Crunching Code (HH)
#52 of Hockey Hunk Season 6
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Hello, and welcome to the Hockey Hunk! Another week and another chapter...phew! Hopefully you'll enjoy the read and leave me some nice feedback, too! Have a good time!
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It was only around midday or so, but I was ready to throw in the towel by then. My mining of the old databases and the code had unearthed such a mess that it was really pushing me to the end of my tether when it came to my code crunching skills. I'd already had to bombard my boss at the company for advice, and it was taking some time before they could get back to me, which meant that I was sitting on my tail in the little room and just waiting for the next call.
I wasn't really enjoying that, sitting there and rolling my thumbs. It was a strange little room, an office belonging to the tiger who co-owned the place with the raccoon whose name was on the sign outside. The room had a desk and a big office chair that was quite comfortable to sit on, even though the gel pillow had definitely been shaped to an ass that was bigger than mine, which felt somewhat weird, but I made do. The walls were lined with bookshelves, and in my boredom, I had traced the titles, slowly. There were books about anatomy and physiology, huge, thick, dusty books about pharmacology and lists of medications, books about optics, making lenses, entire 1,000-page books titled with exciting things like "STRABISMUS" and "CORRECTION OF REFRACTION" or "OPHTHALMOLOGIC SURGERY EXPLAINED", and other obscure words I probably couldn't pronounce, let alone spell them if I'd have to. That wasn't even half of the curiosity of the room, though. There was a giant plastic eyeball that'd been cut in half so that you could see all the internal structures. There were strange instruments in a glass case sitting on one of the shelves, probably for display, not for use. It was windowless, too, which only added to the feeling that the room was like some sort of a holding cell for badly behaving foxes. What was that place called where we acted like Nazis towards detainees...Abu Dhabi? Something like that.
I was staring into eternity instead of my laptop screen, and was almost startled when the door opened and someone stepped into the dark room.
"Oh, I hope I'm not interrupting," the rumbling voice spoke.
"Not at all," I lifted my weary eyes from the screen to see the tiger on the doorway, looking over to me curiously.
"It's finally my lunch break, my morning was quite busy today, haven't had the chance to do more than a cup of coffee yet," he said, "Hal did have his lunch already, but we didn't get to eat together because I've been so busy...have you eaten yet?"
"No, not really," I said.
"I was just fetching my wallet, I'm going over to the place on the other side of the concourse for a quick bite," the tiger said, "don't let me interrupt you by any means!"
"No," I said, "I was just waiting to be called back from the office."
He looked curiously at my computer screen as he approached the desk. I wasn't sure whether he understood much about it, but he did seem interested in what was going on.
"Everything going well?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, "just need to sort some things out there, testing a few runs."
"Oh, I see," he said, and it sounded mostly polite.
He took a key from his pocket and opened a desk drawer to take his wallet out of it, which disappeared into the pocket of his pants.
"If you are hungry, you should come over with me," the tiger smiled, "they do make some nice quick lunch stuff there. It's quite tempting for the waistline, though."
Well, I wasn't sure about that. I was slowly getting hungry, but I wasn't exactly sure whether eating out was going to do well with my limited funds.
"I'll promise not to talk about the web site design, either," the tiger smiled.
"Alright," I said. I could really do with a break, anyway, the code was dead and going to somewhere to eat was about as good as you could do was inside the mall, without going outside for a breath of fresh air. "Might as well."
"Good!" the tiger declared. "Hal is quite tied down with a rather nasty case of macular degeneration, so he can't really join us, but we can go together."
"Okay."
I closed my laptop, not because there were any secrets in it, but because it was a habit, and a polite thing to do, and followed the tiger who seemed quite happy to wander out of the optician's store in just his blue collared shirt and some jeans and into the busy concourse outside. I felt a bit self-conscious, perfectly knowing that nobody could see anything strange about me, my long pants were more than enough to cover my leg, but maybe there'd be something...a little stumble, a strange step...something that would set me apart. It was something I shouldn't really be dwelling on, but it was hard not to, either. The tiger was perfectly at ease, of course. Why wouldn't he be? He was normal. He was all smiles to the girl behind the counter too, once were inside this food place called The Step Forward Zone and he was pointing out stuff inside the glass display unit.
