Uncle Henry

It was Saturday morning and Henry didn't have to work today. He sat in the kitchen writing his grocery list on a little yellow pad. The list didn't change much from week to week, but he liked to write it all out anyway. He liked it when things were all spelled out nice and neat. He was about halfway done with the list when the phone rang. He got up to answer it.

"Hello?"

"Uncle Henry..." The voice on the other end was his niece Diane's. He could make it out even through her spasms of giggling.

"What is it? What's so funny?"

"Oh, Uncle Henry. It's too bad you don't have a computer. Somebody's looking for you on Craigslist."

"Looking for me? Where? On what?"

"She's a BBW and she wants you bad!"

"What would a Big Bad Wolf want with me?" Henry asked.

"Not a Big Bad Wolf! Where do you get this stuff? A Big Beautiful Woman. You know, like with a few extra pounds. I don't know where she got your name, but it's definitely you she's looking for. You should respond to her ad. You'll make her day. And maybe yours too."

"How do I answer her?"

Henry wrote Diane's instructions on the little yellow pad. Then he hung up and headed for the library.

It was only a few miles up the street. Henry went there whenever he needed to use a computer, which wasn't often. His daughter, Jackie, had shown him how to log in and had helped him set up an email account. He didn't have much use for the account, because he didn't have much use for little blue pills or human growth hormones or money from Nigeria. But every once in a while Jackie would send him an email with a picture or a link she wanted him to see so he checked the account at least once a month.

With his little yellow pad at his side, Henry logged into the library PC and launched Internet Explorer. He used his two index fingers to type the address Diane had given him. He must have clicked in all the right places, because suddenly he was in the Missed Connections section, his jaw dropping at the sight of "Uncle Henry, Are You Out There?". He clicked on the link.

"Uncle Henry, I am a cute BBW who is in desperate need of your services. I really want to ride your bus, but I don't how to find you. I sure hope you read this. If you respond, neither of us be will be lonely tonight."

Who was this BBW and what did she want with him? He hit Reply To This Post and there was the captcha, just as confusing as Diane said it would be. It took him three tries to get it right. He was rewarded with an email address that he copied and pasted into his Gmail account. Then he wrote: "Dear BBW. I'm Henry, the bus driver. Who are you? What do you want with me?" He pressed the Send button.

Now what? How long was he supposed to wait for an answer? He couldn't sit at the library all day; he still had to go grocery shopping. He would finish writing out his list first, and if he didn't get a response by then he would leave.

Henry had barely placed pencil to paper when a new email popped into view in his account. He clicked it open.

"You must be the real Uncle Henry because yours was the only response that didn't include a cock picture. Will you call me? Here's my number... --Sent from my iPhone."

Henry hastily hit the Reply button. "I'm at the library and don't have a cell phone. How about if I meet you somewhere?"

The email came back. "The Starbuck's on North Federal Hwy, across from Men's Wearhouse."

Henry had never been to a Starbuck's, but he knew where that one was because he passed it on one of his routes. "I'll be there in 30 minutes," he replied.

"My name's Jessica," came the response. "I'll see you there."

Henry headed toward the library exit, but hesitated before he stepped through the sliding glass doors. A familiar figure sat behind the reference desk to his left. It was Grace, that librarian friend of his sister's, the one she was trying to set him up with. Grace wasn't bad looking, with her big brown eyes and her cute little nose buried in a book. She wore a long white shawl against the library's air conditioning and her dark hair was tied up in a bun. Henry could easily imagine the shawl slipping away and the hair tumbling down across the shapely shoulders.

He wondered why he had never seen Grace here before. Not that that he visited very often, and never at this hour because he was always getting groceries at this time. Maybe they switched librarians around from library to library the way they switched bus drivers to different routes. He thought he should go say hi, but he didn't want to keep Jessica waiting. He didn't think Grace had seen him, so he left the library and proceeded to Starbuck's.