The Kings Of Cool

142

O goes to the library.

First she has to find it, and is pleasantly surprised to discover that they keep the thing right downtown and she’s walked past it, like, five hundred and fifty-seven thousand times.

She could get on her computer at home, but Paqu is on the warpath, in “high dudgeon” O heard that phrase in a movie and always liked it, even though she doesn’t know what a dudgeon is and Chon isn’t around to enlighten her and not talking to her, which usually comes as an intense relief to O, except this time Paqu isn’t talking to her while coming around every five seconds to glare at her, and she also suspects that Paqu has implanted spyware on her laptop in the completely justified paranoia that O uses her credit card to access online porn.

The last thing she wants is Paqu tripping over the words “Paul Patterson” on her computer and going bat-shit crazier.

So O goes to the library.

To do what most people who go to the library do-use the computers.

She seriously doubts that her Paul Patterson will be on Facebook but gives it a try anyway, only to find there are a few zillion Paul Pattersons on Facebook. Then she Googles Paul Patterson, only to get a few hundred zillion hits. She thinks of narrowing the search to

Paul Patterson+404 Father

But doubts that the search engine has her piquant sense of humor. So she hits

Paul Patterson+Laguna Beach

And there are some, but none who meet the demographic of her potential daddy, so she tries

Paul Patterson+Dana Point

No luck.

She decides to go literally in the other direction with

Paul Patterson+Newport Beach.

This is what it’s come to, she thinks as she scans the results We search for our parents on Google.