I am a jerk.

Alonzo called me to come over and look at his computer. As usual, he suspected that he was hacked and his internet activity was being tracked. He never really was hacked he just always had was the typical adware/spyware type stuff.

“You know it’s late, right-”

“I know, I’m sorry…. I got ice cream”

“and I got work tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

No sense in pretending that I was mad. We both knew that he used the magic word.

“So, you got ice cream, huh?

“Butter Pecan.”

“Be right there.”

“I know.”

For my own personal entertainment I decided to feed into his suspicions about his computer being hacked. Within seconds I found what the problem was. I fixed it and then closed out the window real fast not letting on that I fixed it already.

Now for the fun. I hit a combination of random keys. “Hey did you see that?” I said.

“No. What happened?”

“That is not supposed to do that.” Of course, nothing happened but, I did put the idea in his head that my trained eye picked up on something.

“The last time I saw that happen….” I picked up the keyboard and held it to my ear pretending that I am listening very carefully for something. I suddenly widened my eyes as if I heard something.

“No, this can’t be.” I whispered.

“What is it?” Alonzo asked.

“Give me a minute, I’ll show you.” I said.

I rooted around in my tool bag and grabbed a small screw driver and palmed a tiny computer fragment that sat discarded at the bottom.

Using the small screw driver, I began to one by one plucking keys out of the keyboard. After I pulled the last key I began looking intently to the inside of the keyboard.

“There it is.” I said. then stuck my screw driver inside acting like I was dislodging something.

“What do you see?” Alonzo asked.

I ignored the question for effect and tipped the keyboard upside down over the desk and shook the keyboard and let the object drop that I had hidden in my hand. The object that I had was a capacitor slightly smaller than the size of a tick-tack that had broken off an old modem that sat in my tool bag.

“What is it?” he asked again.

“That my friend, is a keylogger. Someone is capturing every keystroke as you type.” I said.

“So, if I am chatting to somebody, they are seeing everything I say?” he asked.

“Or capturing username and passwords, credit card numbers and so, on.” I said.

He muttered an expletive. I could see him taking mental inventory of all his recent internet traffic.

“I’ve gotta call the police and report this.” I said.

“What are you talking about? he asked. “They are the one’s that put it there.”

“It’s Federal law” I lied.

“You’re not bringing them into this. You know what they did last time!“

“As a PC Technician I am required by law to report it when I find a device like this.”

All in one swoop he reached and grabbed the tick-tack off the desk and shoved it into his mouth and swallowed and told me that I now had nothing to report.

I could not contain myself. I laughed and had to let him know that I was just pranking him. He snickered and started making the throw up face thumped me on the arm and called me a jerk. We both laughed until we couldn’t breathe.

I was surprised he swallowed the capacitor. It would have been a neat prank to let play out if he didn’t bring it to such an abrupt end.

I keep promising myself that I am going to quit pranking people or at least let up on them a little sooner than I do. But, I have no self control.

I mull this concept over further as I plunk the keys to his keyboard back in alphabetical order rather than the q-w-e-r-t-y order that they belong. I turn his computer off and tell him that it must remain off for 30 minutes to allow for all the services to reset and clear the auto-logging mechanism. Another lie but it is a trick that PC Tech’s use to get out the door and up the road before the client finds other things on the PC to annoy them with.

Sure enough 35 minutes later my cell starts playing the theme to the X-Files. It’s the ringtone that my phone auto-selected for Alonzo, that was the story that I told him anyway. I let the call go to Voicemail.

“Something is still not right with my computer, man,” the message said. “It’s not taking my password. Something doesn’t feel right about it going in. I think the virus came back. And don’t tell me it’s because of all the gay porn again because that doesn't happen here. Anyway, come on back tonight, I don’t care what time it is. I am expecting an email.”

“I am a jerk.”