
The stickers on the lid of the MacBook Pro were talking to hers from across the coffee shop. It was the caffeine molecule decal that caused it. The first to get loud. It was having an argument with the Día de Muertos David Bowie. David had appeared on the laptop while it was in the Noe Valley in San Francisco.
The laptop had enjoyed San Francisco, he spent most of the time in the Air BnB in the Noe Valley, left behind while the boy did the tourist thing but he had been on expeditions to the Castro (great restaurant) and Haight Ashbury where he spent most of a day in a coffee shop on the way to the airport. He didn’t see as much of the town as the iPhone. Smartarse thing was always getting taken to the best spots, he saw the Disney Museum, Alcatraz and Fisherman’s Wharf. At least the laptop got a way cool sticker from the trip.
Now the stickers on his lid were arguing about the girl and it had attracted her attention, or at least the attention of her laptop stickers. They were listening to the argument, or at least trying to.
The laptop didn’t like it when the stickers talked, but her MacBook seemed nice about it. He would have liked his boy to have started a conversation with laptop girl but the boy didn’t have the confidence of Bowie, particularly a day of the dead Ziggy Stardust.
It seemed that was what had started the argument. Caffeine thought Ziggy should cool it and let the boy speak up. Stardust thought that was highly improbable, unkindly saying something about Satan and ice skates.
So Bowie had asked her name. Well, he didn’t ask her. The stickers had a hard time talking to people but _her_ laptop stickers weren’t exactly silent.
The girl seemed happy with logos, Bowie could see an iTerm icon and a GitHub octocat, rather than the boy’s quirky stickers but it was the rainbow ohmyzsh which had answered. I guess it had enough cool to not be totally intimidated by the Day of the Dead David.
“She calls herself Monica. Who’s doing the asking?”
“Stardust. Ziggy Stardust. The guy at the keys is Simon.”
“Lookin’ fine, Space Cowboy. So what is some 70’s British cool in a Latin suit doing asking for a girl’s name.”
“Just thinking your girl’s gotta be fairly geek. My Bart Simpson here was just sayin’ not everybody can hold it with an ‘octocat’ like that. That’s pretty keyboard warrior right there.”
“Right back atcha, David. I do like your pixelated mate there. Some nice eight bit wand waving he’s got goin’ on.”
“So you saw my ‘Open Sourceror’ wizard friend. Yeah, the boy at the keyboard can cut some code when the cuttings good.”
“Why isn’t your guy raising his voice and talking to my girl here?”
“Well Rainbow, he’s not exactly forward when it comes to the chat. Anxiety could be his middle name.”
“That’s a shame, pair of geeks both driving MacBook Pros and sharing a WiFi network should be able to talk, Stardust. Your boy’s gotta have seen my girl, seen the Apple logo, seen me and my decal mates. They should at least give each other a nod.”
“See what I can do but don’t come unglued if he don’t.”
“Oh, no, she just picked up the purse. Seems we’re out of here, DB. Maybe next time they’ll get up the nerve. Later Ziggy.”
“Later Rainbow.”
The girl picked up her laptop and packed it away, walking out into the late afternoon sun.
Bowie returned to reflective silence. Chance encounters slipping past the boy.