“What have you got yourself into now, George?”

I cringed.  I really did.  When Livy gets that tone in her voice, it just does something that sets my nerves on edge.  And my teeth.  Tried to smile politely.  With gritted teeth.

“What d’ya mean, dear?”

“Well, you’ve got about fifteen emails.  The last time you had any emails, it was that fiasco with the acetate you bragged about.”

I didn’t brag!  I just mentioned I had it.  To a newsgroup.  I admit that had been a mistake, but the emails had finally stopped flooding in and I was only getting one or two a day now. 

But now I had Sir Gotta-Have-The-Acetate on me back.  And he was a real ‘Sir’ now, he’d got knighted the past March.  Good for him!  Good for me, too, I could call him whatever I wanted, felt it was me obligation!  Y’know, all in th’ interest of keeping his head from swelling an’ all that, right?

Anyway, how was I to have known he was lurking around the groups like that?  Sir Persistence just wouldn’t let up, either, he’d been calling me nearly every day since, I swear the man’s blatant in his attempts.  I just sat back and ate up the flattery and cajoling and cookies (did ya know he makes a mean chocolate chip cookie with pecans and coconut flakes? Seriously, they’re superb, and I found meself just kinda playing along with him in order to have him bring over some more cookies, I swear Lin taught him well)…..where was I?…..oh, yeah, I just ate everything up and played along but remained resolute in me own head.  Sir Baker-like-an-Acorn (sorry ‘bout the pseudo-song title, I couldn’t help meself) wasn’t gonna get the acetate no matter how long I kept him slaving in the kitchen! 

Mean, aren’t I?  Hehehe.

Fifteen emails, eh?  Wonder what that’s all about?  Livy obediently got up from the desk and gave me the chair.  Margarita jumped up in me lap.  The cat just loves being in the centre of things, has ever since we brought her home from America.

“If this keeps up, you know we’re going to need another computer, George, you’re spending more and more time on line lately.  Don’t you think you should spend more time in the garden or something?”

“I do, each afternoon, love.”  She was just trying to hog the computer to herself, wasn’t she?  Just like a woman.

She looked over me shoulder.  “What’s a ‘tree’?” she asked.

“Oh, it’s really interesting, love, there’s a group of people who’ve got some interesting…..errrr, imported music and they’re making it available to others in some way, so I signed up as a ‘branch’ or something like that.” 

I wasn’t quite sure what it all meant, but felt certain the good people on the newsgroup would contact me and let me know.  I was really looking forward to hearing some of the items they described.  A four cd set, all music from the 50’s and 60’s, should be some good stuff I hadn’t heard in too many years to remember.

“You’re playing with your bootlegs again, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile.

“No,” I insisted, “they’re imports!”  Smiled back, determined to avoid a fight. 

She just shook her head and laughed.  “By the way, you got a package yesterday, it’s in the top drawer.”

Thankfully, she left the room.  I say thankfully, ‘cause if she’d stayed longer, I wouldn’t have been able to open my package.  It’s not that I’m doing anything precisely illegal, you know, it’s just that she’s funny about my imports.  She teases me a bit about my obsession, but I swear they’re addictive, ‘specially the old stuff! 

As soon as she was gone, I dumped Margarita off me lap (she complained, just like a woman), pulled out the package and opened it.  Oh, fab, it was the discs for the 50’s and 60’s set!  I got up and put ‘em on the cd player and spent a very pleasant morning waltzing down memory lane and listening to all the music from me childhood, I’d forgotten quite a few of ‘em, and the memories were great.  The quality was fantastic as well, somebody’d done a lot of work cleaning up the old vinyls and recording them onto cd!  I was bloody impressed with all the work that had gone into it.

By the time I got back to the email, I had twenty new mails, so I looked at the first one.  Oh, it was from the person who’d sent me the discs!  I opened the mail and read it.

