Last week, I was having a conversation with the esteemed director of my residence here at Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living in my apartment, me seated, her standing in my open doorway.  Under normal circumstances, I think the world of Brittany – she is intelligent, experienced, professional yes, but perhaps more importantly she is kind, compassionate, and pleasant.  But I may have to reevaluate the respect and admiration with which I regard her, as she has thrown me under the bus.  Brutally.  Mercilessly.

As our conversation came to an end, she turned to go; and as she was pulling the door closed behind her, she said, “oh, and I just showed Ruthie how to buy groceries online using Instacart, and told her if she has any problems using her laptop or her phone you’re the expert and she should call you.”  Kerplunk.  The door was shut.  So I couldn’t respond, except to Gordon to say, “oh no… not Ruthie the lesbian!” 

Clearly demonstrating mens rea (legal term meaning “guilty mind”), Brittany (a) waited until the end of our conversation to drop this bomb, and (b) closed the door behind her immediately and walked quickly back to her office, knowing that given my disability I could not follow her to object.  That is high level, choreographed subterfuge.

In to my office on the second floor of the Evergreen building walks Burt.  Burt was the man behind the Hallmark “Movie of the Week” franchise, and had even produced the Vincent Price narration parts of the video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” widely regarded as the greatest music video of all time and the first music video inducted into the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

“They tell me you know about computers,” said Burt as I stopped whatever I was doing to acknowledge true Hollywood royalty.  “Sure,” I said, “I know a thing or two.”  I got a little excited because I naively thought he was about to offer me a job on his next project.  But he followed his opening with, “hell if I know about the damn things, but my son has one for school and it won’t print, could you come out to my house and have a look at it?”  He quickly added, “I’ll pay you.”  I responded, “sure, when did you have in mind?”  It wasn’t about the money.  He was an important client for the studio, and I figured I could garner us a bit of goodwill by helping out his kid.  I have always been a fiercely loyal “company man,” a trait I inherited from my father.

“Uh… well… right now actually… he’s got a paper due today and is a bit panicked.”  “Okay, where do you live?”  “Great!  Just call my office and ask for my PA Marjorie, tell her you’re the guy that’s gonna fix Tom’s computer, and you need my address and directions,” and just as quickly as he had appeared he was gone.

I phoned Marjorie and got the address and headed over Benedict Canyon to the westside of Los Angeles from Burbank.  The address was in Holmby Hills, an LA neighborhood that makes Beverly Hills look like a slum.  Holmby Hills is an opulent enclave tucked between Beverly Hills, Westwood, and Bel Air.  Along its curving lanes you’ll find some of the largest residential lots in the city, many approaching four acres, shaded by mature trees and illuminated at night by distinctive 1920s English-style street lamps created specifically for the neighborhood.

The house was, in a word, overwhelming.  The surroundings – let’s just say you couldn’t see another house in the neighborhood from the front door.  But all that wealth and opulence was brought to its knees by a misbehaving Microsoft Word on a Compaq 386 computer and needed a balding skinny gay guy in a Volkswagen Jetta to rescue it.  Which I did in short order; I don’t remember what the problem was, but I do remember it was an easy fix – I think I was out of there in under 20 minutes.

Probably a week later an envelope arrived by courier in my office.  Inside was a personal check from Burt equal to two of my paychecks, and a handwritten note from him that said, “take your boyfriend to Spago, ask for my table, they’re expecting you, order anything – it’s on me.  Thanks for your help.”

We had a lovely evening, and pretended to be European royalty just passing through LA on our way to Monte Carlo – nevermind it’s on the other side of the world and a stop in LA would be going out of our way!  We even affected fake British accents!

So that was that, or so I thought.  It wasn’t long after that the phone calls started.

Every time Thomas had a paper due but couldn’t figure out how to indent a paragraph… every time “Mrs. Burt” wanted to log on to AOL to access her breast cancer support group but the modem wouldn’t connect… pretty much every time Burt or his family had any kind of technology conundrum or even just question (I once got asked if a computer-related plot line in a movie script he was producing was plausible, which meant signing an NDA so I can’t, to this day, tell you which movie, but chances are good you’ve seen it)…

Every.  Time.

What could I do?  It’s not like I could say no.  Burt was a powerful, important, mega-rich client; don’t want to offend him, that might sour him on my studio’s services and he’d take his films and shows elsewhere for postproduction.  I was trapped.  Now, I should point out in fairness that he paid me obscene amounts of money and booked me and my boyfriend at the time VIP tables at some of LA’s finest and hardest to get into restaurants.  But I was, for all intents and purposes, his family’s on-call, 24/7, technical support bitch.  It wasn’t until the studio I was working for got bought out by a larger conglomerate that the phone calls stopped.

I know it’s the very definition of a “first world problem” to complain about being paid ridiculous sums of money and given reservations at some of the most exclusive restaurants in town with carte blanche and no check at the end of the night, but there you have it.  I’m not ungrateful, but it taught me a valuable lesson:  play dumb.

For 17 years, I worked in or around technology:  as a programmer, as a network architect, as a network administrator, as the head of the support department, and finally as a vice president responsible for technology infrastructure (which included everything from phones to swipe-card access to buildings and CCTV systems).  I’m not smart, I just have a lot of experience.  And after my experiences with Burt and his family, my standard response to “do you know about…?” has always been the same – NO!

I’ll even ham it up a bit, for effect.  Back when VCRs were a thing, I’d usually throw in a “I can’t even figure out how to make the front of my VCR stop flashing 12:00 at me!”

Of course it’s a lie, but it’s only a little one, and I’d classify it as self-preservation.  Not just with Burt, but whenever I helped someone with their [insert technology here], it’s like an unwritten support contract was executed and every time [technology] stopped working or they wanted it to do something new, I’d get the call, day or night.  And the caller’s tone wasn’t “can you help me?” but rather “it’s not working…come here and fix it…now!”

So these days, especially in retirement in assisted living, I take Nancy Reagan’s advice and just say no.  As recently as last month, someone asked me, “how do you get your emails on your phone?”  And I said, “oh boy, I dunno, I’m lucky if I can figure out how to get mine to make a call.”

So I’m afraid Ruthie is on her own.  As for Brittany, I’m still discussing my response with Gordon, but remember – revenge is a dish best served cold.