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“Sure,” I say. “What was it?”
“Have you ever heard of the Scunthorpe problem?”
I shake my head.
“Scunthorpe is the name of a town in England, and citizens of that town couldn’t create accounts with AOL back in the day because the name contains the substring ‘cunt,’ which activated AOL’s profanity filters.”
I grin, which spurs him on to provide a bunch more examples of the same issue, such as when someone couldn’t register a domain called shitakemushrooms.com because of the first four letters—never mind that the proper spelling of that particular mushroom has an extra “i” that would’ve fixed the problem. Or when a doctor by the last name of Libshitz was not able to register an email. My favorite is how the Montreal Urban Community website was blocked by web filtering software because their French name was Communauté urbaine de Montréal, which meant their acronym and therefore website address was “cum.”
“And today’s problem was almost the same,” Vlad says with a grin. “Our HR spam filters were blocking resumes of magna cum laude graduates.”
As I laugh at this, his phone beeps.
“Sorry,” he says after checking on it. “I have to get back to the office.”
“Of course,” I say.
He throws wads of cash on the table, and we hurry out of the restaurant.
“I’m going to run,” he says. “See you tonight.”
Before I can clarify that he might see me tonight, he’s already crossing the street.
Crap. The clothes he gets me would have to be truly hideous for me to be able to flake without looking like an asshole. And if I do, I’ll genuinely feel bad if he ditches his family as a result, even if I rationally know it would be on him, not me.
He is evil. But that’s not news.
As I trek home, I ponder an important question: Did he invite me on a date?
We have been spending a lot of time together, and the testing has been hot and heavy, so I could see why he might.
But is it something I want?
Obviously, yes, at least I would if he weren’t my boss squared. As is, I can’t help but worry how this would look to the rest of Binary Birch. Not to mention, if we dated and broke up, would I lose my job?
Also a factor is the perfumed mystery woman. He saw her as recently as this morning—which doesn’t mesh well with my fantasy of this invite being a date.
These thoughts loop in my head throughout the entire commute and when I get home. Then I start wondering when the dress is supposed to arrive and what time the party actually is.
He really didn’t tell me anything.
At four p.m., my doorbell rings.
“Who’s there?” I ask.
“Delivery,” a distant voice says.
I open the door and see two boxes sitting on the welcome mat.
I guess that answers one of my questions.
Bringing it all inside, I open the bigger box.
There’s a folded dress with a note inside:
I will pick you up at seven.
Okay, another question answered.