“Dear eniMeMI, you should have your discs by now and I’ve distributed your name to the leaves, so you should be hearing from them soon.  There weren’t many branches on this tree, so I hope twenty leaves won’t overload you.  Just remember to burn DAO and trades only, no selling.  If the leaf doesn’t have anything to trade, you have to accept B&P in return at no more than a 2:1.  Any questions, go to the newsgroup and read the FAQ.  And please send me 8 blanks as ‘payment’ for the set I sent you.  Have fun, it’s great to be able to share the music like this!  CJ.”

Sorry?  Didn’t understand a bit of that.  Except for the bit about sharing the music, and ‘no selling’, gotta admit I really liked that part of it.  Keeps the money out of the bootlegger’s pocket, and that’s a plus in my book!  Determined to know what the person was talking ‘bout, I went to the newsgroup to read the FAQ that’d been mentioned.  Read it twice over.  Then read it a third time.  Wish I’d read it before I’d signed up.  Maybe I could just return the discs and leave it at that.  No, I’d gotten myself into this, I’d better follow through and keep me word.

“Dear CJ, I kinda messed up and signed up before knowing what a ‘tree’ was all about.  The FAQ you told me to read answered a lot of questions, but I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing.  Can you explain it simply?  Cheers, eniMeMI.  PS: the discs are fabulous, well done!”

Got up and put the discs on again, to play in the background, they really were fab, you know.  When I got back to the computer, I had an email from the person.

“Dear eniMeMI, glad you’re enjoying the set.  I wish I’d known you didn’t understand the structure first, but I really can’t take you off the job, only three people signed up as branches, and we’ve all got twenty or more leaves on this tree.  Look, all you have to do is burn copies for the people who contact you, and arrange a trade with them.  They’ll send you their trade lists and you pick 4 discs from that.  You send them your four discs and they send you your picks, it’s very simple.  If they don’t have a trade list, you just ask them for 8 blank cdr’s in return for the set.  I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun, don’t worry.  And you might get lots of really great things in trade!  Bye, CJ.”

Looked at a few of my ‘leaves’, bloody odd, a lot of ‘em were female names!  I thought bootlegs….errr, imports were more popular with the fellows than the ladies!  Oh, well, let’s see, in addition to the fellers, I had a Sue, a Lish, a Deb, a Viva, a Shel, a Leah, a Bon-Bon, a San, and a Megger (gotta figger that’s a female, can’t imagine a fellow calling himself Megger….but then, what kinda fellow would call himself eniMeMI?  Had a person contact me once to ask if I liked some science fiction show, Enemy Mine, or some such rubbish). 

Anyway, my leaves were nearly half and half, 9 ladies and 11 fellas.  Wondered who these people were, they certainly lived in various parts of the world!

Hmmm, come to think of it, I knew somebody named Lish, an author lady, kind of an odd bird, she didn’t know a thing about the niceties of brewing tea.  Had a grin at that, thought I’d better renew my order at the shop to have tea shipped to her house each month.  Wondered where she was storing it by now, her condo hadn’t been all that big, and I didn’t think one person could drink that much tea each month.  Maybe I’d better add another case to the order.  Livy’d asked me once about the monthly bill, but she hadn’t pursued the subject, I’d successfully distracted her by asking for some tea. 

I think that had been the last time I’d successfully distracted Livy from anything. 

Anyway, this leaf person didn’t have the same email address as my author lady, so it couldn’t be her, didn’t think a person could have more than one address, could they?  Nah, probably not, it was just a coincidence.  Odd, though, the post office box listed the same city as where my author lady lived, and I had a chill over that, but what are the chances?  Right, I was just being delusional.  Lots of kids nowadays are named odd things, like Lish and Tish and Tutti-fruiti and stuff like that.

Burned twenty sets of discs over the next couple of days, labeled them all very nicely and had everything ready before I started looking at the emails.  That’s when I realized that nobody wanted the discs labeled, just a little paper sticker put with them.  There was some worry about ink ruining the cd’s, or something like that.  So I threw all those out and burned twenty more sets.  Got a bit confused since they weren’t labeled, but I think I got them straightened out all right.  Asked a few questions of the CJ person, and he/she was always really nice about answering me.  Friendly person, that.  OK, I’ve got the hang of it now, it’s not so hard!

