242. BETTER THAN BEST BUY

Luckily Lands' End makes an Extra Large canvas bag that fits the PC console perfectly. I slide the not-that-heavy-but-bulky computer parts into the Extra Large and Large bag, pull one bag onto my right shoulder and the other onto my right. I lock the apartment and begin the one-block commute to the subway station and the 100 blocks to meet Tapan. He is leaving for a 10-day business trip tomorrow and has offered to get the PC to Vipin.

I cross 181st Street and manage to balance on the double long escalator and head to the subway platform. The goddesses must know I have 40 pounds of computer equipment on my person and train comes quickly. Even if taxis were easy to find in my neighborhood I would have opted for the train, I prefer to save the $25 cab fare.

The ride to the UWS is relatively eventless. The man sitting next to me helps me settle onto the seat and reminds me that the MTA police can ticket you for using the seat for personal items. Even though it is challenging to drag all this stuff, I prefer it to giving my money to Best Buy and the Geek Squad.

Thirty minutes later I am in Tapan's apartment. It is pretty clean for a single man. "Hey thanks for bringing this to me," Tapan says. Is he kidding me? He and Vipin are doing me the favor! "Uhm, no! Thank you! You have to thank Vipin, too. He was SO nice on the phone. And didn't seem to mind chatting," I reply. Tapan laughs and looks inside the bags. "He said he enjoyed it. I warned him you were chatty but it didn't concern him, in fact he found you unsurprisingly funny," Tapan said. "He gets me because we're Punjabi," I reply. Tapan rolls his eyes in an amused fashion.

Ten minutes later I leave. I find Tapan to have similar traits like Dad and Town and Country. It must be because entrepreneurs are a unique type of workaholic. They cannot separate themselves from their work. And while Taps seems balanced I worry that at some point I will lose out to his work and I will become like Mom, sharing her husband with a mistress she cannot overpower. Or worse, a time pass like Town and Country treats me.