Triple Fire

originally shared on January 11, 2010

Dedicated to Irina Arm

Back in the early 1990's, when I was farming my neighborhood for clients, one of my fliers got a response from someone.  They say cold marketing is usually very ineffective but I had a pretty good rate of success.  They say you are lucky if you get a 2% response; I received almost twice that.  One day I went to visit a new client who was a translator.  She translated between Russian and English.  As I started to determine the nature of the problem with her computer her business partner came by to visit.  I was absolutely smitten the moment Irina walked into my life.

She looked like she had just woken up or had been up all night.  She was tall, had an incredible figure and short red hair.  She was dressed casually; no makeup and all attitude.  She began firing all kinds of questions at me like "Who are you?" and "How long have you been doing this?" and "What's the problem with the computer" and "How long will it take to fix?"  I tried to keep my cool as this lovely rumpled vision was all over me like white on rice.  She was distracting me in so many ways and I was thrilled by it.  However, since I do charge by the hour I gently told her, as I have so many times since then, that it's difficult for me to do my work and explain it at the same time.  If she let me do what I have to do then my work will get accomplished much sooner.  She understood the logic of that and walked away.

In about two hours time I had the computer running as well as it had been in years.  Bad blocks, as I remember it, and a few key files needed to be replaced.  The client was so pleased she invited me to stay for lunch with her and her daughter.  We had a very friendly chat and while we were eating, Irina called to say she was having some issues with her computer.  When asked if I could help, I very nonchalantly said I would be able to go by her place in next day or so and work on her machine.  As I walked out the door my head was spinning and my heart was pounding.  I was sure I was in love and could not wait to see her again.