Queuing for friendship

I am going to miss the entire con! Yep by the time this line snakes up to the badge pick up station the con will be over. I'll grab my badge and walk outside to see John and Susan parked and waiting for me. Oh, the awesome stories they will have to tell while the only thing I'll be able to talk about is this epic line wait.

"Hey... Hey.... Hey, girl..." Mary was pulled from her melancholy daydream by a hand gently shaking her shoulder. "Wake up. The lines moving now." said the woman who was directly behind Mary in line.

"Sah Sah... Sorry." Mary stammered as began walking forward. The line eventually stalled again, and Mary turned to express better her gratitude to the woman who had roused her.

"Thanks for the warning. I guess I zoned out."

"It's understandable. This damnable line is the worst part of the con." The lady said as she crossly spied row after row of con goers still queued up ahead of them. "Every year I plan on prebuying next years ticket to avoid it. Then I procrastinate and wind stuck here again. By the way I'm Anne." The lady said extending her hand. "Mary." Mary replied, grasping Anne's outstretched hand, with tinges of barely restrained glee.

Anne was a striking woman who, to Mary's best guess, appeared to be in her early 40's. Her long, rich auburn hair, toned and tanned physique, and well-endowed bust made her the definition of Cougar. She is gorgeous! And so easy to talk to. If I'm going to be stuck in line, I'm glad it's with her. Mary thought while obviously fawning over Anne.

A seductive grin spread across Anne's face. "So is this your first time Mary?"

"Yeah, my dad wouldn't let me come till I turned 18." Mary answered, blushing at her confession.

"You're a virgin? I knew it!" at that few other people in line turned to see what the commotion was. Anne realized her voice had been rising in excitement and began to temper her tone. "Now Now no need to blush. Though it does make you look cute. Come here and let Mama Anne give you some pointers." with that Anne reached her arm around Mary to hug her tight.

Whispering in Mary's ear while pointing out a few Bro looking guys Anne intoned "First thing you need to know is that there are guys, and some girls, who are going to question your fandom simply because you are an attractive young woman."

"Why?"

Anne shrugged. "Insecurity I suppose. Whatever their reason don't let them ruin your good time. Also, arguing with them is useless, so it's best just to ignore them. Now on to better things. Do you have the Tomorrow Con App downloaded?"

"Yes." Mary stated as she unconsciously pulled out her cell phone.

"Good. It has all the date, times, and locations of the panels for the entirety of the con as well as the dealer's room layout. It's best to go through it and plan out the stuff you want to see. That way when it's getting close to time for a panel or contest or whatever the app will remind you. Best do that now while you are stuck in this purgatory." With that, Anne pulled out her cell and began fiddling with it.

Mary could not believe how much stuff there was to do and see. There was a panel for all things geeky no matter how obscure. She quickly filled up her itinerary a few times over. Ughg! Why are there so many things happening at the same time? She would have needed at least four clones to see and do all she had planned. Best start to pare it down. As Mary was making the hard choices of which panel to delete and which to save she noticed something she didn't understand. Some of the late night panels were marked with an 18+ symbol and required the user to enter their birth date to access their info.

Mary turned back to Anne, who was still busy typing away on her phone. "Anne, can I ask you something?" and then without waiting for Anne's assent "What are these age locked panel's about?"

"Oh, those." Anne said a bit impishly. "I was waiting for you to find those. So Tomorrow Con is strictly PG before 10 pm. However after 10 pm it becomes an adult oriented geek Mardi Gras. So those panels all have to do with sexuality in the geek world."

The thought of talking about sex and sci-fi with a bunch of strangers turned Mary's face bright red. An "Oh!" was all she could squeak out.

Anne held her hand out toward Mary. "Now let me see your phone." Mary was in such a stupefied state that she handed it over without dispute. Anne tapped Mary's phone a couple of times then began tapping on her own while keeping her eyes squarely on Mary's screen. Then she handed Mary her phone back. "There. I've just made you my friend on the app. We'll be able to see each others schedule and IM each other if we want. Feel free to look me up throughout the con. I think we could have a blast together."

Then before Mary could process everything one of the con workers was ushering her to a station to put in her badge information. When she had finished and paid Anne was nowhere to be found.

She opened her phone, and sure enough, while her schedule was in green there was Anne's in red running concurrently to her's on the grid. She quickly checked it out against her's before exclaiming "What on earth is BDSM 201?"