Free Infidelity for Beginners by Danny King Page A

had literally (or do I mean metaphorically?) shoehorned itself into the
new Wembley Stadium for this showpiece final.
    “Mr Nolan, you may proceed.”
    I took a few deep breaths to calm my nerves, wiped some of
the sweat from my fingertips and gripped the mouse. On screen the cursor
hovered over StuffIt Expander and I moved it micrometers to the left and right
before finding the exact perfect spot.
    “Go for it,” I told myself, said a little prayer and
double-clicked.
    The computer blinked a couple of times then the cursor
turned into a tiny clock. The second hand of the clock spun around and around
and the crowd rippled with apprehension.
    “Quiet please ladies and gentlemen. Quiet!” the umpire urged
them again, but it was no use, the tension was just too great.
    All at once the menu bar of my Mac went white and StuffIt
Expander appeared. I could scarcely believe it but my machine continued to
click, whirl and crunch and eventually StuffIt Expander moved across to the
right hand corner of the menu bar and offered me a choice of File, iSupport and
Help.
    The crowd went mental.
    The cheering and screaming was almost ear-splitting and it
took a good couple of minutes for the umpire to get on top of them again, and
when he did, he totted up the number of applications I had opened and found I
held the new world record.
    Thirty-three applications.
    Unbelievable.
    The application menu bar almost stretched all the way down
the screen and I held it open to admire my accomplishment, as the judges
declared me the new Application Opening World Champion.
    QuarkExpress, Word, QuickTime, PictureViewer, Outlook,
Internet Explorer, iTunes, Adobe, Acrobat, Netscape, RealPlayer, FlashPlayer
and so on and so on thirty-three times. They were all open and active. What an
accomplishment! Of course, a number of the applications were admittedly pretty
small; Stickies and Mac Solitaire, for example, were only around about 100k
each, but then that was what made Application Opening such a tactical sport.
    “Morning Andrew, I wondered if you had a moment?” Norman
said behind me, shitting the life out of me.
    I knocked several stacks of papers flying as I tried to
click the applications menu closed again but the cursor just turned into a
little clock and froze halfway round.
    “What’s the matter, crashed again? Hmm, yeah, looks like
you’ve probably got too many applications open,” he pointed out.
    “Er yeah, yeah, I reckon,” I agreed, quickly reaching behind
my computer and pressing the restart button.
    “I know it’s the first day back after Christmas and everything
so I don’t want to rock your boat, but I just wondered if you’d had a chance to
do that report,” he asked, draining me to my very soul.
    That report? Jesus, was he still going on about that? It had
hardly been mentioned at all during December so I’d figured I’d got away with
it, but suddenly he wanted it again? This was unbelievable. Of course he didn’t
really want it. He was only asking for it to put me on the spot because I
hadn’t done it when everyone else had.
    For fuck’s sake!
    This was beyond unbelievable. It was just plain petty and it
immediately ruined what I’d hoped was going be a nice easy day.
    “Oh, er, no, I’m afraid not, Norman. I took all the erm…
files home and everything, to take a look at, you know, over Christmas, but,
er…” I clicked, whirled and crunched as my iExcuses application opened up
behind my eyes. “But, the thing was…”
    Norman frowned and watched the little clocks spinning in my
eyes as he resigned himself to hearing what the thing was.
    Here were my options.
    I took the wrong set
of files home?
    We got a dog for
Christmas and he ate my report?
    I left it on the bus?
    A dog ate it, possibly
on the bus?
    What report?
    I couldn’t be arsed?
    Why don’t you just
fuck off?
    Sally’s been ill?
    Shit, yeah, that was a good one.
    “Sally’s been ill,”
    “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Nothing serious I