ALMOST NAKED

I love Wednesday mornings. After my Malaysian manager realized that there's simply no way I can reach the office at 8:30 because of color coding, we came to an agreement that yes, I can work from home on Wednesdays but I have to go to the office in case something comes up that needs my personal attention. No problem, I can do that.

So for almost half a year now, my Wednesday routine will be to wake up at 8 to have breakfast with the wife, kiss her goodbye at 8:30, then fire up the laptop and have email up and running by 9am. I still don't have DSL at home, but at dialup speed of 49kbps, it sure beats working at the office where at best, I would get only 21kbps.

Now I'm a guy who likes sleeping in my underwear at night. And for some particular reason, I didn't bother changing into house clothes this morning. So there I was, working in my underwear. There's really something interesting about firing off an email to my hot and sexy customer service manager wearing only my briefs, but that's for another day.

Then I had the urge to make another cup of coffee. Two tablespoons of ground beans, half a cup of water, and soon the first couple of drops of espresso was flowing into my mug. Then I looked outside.

I'm living on the 11th floor of my condo, and the other tower is like spitting distance from mine. And there she was, looking at me curiously. She was a middle-aged woman, also in her underwear, but she looked like she was dressing up. We both kinda looked at each other curiously in a non-malicious sort of way, then just smiled. She finished dressing up, blouse and skirt and all; and I topped off my espresso with frothed milk. Then I went back to work.