls were about an hour and a half west of the barn, but to get there you had to cross what they called ‘The Corkscrew’. Cid loved sightseeing and often drove the car where he was looking, making the thought of crossing ‘The Screw’ rather scary for me. Thankfully he paid attention to the road knowing I was scared and we made it across the mountain and down onto the flats. As we drove he told me about a friend’s wife who drove a long distance on a flat tire and ruined the rim. He just couldn’t understand how someone couldn’t know they had a flat tire. As we drove along the shale covered road he suddenly decided to pull over as the car was driving funny. Sure enough we had a flat tire. Cid also carried half of what he owned in the trunk of the big Buick he drove and it took forever for him to get to the spare tire. With a chainsaw, a skillsaw, tools, a tennis racket, golf balls – you name it – strewn down the side of the road – he finally managed to get the tire changed. Driving on the spare we again crossed ‘The Corkscrew’ and drove into the nearest town. At the only service station that was open on a Sunday, the attendant told Cid he had another flat tire. Two new tires later we headed back home and I sprang for supper. Cid had spent enough money for one day.