The GeekHiker

I’ve spent the last week at work cleaning off old hard drives.  It’s the sort of mindless work that has to be done, and it’s the kind of thing that’s a welcome break from the other parts of my job where I have to, you know, actually use my brain.

In the course of doing this, I ran across a drive (Win 98) from a user who left the company years ago.  Searching the drive for any company-related materials, I discovered that she had pretty much planned out her whole wedding on work time.  Everything from guest lists to seating arrangements to directions on how to get to the ceremony.

(And remember, before anybody gets uppity with me, if you save personal materials on company property, they become company property.  That’s you’re “don’t be dumb on you’re boss’s computer” lesson for the week, kids.)

Interestingly, there was also a copy of her wedding vows, as I guess they chose to wrote their own.

On first read, completely out of context, they were pretty cheesy.  Actually, way-over-the-top, I-think-I’m-gonna-hurl kinda cheesy.

But then I thought about it in context: the wedding, the ceremony, what it must have been like as she actually delivered these words I was reading on a screen.

And I found myself wondering what it must be like to be in a relationship that not only makes one write that kind of cheese, but to actually be serious about it, to actually believe in it.

And I wondered haphazardly if I’ll ever find myself in a position of writing that kind of schmaltzy crap myself.  And believing every part of it.

So I re-read it.

And it was still pretty damn cheesy.  More cheesy than I think I’ll ever be able to write without making myself sick.

Romantic?  Sure.  Cheesy?  No way, Jose.

And, armed with that comfortable self-knowledge, I reformatted the damn drive.