average life

The clients had yet to come into the edit suite to take a look at the spot that I had spent the last two days cutting when a friend of my boss poked his head in.

?Here you go,? he said, pulling out a DVD.

?What?s that?? I said.

?It?s Dan In Real Life,? he replied.

I was confused, ?does this stem from a previous conversation??

?No,? he said, ?I just had it and thought you?d want to rip it, since it is something that it seems you?d be into.?

My confusion now switched to whether he thought I would be into the movie, or just ripping random DVDs.  I decided it was the movie and I took the gesture for thoughtfulness.

?Thanks,? I said and fired up Handbrake.  The movie was taking too long and he left before it was done.

During the edit session, I got an IM from him asking to drop the DVD off at his house after work.

?No problem,? I typed back.  I was in session with the client so he could have asked me over to wax his back and I probably would have said yes, just to end the conversation and not have the client see me chatting online during the edit.

He soon typed back, ?Could you do me a solid and drop the disc off at the movie place??

?Sure.?

As I left the disc on the counter and walked back to my car, I had the sneaking suspicion that I was merely a pawn in an elaborate scheme to not have to take a movie back to a rental store.