"The Kosher sandwich of the day, if you could, please," he told to the otter behind the counter, who accepted the order with a bright smile.
"We've wrapped it just for you, "the otter said as she fetched the treat from the shelf inside the glass case.
"Oh that's too kind," the tiger murmured. I wondered if he was flirting with her. He seemed too nice to do something like that. Their banter seemed very friendly, though. He ordered a tall glass of juice with his sandwich, too, and I contended myself with a simple cheese and ham roll with some tomato and lettuce in it. That wasn't going to blow my budget, I thought.
We both paid and he singled out a small table for two, on which we sat. He had his sandwich on a paper plate, while mine simply sat on top of a napkin once I was seated down and ready with my food, and a can of Coke. Next I might start eating a deep-fried Snickers bar or something.
"Oh, this does look very good," the tiger fussed about with his sandwich, slowly unwrapping it from the paper it came in.
"It smells nice too," I commented.
"Oh it does," his whiskers shook while he took a deep sniff, "the meat is so very tender, too, I bet. They do make wonderful sandwiches here."
I opened my plastic-wrapped roll and took a bite. It was quite good. Couldn't complain, especially since it didn't require any effort on my own part at all. Food was always better when someone else made it for you.
The tiger ate messily, despite his earlier care in unwrapping his bread. He took an oversized bite and got crumbs all over his muzzle, and little bits of meat stuck on his lips as well while he fetched a paper napkin from a dispenser on the table.
"Damn it," he cussed modestly.
"Shouldn't something that big be eaten with a fork and a knife?" I wondered.
"Perhaps," he said. "Though perhaps then it'd be a cold pie or something."
"If it's got two pieces of bread, it's a sandwich," I gave him my opinion. "Though I've seen some so-called sandwiches that stretch the very definitions of the word to the limit. The five-year sandwiches especially."
"Five year sandwiches?" he sounded puzzled.
"MREs," I said, "vacuum-wrapped in foil and preserved so that they keep for years under any temperature and any conditions in your backpack."
"Hmm..." the tiger looked thoughtful, "that is, rations, yes?"
"More or less," I said, "we ate them when the normal supply chain was unavailable and we had to rely on that sh - stuff."
He chuckled.
"You don't make it sound particularly appealing."
"You make do."
It was fucking Iraq. Who were I to complain? We were glad to be eating at all.
"I suppose that's the case," he said.
I shrugged.
"That's past," I said. "Now I've got a steady supply of sandwiches to keep me happy."
The tiger smiled.
"Me and my son are taking turns cooking at home," he said, "I've been trying to learn new recipes to show off to him, and to keep him from being quite so keen on ordering in takeaway."
I recalled a neatly framed photograph on the desk of the tiger, the one I'd been using lately to do my own work at. It showed a teenaged tiger, wearing glasses, in high school graduation costume and looking at the camera with a shy smile. This must've been the son he was talking about, I thought.
"You live with your son?" I asked.
He smiled, just a little.
"Yes," the tiger said, "he's moved in with me to attend college here in Kirk City. He's been staying with his mother."
Ah. One of those families. Maybe having no dad at home at all was better than having one who was mostly drunk, or just not there. Or not interested in you.
"He wants to go to medical school," he said, "he's doing pre-med. Studying natural sciences. He's very enthusiastic about it."
"Tough schooling," I replied.
And expensive, too. This eyeglasses business must've been pretty good, for him to be able to put his kid through such an expensive education.
"It's a lot to learn, for sure," the tiger mused, "theoretical, practical..."
"Takes character," I said.
Like shooting at living furs, too.
"And a durable posterior," he said.
I looked at him curiously. I wasn't sure what that meant. He must've realized me being a doofus, too, because he chuckled at his own joke. That kind of ruined it for me.
"It involves a lot of studying," he commented on his joke, "lots of sitting around reading books when you are supposed to be doing fun young fur things."
Perhaps the son of this man wasn't the type to do that, especially if he wanted to be doctor. I couldn't imagine this tiger being found passed out from drinking in any given location, possibly having soiled himself, which he would only find amusing afterwards as a sign of a really wasted night.
"Oh, I get it now," I told him, "sitting on your ass a lot."
"Quite!" he seemed cheerful over the fact that I got the joke, after an explanation or not.
"Yes, that it is," he mused. "But this really is a lovely sandwich."
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