I had to return something to my favorite computer store Computersonics today. I had bought a 256 megabyte module of RAMBUS memory from them to install in a friend’s long-in-the-tooth Gateway PC. (RAMBUS; pfleh. One of those great ideas that never really took off because the license holder would rather milk as much money out of their IP as possible than to see their product widely adapted.) Anywho, the RAM I bought didn’t quite fit the configuration of the Gateway’s memory slots, so I had to take it back.

But alas, she was working today.

I wouldn’t care to guess at her ethnicity, though the blanket term “Middle Eastern” probably suffices for the purpose of visualization, a broad swath of physical cues that places her somewhere between northern Africa and Asia Minor. Her skin is sort of a terra-cotta color. Her hair is deep brown with lengths of honey-gold running through it (quite probably not its natural hue). She is tallish for a woman, and pleasing of form, with all the appropriate convex- and concavities to draw the favorable eye of a heterosexual Western male. But it’s the face that does me in, particularly the eyes. The pupils are the most unlikely tiger’s-eye color, ringed with dark chocolate.

There’s a kind of fierceness to her physiognomy, a quality I would probably refer to as “valkyric” in a more Nordic individual. Her actual and heretofore undetermined ethnicity notwithstanding, I see her as the embodiment of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. I can easily picture her perched on a throne of skulls, a scimitar in one hand (of six) and a kukri in another, doling out favor and fatality in equal measure to her adoring, petrified supplicants.

All this may serve to give you a better (and perhaps more favorable) take on my reaction to this person. Yes, she’s extremely attractive; but like all extremely attractive women who are not also my wife, she also scares the whimpering piss out of me.

Approaching the counter, my flight-or-flight-faster reaction nearing a fulminating boil, I finally remembered how to speak. The following is a relatively accurate accounting of both my audible [and internal] conversation:

“Hi! Uh, I need to return this stick [you didn’t just say ‘stick’, did you?] of RAM [oh great, ‘stick’, ‘RAM’, what’s next? {all right, just calm down, everybody calls it RAM, nothing wrong with that}]. It’s, uh, not compatible with my motherboard [okay, that went well enough; stay the course, old chum]. Um, see this spot on the stick [d’oh! spotted stick, indeed]? There should be a hole [oh, for the love of—] there, like the hole [STOP SAYING HOLE] on the other end [!!!]. Um, because that’s where the slots [you’re trying to make an ass of yourself, aren’t you?] on my motherboard have a little, um…[okay, you’ve trashed your routine, let’s see if you can at least stick the dismount]…a little hump.”

Needless to say, I got out of there as quick as humanly possible, before Kali could run me through with her scimitar….or geld me with her kukri.