Unwelcome surprise

“Kids and their music,” I said on a long-suffering sigh. “Who puts that word in a song title?” A colleague’s son – all of 17 years old – watched Chienne while I was away. I returned home to every single light I own burning brightly and wondered if he’d been afraid or just loved wasting energy. With a shrug, I wandered through rooms, flipping switches and pulling cords and opening the blinds so that natural light could replace that from bulbs.

I sat down at the computer, having taken both laptops with me on the trip (Yes. I am that cool.) and saw a new file on the desktop.

When I was in college, I went to a bachelor auction that a sorority was throwing. One of the men decided it would be fun to drop his pants. While most girls squealed with glee and shifted to get a better view, I blushed and immediately dropped my gaze to the back of the chair in front of me. I don’t know why – he was a very cute boy and it seems I’d want to look – but I didn’t. Organizers quickly asked him to cover himself again so it was a limited-time-opportunity sort of thing.

So when the file opened in a movie player and the opening image was a dark-haired young lady seated in a rather unladylike way and without any clothing on a wooden chair in some sort of wooded area, I looked away from the screen. “For crying out loud,” I gasped and closed the file, giving her the privacy she needed to, um, enjoy her outdoor activity.

“Huh,” I said to Chienne, not sure how to react to such a finding. It’s not that I abhor pornography. Given a person of that age, I think sexual curiosity is pretty natural. Having access to a house and high speed internet all to yourself, perhaps I’d have done the same thing in high school. But I would have done a better job at covering my tracks!

“He could have at least deleted the file,” I told the dog before turning to face the computer again. That’s when I saw the box of Kleenex sitting on my filing cabinet next to the desk. “Oh, ew,” I moaned with dismay. “I so don’t want to know this!”

“Would you rather it be your desk or bed?” Friend asked as I shared my disturbing story. At which point, I paused from spritzing cleaner on my keyboard and mouse and went to strip the bed so I could wash sheets.