For the Ladies
1 December 1998
It is You I Want to Visit, Not your Employer's Copier
Perhaps if you ever need to work late some night I can pay a thoughtful visit to you after the other people have gone home. I will bring you a hot or cold beverage of your choice, and you can enjoy the beverage while I use the copier. I just need to copy a few things. But that is not the main reason for my visit.
Do not think for a moment that because I happen to need to copy some stuff that my interest and concern for you is any less. You fill my dreams, not the copier at your place of employment. I wish to make your work environment better for you in any way that I can, and in order to do so I will bring you a beverage, along with all the stuff I need to copy. Which is not that much stuff, really.
I will treat the copier with the greatest of care, as if it was your own copier and not that of your employer. And I will not spill any hot or cold beverage in or near the copier, or in any part of your employer's building. The next morning, they will not even know I was there. Unless they check the little counter thing on the copier, which nobody ever does. I will even bring my own paper, and I will not run any non-copier-safe paperlike materials through the copier and damage it. I know better than that now.
And just in case I happen to make some phone calls from your employer's building I will not use your phone, but instead patch my phone into the patch panel so it's not on your extension. And I will reconnect everything the way it was before, and they won't even know I was there, unless they read every little line on their phone bill, and it won't be on your extension anyway. Or unless they check that copier counter thing. But who does that?
Please allow me to relieve your late work evening with a beverage break, because I desire to express my concern and affection for you. (And copy just a couple things.)