He sat at his desk in the law office Wednesday afternoon grinding out the work when suddenly an attractive young brunette appeared before him. “Hi!” she said. “I’m Devi*.”
He was taken aback and only stuttered out a “hi” after a few seconds. “I’m Luke.”
“How are you?” she smiled.
“Who is this,” he thinks, “and why is she talking to me? Surely she’s looking for the bathroom.”
He has to fight back the urge to direct her to the Ladies room, which he had heroically avoided using all day.
“I’m good,” he said, a big goofy smile coming to his face. “What do you do?”
He tried to figure out who the hell this woman was and why was she talking to him. Surely she was lost. Something was wrong. For his sins, he had been condemned to slave for months in relative isolation from the opposite sex as a man secretary. Every day he came to the office he had to check his balls at the entrance.
Now this woman explained that she was between things but he was so confused that he couldn’t hear anything she was saying. He was thrown. He couldn’t figure her out. It was like she had just appeared to him. Why was she talking to him? It had to be the yarmulke. If people hadn’t Googled him, they could be confused by his innocent appearance.
“Awesome,” he said, his default response since high school.
He was abashed. He didn’t know where to go in this conversation. Who was this person? And why was she talking to him? It’d seemed like it had been years since an attractive young woman had chosen to talk to him.
She took a step away and he returned to work. Then she turned back to him.
“Do you know Jack Cohen*?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “He works down the hall. Let me take you there.”
They started walking.
“How do you know Jack?” he asked.
“He’s my step-dad,” she said.
They walked into Jack’s office and he turned to leave.
“This is Luke Ford,” said Jack. “It’s one word. Lukeford.”
He closed the door.
On the way back to his desk, a co-worker said to him, “That’s some game you were running on that girl.”