Surf's Up: Part Deux
by KG
Richie Ryan leaned back in his chair in the dojo's office and put his feet up on the desk. He closed his eyes and tried to take a nap, but sleep wasn't easy when there were twelve guys out in the dojo practicing their karate.Richie dropped his feet back to the floor. He shuffled through the papers on Duncan's desk. All the bills had been paid. All the supplies had been ordered. He'd even dusted. When Duncan had asked Richie to watch the place for a month while he took a little vacation, it hadn't occurred to him that boredom would be his biggest problem.
Richie switched on the computer. He had a paper to write for a class he was taking at the university. As long as he was stuck here he might as well try to get some of his own work done.
Richie logged in...
login: richie password: born2BwildThen he started up Microsoft Word and began to type.
Richie looked up at the clock. He had managed to kill about an hour, but he was really stuck on his paper. He needed his books and he had left them at home this morning.
<Why did I let Duncan talk me into taking this class on Scottish history anyway> Richie thought to himself.
He needed to know what the Graham tartan looked like and he had no clue how to find out. If it had been the MacLeod tartan he could have just hunted through Duncan's closet, but the Graham tartan???
Richie stared blankly at the computer for a full ten minutes before he noticed the Netscape icon on the desktop.
<What the hell?> Richie thought. <You can find all kinds of weird stuff on the web.>
Richie started Netscape and made the connection to Duncan's internet service provider.
He began his search by visiting Yahoo!
<Might was well just try Graham> Richie supposed although he didn't actually expect to find anything. But to his suprise his search revealed a likely candidate.
Richie visited The Clan Graham Society. And before he knew it he had enough information to finish his paper.
Richie glanced at the clock on the office wall. There were still three more hours til closing time.
<Well I didn't get a chance to read the newspaper yet this morning> Richie thought. <Mac must have some newspapers bookmarked.>
Richie scanned Duncan's bookmarks, but all he found was France-Presse Online and CNNfn, neither of which really grabbed his attention. Then he spotted Dilbert.
<Well, well, well...I'll have to remember this the next time Mac teases me about reading the comics> Richie chuckled.
Richie checkout all the comics in the archive and voted in the List of the Day, but he was soon bored again and decided to go to Excite and search for motorcycles. Richie scanned down the list generated by his search and spotted one that looked promising for a guy in his financial position....Cycle Trader Online. And he still couldn't afford anything.
Richie got up from Duncan's chair and walked over to the office door. He waved casually at one of the guys he recognized working out at the weight bench then shut the office door and turned the lock. Richie returned to the computer on Duncan's desk and tried one more search...Playboy. <It's amazing the kind of stuff you can find on the internet> Richie thought to himself and smiled.
Richie looked up from the computer and realized that the dojo was empty. He looked at the clock again and was suprised to see that it was nearly midnight. He had certainly lost track of time while surfing the web.
<Well at least I know what to do whenever it gets boring around here> Richie thought to himself as he switched off the computer and prepared to go home.
Duncan shuffled through his mail as he rode the elevator up to his loft.
"I can't believe I've been gone for a month and all I've received in the mail is bills," Duncan grumbled out loud.
There were no letters from friends. No invitations to parties or weddings. There was however one rather thick envelope from his internet service provider.
<What could this be?> Duncan thought to himself. He had been at his cabin all month and had asked Richie to call the company and temporarily disable his internet access while he was gone.
Duncan opened the envelope and shuffled through page after page of access times and hourly access fees. He finally found the last page of his bill and his eyes travelled down to the bottom of the page where the total was printed....
"Richie!!!!"
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