i-Stock
4. Internet Dangers
The next morning, Anney was running late. Preoccupied with her new job in the credit department of a big department store in downtown Seattle, she had forgotten all about the strange smell outside her window and the bright flash that had hurt her eyes the night before but, even if she had remembered, she would have never looked for the moist footprints firmly planted outside her bedroom window. Why would she when it was just a dream? She knew it wasn’t real because she’d had similar dreams since she’d moved into her apartment. Strange smells, heavy breathing, and unidentifiable sounds similar to her computer darkened her dreams and made her sleep restless.
Moving out on her own put a real crunch on Anney’s finances. She rode the bus so she’d have enough money for her laptop. It was a short bus ride to work and she wanted a computer a lot more than she wanted a car. She could hardly wait to get home each night to play with her new toy. It opened up the world for her, she happily told the few friends she had back home when she emailed them.
Anney was good on a computer and she took advantage of everything that was available online—if it were free. Email. Movies. Books. Research into her favorite subjects like art and travel. NASA had an amazing site; she visited there often.
Unfortunately, in her excitement to get all the accounts set up, she hadn’t bothered to install any of the security features available to members. She snickered at the warnings she read about Internet dangers. What bad guy would be interested in anything she put on her website? Just the thought of a pervert looking at her site made her laugh. Nothing on it was suggestive and she was modestly dressed in all her photos. Well, there was one photo of her in her basketball uniform but it was hardly sexy. She was all sweaty and her limp hair was hanging all over her face. She was pretty sure there was no pervert that desperate for a date.
Naively, she felt totally safe leaving her cyberspace doors wide open, all but putting a big HELLO WORLD! banner across the top of her page. Part of the fun was building her own website and designing her own blog with the templates provided by the companies specializing in WYSIWYG (What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get) software. It was like picking dishes from a Chinese menu: one of this, and two of that. All she had to do was click, and the feature added itself onto her web page automatically. She even added a theme song, a short video of herself playing the piano, and a counter. Without any forethought she clicked on a button that added a map pointing to the region where she lived. The up-to-date postings of where she was and what she was doing during the day tickled her the most. The last thing she added was a message button so people could contact her. Then, at the bottom of her emails, she added a signature that urged readers to follow her on all her other social sites and listed all her urls. What fun! Her computer was her best friend, filling in the lonely hours when she wasn’t working. Many weekends were spent in front of her screen taking in all the Internet had to offer. She almost couldn’t believe it was all free.
*
When she came in the door at work her friend Jeremy called to her, “Hey, Anney Oakley, what’s with the fringe?”
Holding out her purse so Jeremy could get a better look, she said, “Mom sent it to me. It’s a prototype for a purse she and a friend made for a neighbor who was going to Arizona.”
“Cool. Is that real fringe?”
“Yep. They found an old leather coat at a flea market and cut it up. Mom sent it to me because she knows how interested I am in anything Western. You should see the final version. It’s really cool!”
“You’d better hide it from Paul. He loves fringe. He has a shirt with long fringe that moves with him when he boogies.”
“Is it Western?”
“Strangely, no. It pulls over his head and the fringe is sparkly and sewn around his chest in circles. I think he got it at some craft show. From the waist up, he looks like a flapper!”
“Ha! Bring me a photo! He can borrow my purse anytime he wants,” she kidded, just tell him he can’t cut off any of the fringe.”
“Why would he do that?”
“In the Old West, people didn’t have a way to carry string so if they needed to tie something up something up, they cut a piece of fringe off of their jacket. I imagine that was why the fringe on some of their clothing was so long.”
“Huh. Interesting. Where did you hear that?”
“I read it on the Internet.”
As soon as she put her purse away, she leaned over to whisper, “Jeremy, I already have 56 views on my website counter! I am having so much fun!”
She noticed her new friend wasn’t thrilled with her news. He walked over to her desk and sat on the corner. Quietly, he said, “Careful, Anney. Some really, creepy guy might find your site. Are you using your real name?”
“Of course! That’s part of the fun. I click on the mouse and see my name in big letters at the top of the page: ANNEY OAKS. What a kick!”
“Anney, slow down! Close that site down and start a new one with a new name. Think of it as your pen name,” he urged, “the Internet can be a dangerous place.”
“Oh, Jerm, you worry too much. Besides, I’ve already paid for the domain name and I don’t think they’ll let me change it.”
“How much?”
“Over seven dollars!”
Jeremy reached into his pocket and tossed some bills on her desk. “My treat. Just do it, Anney. Please.”
Embarrassed, Anney pushed the money back into his hand. “Don’t be silly. I’m not taking your money. And stop raining on my parade; I’m having the time of my life!” she said with a big smile.
She turned to the computer on her desk and flipped it on as Jeremy went back to his desk, shaking his head.
Of course, she never put anything personal on her computer at work. It was for business only, like the school’s computer she used in school to finish her AA degree while she was still a high school senior. In class, she could use their computer for study but anything the students put on them that was personal was deleted at the end of every week. Except, of course, the work she did on the computer the yearbook committee used. If only she’d had her own computer in her hometown when she was in high school, her nights as the town’s designated good girl might not have been so lonely.
Surprisingly, now that Anney was in Seattle and working in a big department store, she was lonelier than she’d been in her hometown. The big city sped along a much faster track than she did. So far, she hadn’t been able to catch up. She could overhear her workmates discussing their social calendar and dates daily. Their comparisons of the best Seattle restaurants revealed they were on top of the openings of every new eatery. To her, it sounded as if they used the trendy Tom Douglas restaurants as not only a place to get a good meal but to meet the most desirable men. So far, she hadn’t had one date or one good meal. On the shy side, she barely knew anyone on a first name basis, even at work, so she had no one to visit the trendy new restaurants with. That was okay, she told herself, because she didn’t know where they were anyway! Immobility was one of the downsides of not having a car. She had no way to explore the city except by bus. Whenever Anne saw anything interesting, she couldn’t get off the bus to look around because she was afraid she’d get lost and it would take her hours to find her way home.
Enviously, her eyes followed one of her fellow workers as the woman walked between the rows of desks of accountants that kept tabs on the credit of the store’s customers. How did she and the other women in her department look so pulled together day after day? Today, the co-worker walking by was wearing a red sweater with a black pencil skirt printed all over with colorful martini glasses and big green olives speared with toothpicks. The pimentos inside the olives were shiny red buttons. Her mind didn’t even bother to linger on her next question: How did the woman and the others afford all those clothes? The only way she could afford to have a similar wardrobe would be if she still lived at home. Her best guess was that these women weren’t still living at home. They had an air of worldliness about them; their conversations with their fellow workmates were sprinkled with comments about their apartments, cars, and dates. They were all stylishly thin; could it be their clothing budget was larger than hers because they didn’t eat unless some guy paid for it? Anney laughed to herself. If she waited for a man to want to buy her dinner, she might get so thin she’d be invisible.