Got everything done and packaged up and sent out, then spent hour after hour looking over the trade lists.  Had to do a few B&P’s (that means I accepted blanks in exchange for the discs, I was getting pretty good at the lingo by now!), but most everyone had trade lists.  Lotsa Beatle stuff, mostly Beatle stuff, it was kinda surprising.  And embarrassing at the same time, what is it with these people?  We put out a ton of bloody albums, but they’ve gotta have every little throat clearing take on record!  It’s amazing, really.  Had a shiver over how much of the Let It Be sessions were available on bootlegs! 

Some of the names of the cd’s were pretty odd, and I had to get them just ‘cause of that. 

Saw some of my own boots that I didn’t know existed.  “Overexposed and Hypnotized”, oh, stuff from the 90’s in Europe.  “Beast of the Dark Horse” (yeah, Beast, not Best).  Too intriguing not to set up a trade, ya know?  Good Lord, didn’t know all those concerts with me and Eric in Japan had been booted, had to trade for some of them, just for a listen and a chuckle, then I got obsessive and wanted all of the concerts.  I was getting quite a variety of George Harrison bootlegs, nearly as many as Sir What’s-his-name had on his trade list!

Started reaping the bounty a few weeks later when the packages started arriving.  What lovely people, I didn’t have a one not send their trades to me! 

The cd’s were really good….

Well, some were better than others.

Actually, some were really awful, and I wondered who’d buy something like this?  I was glad I’d only traded for them!  But not everyone sent artwork and track listings, and it was driving me crazy trying to figure out what was on what disc.  Then I started to get emails in return.

“Dear eniMeMI, thanks for all your work on the project, but you sent me 4 of the same disc!  Please reply asap.  Sue.”

“Dear Sue, sorry, must have mixed them up.  I’ll send you another set to make up for it.  Cheers, eniMeMI.”

Burnt her a set and packaged it.  Got the same message from others and did the same for them.  Ended up burning twenty more sets, had to sent Pete out for more of those packages of cdr’s.  That’s when another email arrived, from that Lish person. 

Ah ha!  She hadn’t sent me the artwork or track listing for her trades!  Her set of stuff had been driving me crazy, really good quality interviews and stuff, but without the artwork and track listing, it was hell trying to figure out what was what!  And to be honest, I didn’t even remember doing some of the interviews and such!

Opened her email and read.

“Dear eniMeMI, something’s wrong, you sent me 4 of the same disc.  Lish.”

Typed a smug reply.  “Dear Lish, well, you didn’t send me any artwork, so maybe we’re even now!  Send me the artwork and I’ll send you a new set.  Cheers, eniMeMI.”

Her reply to my reply was fairly quick, she must be on line now.

“Dear eniMeMI, there isn’t any artwork for the interviews, you must not have read my trade list.  Please send me the full set of cds.  Lish.”

“Dear Lish, your list didn’t say anything about no artwork, I looked it over quite carefully.  eniMeMI.”

“EniMeMI, it most certainly did say that, you didn’t look.  That information is in column five.  Lish.”

Looked up her list, damn, she was right.  Didn’t know about scrolling over like that.  Tried to apologize.

“Dear Lish, sorry about that, you’re right and I’m wrong.  But I think it’s pretty rotten to put something up for trade that doesn’t have any artwork associated with it.”

“EniMeMI, don’t talk to me about rotten, you’re the one who sent me four copies of disc one!  And I don’t think you burned DAO, either!  Lish.”

Just who did this lady think she was?  Dhani’d had to show me what to do, but “disk at once” was the only way I knew how to burn anything!

“Look, Miss Smarty Pants, I did so burn DAO!  And I’m sorry about the mixup, but what d’ya think, I’m gonna apologize forever?  Get over it, I said I’d send you another set and I will.  So don’t get huffy with me!  Get back, eniMeMI.”

