Innocence Beware

In a slightly surreal turn of events, the Bubbly Bitching Nonsmoker seems to feel I need protection from men with nefarious intentions.

She approached me at our conference registration table this morning. "If Cocky McPenis* comes up to you," she said, "just walk away! I'm telling you. He's bad news."

"?" I said.

"Oh, he's got a reputation," she went on. "He's nasty. I mean, what do you expect with a name like that?" She walked away and took her seat in the meeting room.

O...kay?

In the afternoon the conference divided into two breakout sessions: one dealing with the system that B.B.N. and I work in, the other dealing with a related, but separate system handled by other people in our department. B.B.N., the other systems analysts, and I were seated at the front of our breakout room for a panel discussion, and she leaned over and whispered to me:

"Yeah, you need to look out for him. He noticed you. He's attending this session, and it's not even his job, he belongs with the other group."

Maybe he bribed her? Because, of course, at this point I was positively dying with curiosity. I looked around the room, trying to spot a namebadge with Cocky McPenis on it. I didn't see one, though, and a couple of hours later I'd mostly forgotten the incident. I really do like B.B.N., in sort of a cautious way (she sometimes bites), but I wouldn't necessarily put it past her to be on crack.

As the afternoon presentations were wrapping up, I excused myself and went back to the empty general session room to plant a few ringer questions in the anonymous question box. (Legitimately, I mean - two of my coworkers had to address them; and none of the attendees had asked any.) "Wow," said a man's voice, "I think I've listened to about as much as I can take of that stuff."

I looked up and found that Cocky McPenis himself had followed me. He's quite a bit younger than I expected and looked nice enough, not too much like a dissipated, lecherous old reprobate, though he did have an unmistakable I'm-picturing-you-naked glint in his eyes. I smiled and said something noncommital about the material being a little dull, but I was busy writing down questions and didn't really have time for chitchat in any case.

"I mean, it's not exactly rocket science," he went on. "Some of those people! I don't even work in that system, and I got it totally figured out right away."

One wonders if perhaps this is the correct way to approach a girl when talking about her area of, for lack of a better word, expertise; because even though I'm not completely brimming over with pride at what I do, I suddenly wanted to slap a really gnarly set of construction plans on him and say, "Oh, well, you shouldn't have any trouble with these, then."

But of course I didn't have any handy, only a stack of index cards on which I was still trying to jot down five or six questions before the general session reconvened at any moment, so I just laughed again, and said something else I don't remember, and then somebody else walked in and Cocky took his leave. "See you tomorrow!" he said.

Oh no! My ironclad virtue is under attack! But everything will be all right, because I have the Bubbly Bitching Nonsmoker to look out for me.

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*Not his actual name