(A short story based on real life anecdotes.)

When I told my friend Igor about her, he said: “That blonde from Human Resources? Mmm, no. Not a good choice, pal. No potential,” he started counting his fingers. “She is too young, too hot, it will be damn expensive, the whole office will see it, and also… hmm,” he moved closer to my ear and lowered his voice, “she is blond. They are dumb, the blondes, all of them. What if you start repeating dumb stuff after her?”

Well, honestly, I wouldn’t give a damn to Igor‘s smart tips. After all, she was my girlfriend, not his! She was affectionate, charming, talkative, funny – I couldn’t remember being bored for a minute when she was around… Who said they were dumb? What a nonsense! I told Igor to go to hell and went my way.

I spent a whole weekend with her for a start. It was an awesome weekend, every minute of it– well, it would be, if it were not for Igor‘s words. They must have found a vacant cell in my brain and got stuck there like a splinter, I could not help thinking them over again and again. On Monday morning I caught myself on being obsessed with the question: what if Igor was right? An old proverb said, “you live and learn from those you live with”. What if I was already growing silly?

By early afternoon on Monday I was nearly going out of my mind. I needed to talk to my girl face to face, I wanted to test her and check myself… but how?

As ill luck would have it, I remembered an epizode from our Saturday stroll: we were shopping together in a large supermarket, when she saw a bathroom scale and decided to try it. The number on the scale did not satisfy her, she frowned, but not for long: she came up with a sudden idea to draw her belly in and step on the scale again. A dozen of people threw glances at us when she suddenly squealed, as if stung: “Oh, look! With my stomach in I‘m almost two pounds less!”

She was playful, and chatty, and sweet, but my mind kept torturing me till the end of the day. I recalled another odd story, which had happened a few days before, in the office. I wanted to see her, so I stopped by her table. She looked a bit stressed – I love it when she is preoccupied with a task – her mouth was open, the tip of her nose got tense, and her lips moved forward, as if preparing for a passionate kiss. She was busy feeding some paper to printer.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Printing a document,” she answered matter-of-factly.

I glanced at her laptop screen.

“Hey, it is 450 pages! The toner…”

“Calm down,” she broke in,”it’s all right, they are all empty pages.”

“W-what?”

I remembered Igor’s words once again.

“Why are you printing an empty document?” I asked, trying my best to sound casual.

She sat down to the table and took out a nail trimmer.

“It’s easy,” she said.”My boss needs exactly four hundred fifty pages of paper. Do you think I’m supposed to count them by hand?”

By the end of the day on Monday I was so tired of feeding my stupid doubts that I decided to spend the evening sipping beer in a company of men. The guys got together in no time. At five minutes to six, I slipped behind my girl’s table and rushed out to the elevator.

My beer mates, a group of five noisy guys, were already waiting. They held the elevator door for me, but when I jumped in, the overload button started buzzing.

I don’t know what happened to me at that moment, but I did something that I never normally do– I said rather loudly: “Listen, guys, you each need to raise one leg now.”

There was a moment of silence and– what do you think? They did! Everyone did!

Well, I waited a second enjoying the view of five bulky guys struggling hard to keep balance, and then, before they could do or say anything, I pushed myself out into the hall and ran back to the office.

She was still at her table, getting ready to leave.

“Hi,” I said, coming up. “I could not wait to the end of the day to see you again. Let’s go out and eat somewhere tonight. Are you hungry?”