Burned the required discs (I think I’d gone through about 3 hundred-pack spindles of the damned cdr thingies by now) and got them packaged for mailing.  Then, just ‘cause she’d irritated me, I didn’t post the damned things, thought I’d wait a week or two before mailing them.  Kinda chuckled about it, she could sputter and stew all she liked, it’d do her good.

Didn’t hear anything from her for a while, and kinda forgot about her.  Got involved in another cd tree of some George Formby stuff, was having the time of me life playing around with this, and Livy just shook her head at me and went off to do whatever it is she does when she’s not shaking her head at me.  Of course, she shakes her head at me a lot, so it doesn’t leave her much time to do anything else.

It was about three weeks later when the email arrived.

“You creep, where are my discs?  You promised, and I believed you!  Lish.”

Oh, hell, I’d forgotten to mail ‘em.  But where did she get off, calling me a ‘creep’?  Bloody ungrateful Yank, the only reason you people gained your independence from England was ‘cause it was such a bloody long way from home!  We let you go!

“Look, I kinda forgot about the package, but I’ll put it in the mail today, all right?  Satisfied?  And don’t think of calling me a creep again!  eniMeMI.”

Did I mention I’m absent minded sometimes?  I got sidetracked by a fungus growing on one of my favourite rose bushes, and I forgot about the damned package.  About two weeks later, I got another email.

“Creep, creep, CREEP, CREEP!!!!!!  I’ve been through a few trees in my time, and I’m going to put you on the bad trader alert list, you’ve been argumentative and nasty throughout the entire thing, not to mention you’ve had my trade for SIX WEEKS and I’ve had it.  You’re just lucky I don’t know where you live, or I’d throw eggs at your windows.”

She’d have to go through an awful lot of chickens to egg all our windows, probably a bloody good thing she only knew our postal drop off!  But where did she get off saying I’d been argumentative and nasty?  She was the one being nasty, I’d just been forgetful!

It was time to fight fire with fire!  The emails started flying.

“You ingrate!  I’ve been working me fingers to the bone to get the cd’s done and you threaten to report me?  And then threaten to throw eggs?  You’re no lady, lady!  Be careful you don’t swallow some of that venom!  eniMeMI.”

“Are you calling me a snake?  You louse!  I am a lady, one who’s been pushed to far, mister!  You don’t want to see me mad, so you’d better back off!  Lish.”

“Ha, you can’t even spell!  You wrote ‘to’ instead of ‘too’.  Not only not a lady and a snake to boot, but you don’t even know the basics of grammar!”

“Oh, now, let’s not talk about grammar!  You’re the one who wrote ‘working ME fingers to the bone’!  Typo, typo, TYPO, I’ll bet you still type with two fingers!”

How’d she know that?  I typed as quick as I could and sent it off.

“Dear GrammarMadam, so sorry to have disappointed you, does that mean I fail your class?”

Her reply was even quicker, she probably typed with every bloody finger and her thumbs as well!

“Dear CREEP, you likely fail in everything you do.  I’ll bet you’ve never worked a job a single day in your life.”

Had a bit of a laugh at that, depends on what you consider ‘a job’, I guess.  This was getting childish.

“Lish, let’s stop this, it’s silly.  I apologize for forgetting about your discs and I’ll get them into the mail this afternoon.  Seriously, no bs.”

“I believed you before, why should I believe you again?” 

I could swear she sounded sullen, if you can ‘sound’ anything at all in a written word.

Had to think about her question for a bit, she really didn’t know me, I’m actually a very nice person.  “Be truthful, George,” I suggested to meself.  Looked ‘round and was grateful that Livy wasn’t in the room, she giggles when I talk out loud to meself.  Thankfully, the room was empty.  Well, except for Margarita, but she just opened on eye and gave me a minor version of ‘the look’.  I typed as quickly as I could.

“Lish, I guess you don’t really have any reason to believe me, but I’m really a very nice person, you just kinda set me off by calling me a creep.  Look, I’ll put a little something extra in the package and send it off.  Cheers.  Love, George.”

