Remember the cyber café days.
Times when you had to look over your shoulder before each mouse click, because trouble! Okay, scratch that.
Let's rewind to your arrival...
First, on getting your time slip from the cyber café attendant, usually a stern man, you're pointed to the closest available PC.
Thanks, but no.
Looking farther down the hall, you spot another vacant PC at a dimmer, obscure corner - fairly hidden from the attendant's desk. That private section of a cyber café is always more comfortable, you know?
So you head for it.
And as you walk past a row of PC users, you steal glances at various screens displaying all shades of good, bad and ugly.
Some windows get minimized for obvious reasons - and the faces of these users go from startled to relaxed, on seeing it's no attendant on patrol. Amongst these pleasure seekers caught off-guard, are those ones whom because you paused momentarily to stare at their screen, stylishly fiddle around on a safe website for a while till you move along. You feel like telling these ones that hypocrisy doesn't look good on them.
.
Seat taken and logged in, you quickly recall that morally-reprehensible website you memorized the last time and key in the words with shaky hands.
The progress loading bar complete, after taking forever to load, brings you to Sodom and Gomorrah. You click 'Enter', the web content is all steamy and graphic and it makes your eyes widen.
You keep your hand firmly on the mouse the whole time, and your cursor hovering around the minimize button.
Midway, you take another glance at one of the several notices on the wall near you.
"Adult videos prohibited. Be warned! Signed management."
.
A ball of sweat rolls down your face as your heart slams hard in your chest like a sledgehammer,
"Damn y'all," you sigh, before nervously indulging in this long-planned moment. It's been weeks of saving and self-denial, but finally...
.
Oops! 3 minutes in, you hear the sound of footsteps approaching.
You push back your seat and turn towards the aisle,
it's the busybody attendant; menacingly advancing toward your hideout with a fierce look! You do a fast tap on a new tab...
He comes over, delays at your seat as he gazes at your screen intently as if to ascertain something.
He makes to leave, but turns to examine you again before wandering off.
As soon as the coast is clear, you go back to being the child your mother forbids.
