I Romantic

My first taste of being on the net was nearly a decade back when I took advantage of the free browsing allowed in college to sign up for Hotmail. That was, if I remember right, all the rage at that time, what with the story of how Big Microsoft had paid top dollar to buy Hotmail from Unknown Sabeer Bhatia. Somewhere around that time I think I also came across one of those first headlines about online theft or hacking or some such thing. That combination of bad news and online greenhornness must have somehow left an everlasting impression on me because I have been extremely paranoid about giving out personal information to anything online. However, there have been exceptions, with this being one of those rare occasions. It's been a little over 4 years since I met the wise one and I still exactly remember how and when it happened. Anyway, this is not about me divulging my personal history online. It's not even about what I remember about what went into making that history. Rather, it's about what I had forgotten that was reminded to me recently.

So there I was, listening to the wise one crib about a particularly frustrating day in office and trying to cheer her up. Suddenly, with a large grin joining one ear to the other, the wise one asked, "Remember what you did the first time I cribbed to you about my work and asked you to cheer me up?" Now I know that it's a bad sign when you are asked the "Do you remember...?" question because it almost always means, "You are dead buster. I know you don't remember. How dare you not remember? You don't care about me anymore..." and all the drama that usually goes with that line of thought. Fortunately for me, I didn't have to deal with any drama because the wise one was still grinning from ear to ear even after asking the question and getting a blank look from me. That could only mean that whatever it was that I had done was truly memorable. Turns out that it indeed was.

Instead of showcasing my funny side by cracking an irresistible joke and scoring brownie points, I had suggested we go and get a couple of brownies each and cheer up!

I can’t believe I was that romantic back then!!!