Hit ‘send’ before I realized what I’d done.  Oh, hell, I’d given her my name!  Oh, well, it’s not like there aren’t a million Georges in the world already.

“George?” her next email read.  “George with a post office box in Henley on Themes, UK?  I don’t believe this!”

“Good, well, don’t believe it, ‘cause it’s not true.  Bye bye, love, I have to go to the store.”

Typed that as quick as I could and hit send.

“Are you sure?  Not many Georges I know living in Henley.”

“Positive.  Trust me!  Leaving for the store now!  Bye bye.”

Did I mention I’m a bit forgetful sometimes?

It was a damned shame I hadn’t gone to the store when I’d said I was going to the store (that had been a ruse to get off the computer, you know).  But the problem was that I forgot the damned package again and another two weeks passed before I saw another email from her.  Oh, shit!  I grabbed the package, ripped it open, stuffed the ‘something extra’ into it, took it to our housekeeper Rita and begged her to mail it for me, right away.  Didn’t breathe easy until I watched her drive away.  Went back to the computer and double clicked on the letter, wincing already at what she was gonna blast me with.  I reflected that it was a really good thing she didn’t know where I lived, she’d be throwing something worse than eggs.

Funny, the email had an attachment to it.  Uh-oh.  Was she sending me a virus?  I deleted it unread and congratulated meself on saving the computer from a fate worse than death.  Wasn’t exactly sure what a virus could do to a computer, but since it’s technically Livy’s computer, I figured I’d rather be safe than sorry.  Typed a note to my American ‘friend’.

“Hullo, Lish.  I saw you tried to send me a virus and I deleted it without looking at it.  Sorry, but that’s not a very nice way to treat a friend.  I can assure you that the package went out into the mail and you should be receiving it shortly.  Ta!  eniMeMI.”

Got a reply very shortly.

“George, I did not send you a virus, that was the recipe for my mother’s split pea soup, I thought you’d like it!  Why ever would you think such an awful thing about me?  I’m crushed, really.  I’ll be watching my mailbox, I’m certain the package you sent will arrive shortly.  Lish.”

Oh, this was pretty scary. 

She was being too nice now, what was up with that? 

But the idear of a split pea soup recipe was too much for me, I love the stuff, you know.  Must be something bred into us, we English absolutely love peas, in any way, shape or form.  You know, I’ve actually met a few people who don’t like peas, and that was simply astounding.  Little green globes of goodness, you know.  Love ‘em fresh out of the garden, steamed, baked, fried, raw in a salad, in soup, stew, whatever!

Dug around until I found the letter in the ‘recycle bin’ and clicked on it.

“George, thought you might like my Mom’s split pea soup recipe.  I think I read somewhere that English folk like peas, and Mom makes a great pot of soup.  Cheers, Lish.”

Hmmmm, the attachment was labeled “MomsPeaSoup.vbs”.  Clicked on it, my mouth was watering already.

* * * * *

“Now, George, let’s go over it one more time, all right?”

Gritted me teeth into a smile.  “I promise never to open a vbs attachment again.”

“Once more?” Livy requested.

I took a breath and let it out, swallowed and said, “I promise never to open a vbs attachment again.”

“OK, then you can get back on the computer.  But if you go back on your word, I swear to you, George…..”

I hate it when she swears to me.  Sat through the rest of her harangue and tried to pretend I was paying attention. 

It wasn’t really my fault, it was all that Lish person’s fault, she’d been the one to send me that virus. 

It hadn’t done anything bad to the computer.  I mean, it didn’t destroy data or anything like that, but (and I can’t pretend to know how she did this) the damned computer exuded the smell of burnt split pea soup for weeks after.  Especially when the cd drawer thingie opened up, so my cd burning days were limited, because the damned smell was pervasive! 

Gotta tell you, it kinda turned me off of split pea soup after that, I can’t face the stuff now, and I used to love it.  The very idear of sitting down to a big bowl of soup makes me shiver. 

