Microserfs

CNN: We bootlegged a coaxial cable line in from the next office over and had it blasting on the monitor all day, watching "our Susan" every hour on the hour until around six o'clock, demonstrating for 137 countries around the world the Official Chyx handshake, discussing gender-blindness in the tech world, and, best of all, sneaking in her Net address.

It was very "TV." After 6:00, her segment was replaced by a segment on toilet training your cat.

Susan never even told us she did a CNN interview. But she came across so well. She's a star! And already her Chyx mailbox on our little Oop! node is jammed with responses. Susan, wearing a T-shirt portraying gender intelligence researcher Brenda Laurel that she had custom-made at Kinko's, was radiantly happy - not just at seeing her equity in Oop! saved at the last minute by Abe's money bin, but in seeing Chyx explode internationally. "Quelle plug for Chyx," she said, obviously thrilled. "And that Chyx handshake looked so good on TV. Best idea I ever had."

* * *

We celebrated all of the day's news with sundown drinks at the Empire Tap Room, and people were coming up to Susan and saying, "You're the smart one!" and Susan admitted that she, indeed, identified with Kate Jackson on Charlie's Angels.

Michael mixed Robitussin with his Calistoga water. We asked him if the drink had a name and he said, "I hereby christen this drink, 'the Justine Bateman' after the lovely and talented sister character, Mallory, of TV's beloved mid-eighties sitcom, Family Ties."

Abe felt left out and wanted to invent a drink, too, so he put two Redoxon vitamin tablets into his diet Coke and rum and christened it a "Tina Yothers," "the smart, sassy younger sister of the above-mentioned TV sitcom."

We then tormented the staff by demanding those European layered drinks with all of the various liqueurs of varying specific gravities in tall, thin glasses. Dusty called the drinks "metaphor for the class system," and we were all weirded-out because we remembered she used to be so political and now she just changes the subject whenever it comes up.

Then, because so many people in the Bay Area have tattoos, we lapsed into a discussion of the subject. In the end, we all basically decided, "Yuck," all except for Bug who is still considering a lifetime of body mutilation with an earring appointment he has next week. Bug was actually being a bit mopey - the breakup, I suppose.

Anyway, we concluded that if we were forced at gunpoint to have a tattoo put onto us, the only acceptable tattoo we could think of was a bar code symbol.

We then tried to decide which bar codes would be coolest, and we decided the best ones would be products with high brand-name recognition: Kraft dinner, Kotex, Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and so forth.

And then we figured that bar codes will be obsolete soon enough, and having one on your shoulder or forehead would be like having a Betamax tattooed on your shoulder or forehead.

So in the end we couldn't decide on a tattoo.

* * *

There was this weird moment at the end of the night when everybody was pixelated. Ethan was carrying two flaming Sambucas, and tripped over a Planet of the Apes lunchbox somebody left on the floor next to a backpack, and the drinks sloshed all over the back of Susan's T-shirt, and she was on fire, like the "Flame On!" guy from the Fantastic Four.

Emmett leapt over to her from behind and smothered her flames with his body and Susan, who was so drunk she didn't even know about the Sambuca, said, "I forgive you, my love," and Emmett kissed her on the neck and then he whispered to Karla and me, "She's on fire and she doesn't even know it. Poor baby."

* * *

After the Tap Room, we were all far too drunk to drive - even the intake-conscious pregnant Dusty - so we wobbled back to the office (piss tanks, all of us) and we turned the lights down low, so that only the dimmer lights were glowing on our Lego garden, as though it were sunset. We were all just lolling about on the floor, feeling childish because we weren't coding for another few hours. Dusty and Karla were making hair accessories out of Lego bricks ("Ooh, it's a Topsy Tail!") and Ethan, Emmett, and Michael were having a half-hearted (make that quarter-hearted) game of Nerf Wars across the Lego garden. Todd was lying on his stomach staring at Dusty's stomach (no visible baby yet) and Bug was taking apart and rebuilding a small house my father had built, and seemed lost in some other world.

Susan was building a striped, Dr. Seuss-like radio tower, and asked Bug what was on his mind, and Bug said, "1978."

Susan said, "Not the best year for music."

Bug said, "That was the year I fell in love. The year I got my heart broken."

Drunk or not, all ears, visibly or surreptitiously, turned to Bug.