The Bobby Andrewz Show

Chapter 7 - Vic from the Frou Frou Village

Chapter 7

A huge pink Hello Kitty calendar was tacked on the wall of the powder blue and white painted cubicle.  A tiny golden heart- shaped pin was resting on the current date.

April 25, 1997.

On the other side of the wall was a colored poster of Johnny Depp taken from his 21 Jump Street days.  Next to the poster was a black and white picture of the photogenic Brad Pitt.  In the middle, flanked by the two Hollywood biggies, was the largest poster belonging to the Asian American guitarist of The Smashing Pumpkins.  James Iha, oblivious to his surroundings, looked like a polished rebel in his black suit, streaked blonde hair and bright red electric guitar.

The white desk was immaculate and neatly organized with colorful stationeries, stickers and pens sitting in a cute Peanuts canister under a shelf lined with books, fashion magazines and the popular The Far Side desk calendar. A handful of CDs were stacked on one side, resting by the silver Sony Discman.  

There were no picture frames or photographs decorating the cubicle, just a pink and gold nameplate that said VIC, a Precious Moments ornament hanging by the entrance.  A pink female ninja bobble head rested on the shelf, seeming to guard her master’s fortress.

“I’d stay away from that cubicle if I were you, pare.  She doesn’t like germs.”  Bobby heard Jad speaking to him from behind.

“She?” Bobby asked.

“Yup.  Veronique, the OCD from the Frou Frou village .  She cleans her desk every day.    Everything she touches turns pink, even the unwanted finger prints that she dusts off every minute.  The only alcohol that she ever comes in contact with is Green Cross Rubbing Alcohol to sanitize her world.”

“Shut up Jad.  Go back to your cave before I kick your behind with my high heels. Hi there Bobby.  Don’t listen to him.”

Veronique addressed Jad as she came running back to her cubicle. 

Bobby remembered her as the young woman who was rubbing alcohol on her arms during their little huddle at the reception area.  She was smiling while reprimanding Jad as if she was already used to her playful co-worker’s taunting.  It must have been the sugar from the soda that she was chugging early on in the morning.

“Love you Vic.” Jad said sweetly yet jokingly as he went inside his own cubicle.

Bobby followed Jad hoping to finish his job in the latter’s cubicle quickly so he could catch a glimpse of the TV show’s cast holed up by Chie’s area before he was finally sent home for the day.

He hoped to get individual autographs from the entire cast or at least from Jelly Anne whom he admittedly had a crush on.

“Welcome to my world, pare.”

Bobby looked inside Jad’s cubicle.  It was the complete opposite of Vic’s neatly organized work area. The whole desk was cluttered with paper, pens, paper clips and floppy disks.  There were reports and binders stacked on one side of the table and paperbacks on the other.  A medium-sized radio/CD player was resting on his bookshelf with CDs and cassette tapes scattered all around.  On the wall was a big poster of the popular alternative band Eraserheads and another huge one of The Beatles.  Behind his swivel chair was a sleek black rain jacket hanging from a hook attached to the wall.

When Bobbly looked on the floor, there were multiple boxes and paper bags visibly scattered from under the desk.

“Okay, Bobby.  Let’s fix the cables down there under my desk.  I just need you to help me with the clutter around my chair so I can crawl in there and reconnect my PC.  And when my PC is on again, I’ll think of something to get my file retrieved.  If it doesn’t work, I’ll just tell Miles to get me fired.  I’ll work for Tristan as his water boy.” Jad was blabbering again.  “Okay lang, pare?  Tanggalin mo lang yung kalat and I’ll be fine.”

“Jad, with regard to your lost computer file, before you troubleshoot, make sure you check everything.  It could be caused by a hard drive failure.  Make sure you don’t run a software that will save your file on a hard drive cause you might overwrite your data, the one that you have to recover, not even the memory card that you used previously to store your file.”

Bobby was shocked at what had come out of his mouth. 

He read that somewhere from a PC blogger and had always applied what he learned from those tips when he had to retrieve a lost file.  But he didn’t realize he was talking aloud.

Jad, on the other hand, hit his head lightly on the edge of his desk as he tried to process what Bobby had just told him.  He looked at the young man in the brown uniform. 

“Say what?”

Jad was already stoked when he learned that the maintenance guy could speak English really well but now, Bobby’s speaking a different language - the language of computer geeks that Jad could only dream of learning.

TheBobbyAndrewzShow.2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.