We’d had to get expert help to fix the problem with the computer and I think they had to clean out the speakers or something.  Seemed awfully weird to me, didn’t know the speakers had a thing to do with a smell.  The author lady must have been a computer genius.  Or else her mother was.

Once we’d got it repaired, I’d been banned from computer usage for three weeks whilst Livy fumed about what had happened.

The first thing we did when I was allowed back on was to block emails from the person.  And then Livy blocked me from the newsgroups, too.  Livy was no fun at all.

There wasn’t much to do on the computer without those, and she’d password protected everything as well.  I spent some time trying to get around it, but never managed, finally giving up in defeat and reading the news on the CNN website.

Got to wondering if Lish had ever got my package.  Shoulda never sent it to the ingrate.

But then again, maybe this had worked out for the best after all.  Leaned back in me chair and thought about it whilst petting the cat, had a bit of a chuckle.  I wonder what that Lish person thought when she opened the package and saw the 4 discs she’d requested, along with one of me guitar pics in an old (new) Dark Horse envelope.  Gotta use the damned things up somehow or other!

I started spending more time in the garden, ‘cause without the newsgroups, the computer was deadly dull, no better than the telly.  Got involved in me roses and the berry bushes again, really started enjoying it.  I’m just a gardener at heart, you know.  I never wanted all this fame and stuff.  The fortune’s nice, of course; I couldn’t live in a place like this if I’d been, say, a lumberjack or something. 

About three weeks later, the package arrived.

“George?”

“Yes, Livy?”

“The postal delivery man just dropped this off for you.  Have you been buying things on those auction houses again?  I thought I blocked that!”

“I haven’t even been on the computer in weeks, Livy!  Wonder what it is?”

I looked at the return address and felt the blood rush from me head to settle somewhere near me feet.  Started nearly shaking, it was…..from….. her!

Called out the Apple people who deal with that sort of thing, and they called the bomb squad and we had a nice little drama in the front garden, far enough away so that it wouldn’t rattle any windows if something happened.  They did their work and we watched from inside the house, I even had me binoculars out so I could see what was going on.  Watched closely as they gingerly opened the box, they looked like space men in those suits.  They carefully tipped the box over and gently eased the contents out, then proceeded to spread it over the lawn, checking each piece as it was opened.

It was….it was…..it was…..a computer?

They brought me the card as they put everything together and checked it out.

“If there’s even a hint of a split pea smell, I don’t want it in th’ house, got it, Harry?”

My groundskeeper nodded and went back to inform the others, and Livy and I opened the envelope.

“Dear George and Olivia,

     I just wanted to apologize for the little pea soup incident, it was just a silly little joke between friends, of course.  Ha ha ha.  Don’t you think it was funny?  Please think it was funny.  I thought perhaps you could use a new computer to replace the infected one, so I’m sending this one along for you to try out, and I really hope you like it.  It’s got all the newest bells and whistles on it, a Dennon cd burner, Polk audio speakers, a flat screen monitor……”

Stopped reading about that point and gave a whistle.  The girl must have spent a fortune on this!  I’d have to repay her somehow, but how?  Hmmmm, that was a tricky one, how indeed? 

Ah, I’ve got just the ticket! 

Walked over to the phone and called the shop that handles her monthly tea shipment. 

“Yeah, that’s right, you heard me.  Double the order.  Yeah, start sending the shipment of Earl Grey every other week instead of once a month!  Perfect, that’ll be perfect.  Ta!”

Cheryl Mortensen has been a Beatle fanatic since the 1960s, but somehow went on to other things in the late 1960s, only rediscovering her passion for "all things Beatle" in the late 1990s (and on into the new century).  She is a computer programmer and an avid photographer. (Concert photos of bands and performers is her favorite area -- ask her about her Ringo pictures!!)  Cheryl lives with her husband of many years (Mike), her German Shepherd (Sorsha), and a bunch of fish in the tank and the pond that they've never bothered to name.