Chapter 2: "Pocket Protectors"

Remember my saying that part of my story began in the present but actually it did not. Well, some of it that did not began about one year earlier. And it goes something like this...

"Mind if I sit here Jeremy?" I asked, pretty sure he wouldn't object, especially because at the time, all eyes in the break room were upon me. It wasn't because I was the most beautiful woman employed at Massive Mortgage, though I was! No, the reason everyone present in the room was looking at me was because I was about to sit at the one table in the break room considered by all to be no man's land; and for that matter also no woman's land. Now you might be wandering to yourself 'What could possibly have earned this space such a dubious distinction?' Well, I'll tell you...

Jeremy is considered to be by all, beyond a doubt, the strangest, almost unsociable, albeit most intelligent, person anyone they had ever met.

He was the quiet, non-aggressive, unassuming type who, by his own accounts, was a loner. If there were a stereotypical nerd, Jeremy would probably have to be its poster boy. He was shy, stuttered a lot, and a terribly bad dresser. He even wore a pocket protector! In this day and age none the less!

Back to my story though.

Surprised, he looked up from the book he was reading and replied, "No."

"No I can't sit here or no you don't mind?" I decided to play dumb. 'Maybe it will get him talking.' I thought to myself.

Embarrassed, he said, "Sorry, of course you can sit there."

"Jeremy, do you mind if I ask you a question?" I said nervously, not quite sure how he would respond. I was looking around the room to see if everyone was still watching us. They were.

He looked quickly back down at the table suddenly and replied, "Sure Celeste, what is it? Are you having trouble with your computer again?"

There was an almost hopeful tone in his voice.

"No. Nothing like that. I was just wondering; where do you get your pocket protectors?" Okay, silly as it sounds, try as I may, at the time, I couldn't come up with any other excuse to start up a conversation with him that day. I was going to ask him what he was eating, but he had already finished his lunch and I guess he must have disposed whatever containers it had come in before I arrived. Of course, on any other day, Jeremy would have had his nose buried in a book or magazine after he finished his lunch. But, for some strange reason, that day, he did not. So, the best I could come up with was pocket protectors!

And, to tell you the truth, it had been driving me crazy anyway. Where the hell had he found one anyway? Nobody makes pocket protectors anymore! Nobody! As I said it, it occurred to me that he didn't have just one; he had several, all different!

He looked up at me and for a second, I could swear he was studying me. I think he was trying to figure out if I was serious or being funny. Then he said to me, "The Internet."

"Oh! I never thought of that. Makes sense." I said. Why hadn't I thought of that? Then I said to him very seriously, "Aren't they a bit dated?" I hoped he wouldn't be offended by my candor.