the saga of dashing don part V: don vs. "the fat one"

ah, donald! how we together longed for the day when wendy, a.k.a. "the fat one" would be fired for her obvious lack of intelligence, for her fourth grade writing level, for her sheer inability to comprehend the legislative process which was her very job, for her bold allegiance to oprah and soap operas and daytime visits to church at the expense of any kind of actual, well, "work."

but dearest, dearest donald! how you singlehandedly destroyed that dream of dreams with your cruel, cruel madness! the obsession with bringing 'the fat one' down has taken its toll on our hero.

see him: it is fall of 2004 and don, the systems administrator, is laughing in his cave. don has spent the last two years sabotaging wendy's computer components in steady, calculated increments. and once again, wendy is slamming her mouse against her desk in futile despair. we must excuse her kind, you see. like an irate small child or frustrated bonobo chimpanzee with no concept of cause and effect, blind flailing seems the best, the only course of action. for wendy is not merely "computer illiterate". wendy is the veteran of roughly seven house technology courses offered to staff but still requires my assistance when "saving a file" or "using word." to use an analogy that may or may not appear on the graduate record examination, computers are to wendy what plate tectonics are to the three-toed sloth.

see don through the wide crack in the bookshelves! how he giggles softly, gleefully. from her start he has limited her server access for fear she would, for instance, write a letter and be able to send it off, attributing the boss's name to a document easily written by a kindergarten spelling bee runner-up. now it is done purely for sport, as a toddler tortures flies.

each computer is in theory protected through the house firewall. but spyware and adware must be eliminated from the rest of the office computers on a weekly basis - not hers. judging from the state of her workstation, i suspect that one of two things has occurred in the past five months: 1. she has become completely and incurably addicted to internet pornography and gambling, with a particular interest in penile enhancement. 2. don has purposefully slowed its operations such that up until recently it ran similar to a damaged commodore 64 - minus the kick ass game cartridges. this week it has all but ceased to serve humanity in any meaningful form. once booted, a pop-up window will display a series of incomprehensible messages. this will repeat every six seconds, so that, unless you are able to close them quickly, which wendy is most certainly not, you are soon buried in an inescapable jungle of them. the CPU is so overridden that no other program can possibly operate with success.

whereas previously she could send crude typo-ridden messages roughly every four minutes, now she is absolutely powerless. her daily routine can be broken down thusly: arrival. far-off grumble and/or malicious sigh from don's cave. turning on of computer. tapping of manicured fingernails on desktop. more tapping. series of ever-more-frantic mouse clicks building to feverish pounding of mouse on desk. repeat.

don laughs; it is one of the few moments when don can be observed in a state of happiness, and for that we as anthropologists are thankful. back in his cave he is playing solitaire and chuckling. smiling.

but the cold cowboy sees nothing to laugh about now. for if the boss has one trait, it's sympathy for those who are wronged by others in positions of power. and this is most certainly an example of that. wendy is a tattle-tale, and will complain to the boss once more. in a few months, she will receive a new computer to replace don's frankenstein model. but wendy shall not be fired. not now, not ever. don has endeared her to the boss despite her clear disregard for knowledge, labor, intellect, the written word, and arguably civilization at large.

wendy exits, defeated. it is nearly two o'clock and time for her soap opera. not but a minute after, don leaves his desk and walks past mine towards the door, smiling still. on his way out, he leans over my desk and with a sparkle in his eye instructs me: "if her fatness returns, call me."

ah, don, sweet don! how the dream has died!