{"id":53,"date":"2010-03-16T22:44:08","date_gmt":"2010-03-17T01:44:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/?p=53"},"modified":"2010-09-26T23:39:17","modified_gmt":"2010-09-27T02:39:17","slug":"1-new-in-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/stripes\/1-new-in-town\/","title":{"rendered":"Stripes – 1: New In Town"},"content":{"rendered":"

On to Chapter 2: First Encounters >><\/a><\/p>\n

I don’t know what came over me. I’d done it before, and it had never amounted to anything good. I’d come to the conclusion that I was the sort of guy who just shouldn’t use personal ads.<\/p>\n

Yet there I was, logging in to PalNet, clicking my way through page after page of picture-perfect people looking for hot dates, nights of fun and adventure, soul mates, and all that other stuff I’d never been able to provide. It was thoroughly depressing, and yet I kept coming back for more.<\/p>\n

I was about to give up and raid the liquor cabinet – again – when one ad at the corner of the screen caught my eye. This one showed a couple – a man and a woman, both striped skunks – and if he was an enviable tower of masculinity and she slimly gorgeous, they were dressed in well-kept, everyday clothes, not the provocative numbers worn by the women(they were all women) in the few other pair pictures. There wasn’t much reference, but going by their builds, I figured him a bit over six feet, her about five nine, to my own five feet, seven inches.<\/p>\n

If the picture had hooked my attention, the text reeled it right in:<\/p>\n

NEW IN TOWN – Relaxed, easygoing couple seeking a local person to show them around a little. Low-pressure, varied tastes, sure to find something in common to enjoy. Daxter Ave, Pt Hampton. Reply by PalNote.<\/em><\/p>\n

Daxter Avenue – that was a fairly short one, fairly new. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes walk for me, depending on where along the road they were. It was a nicer neighbourhood than where my townhouse was, too. I wondered if they’d mind playing host – assuming a plain little tiger like me wouldn’t lower their property value just by walking on the lot.<\/p>\n

The ad had been up for a week. Someone must’ve responded by now… but wait, it had just been renewed that day. And between the location and the low-key nature of the ad, I was unlikely to ever find a better chance to meet some new people.<\/p>\n

So I sent a note to the user “sam_stripes”, saying I was interested, and would they like to meet me at one of the better pubs nearby in a few days?<\/p>\n

And, conscience appeased, I went to get that drink after all.<\/p>\n

I hadn’t expected anything to come of it, so I almost snorted good Scotch all over the keyboard when I came back to find a new e-mail waiting for me – one from PalNet’s account notification system, detailing a reply to “Re: NEW IN TOWN”.<\/p>\n

Hi, Tim,<\/em><\/p>\n

Thanks so much for answering our ad! Your timing couldn’t have been better – we actually spent last week tied up in all kinds of administrivia and only just managed to get it behind us. Going out for a relaxing drink and dinner sounds like a great idea – are you free tomorrow at, say, six thirty? Reply by e-mail.<\/em><\/p>\n

Cheers, S&S<\/em><\/p>\n

S&S. I’d been wondering which one was Sam. The email name – knighterrant – didn’t offer any more clues either. Maybe it was both? That could get a bit confusing.<\/p>\n

Six thirty, though. I usually got home from work at or before five thirty, and the place I had in mind was about ten minutes away on foot. That, I figured, would leave plenty of time to freshen up – and with it being only tomorrow, hopefully not enough time to second-guess myself into a frenzy.<\/p>\n

I gave them directions and my cell number, and shut down for the night. It was getting late, and I was going to have a busy day tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\n

“Earth to Tim!”<\/p>\n

\n

I gave my head a shake – assisted, admittedly, by the hand jostling my shoulder. “Huh? Oh, sorry, Steve,” I said to the cougar grinning down over my shoulder. “What’s up?”<\/p>\n

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Steven Lane chuckled. “You’ve been coding on autopilot for hours, man. You missed the pretzel run and I think you’re stuck in the same endless loop as your program there. You got a date coming up or something?” He said it casually, but his green eyes sparkled with hope in that big-brother way he had.<\/p>\n

I looked at my screen and groaned. I had, indeed, been programming in circles – I should’ve spotted that error in seconds.<\/p>\n

“Not a date, exactly,” I sighed. “I’m just gonna hang out with a few new people after work. I guess I’m a bit nervous about meeting them.”<\/p>\n

“I guess?” Steve repeated. “A bit? Tim, you’ve got a real knack for understatement sometimes. I haven’t seen anyone stuck in a recursion like that since high school.”<\/p>\n

“Is it Friday yet?” I sighed. At least it was Wednesday, not Monday, that had me asking that. The clock in the corner of my screen read 4:16 PM. “All right. I’ll just get a drink of water, then I’ll patch this program up right.”<\/p>\n

“No rush, tiger. Up til you got stuck fifteen minutes ago, you were going damn fast.” A laugh. “We all thought you were in some kind of trance, and were afraid to distract you and snap you out of it.”<\/p>\n

“Whatever. I’m not letting this one stand.” I flicked a hand toward my monitor as though literally swatting a bug.<\/p>\n

Steve grinned, giving my shoulder a squeeze. “Give ’em hell, Tim. And enjoy yourself tonight, you more than deserve it.”<\/p>\n

By the size of that grin, Steve probably thought I not only did have a date, but was going to get laid at some point in it. Oh, well; that didn’t make his advice any less valid. After all, why shouldn’t I have fun once in a while?<\/p>\n

On to Chapter 2: First Encounters >><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Showing a newly-arrived couple around town seems a little less painful than trying to find a date, and who knows? It could be the start of a good friendship…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stripes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions\/54"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/furry-tales.net\/shurhaian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}