Terms and Conditions

The golden gates of heaven rose into Steven’s view as the white haze of death slowly cleared. He had a single tear in his right eye, possibly from the sorrowful goodbye’s he had only seconds earlier shared with his family, or perhaps it was the joy of seeing such a beautiful sight as those glimmering gates. They rose high into the white billowy clouds, far beyond the capabilities of Steven’s sight. Before them stood two human figures, one a tall man that Steven imagined must be Saint Peter, the other a seemingly young and certainly very pretty woman with flowing blonde hair. The girl stood behind Peter, as if his assistant, and handed the dark hair man with thick eyebrows a file folder.
As Steven approached, somewhat hesitantly, he watched Peter slide a disk out of the folder and press it into a white illuminated laptop computer which was rested on the golden pedestal before him.
“Good morning Steven.” Peter greeted, his voice high with excitement, like a greeter at a hotel. “How was your trip?”
“Painful, Your Holiness, but I’m glad it’s over.” Steven replied while doing a mental check of all of his sins. He thought he would be okay; he wasn’t a bad man after all.
“Call me Pete,” the saint said fondly, and smiled. “Alright, let me just pull up your file…. Oh a Mormon, huh? We don’t see too many of you guys anymore.” Pete’s eyebrows curled and he seemed deep in thought. “Bzz, bzz, bzz, fifteen percent to charity, helped the old lady cross the street, gave back that wallet without opening it, church every Sunday, paid all your taxes… there was that one thing in college.”
“I can explain that,” Steven exploded, “I was really drunk and I thought he was…”
“Don’t bother,” Pete waved him off. “All and all, strong….” Pete looked through his eyebrows at Steven “really a strong showing. Umm, phta, phta, phta, phta, oh… oh no.”
“What?”
“Well,” Pete sighed deeply, “it seems you, yeah, you did. You signed your soul over to Bill Gates.”
“What!?”
“Yeah, it’s been happening more often lately.”
“But… when, how?”
“It was part of the Terms and Conditions when you installed Microsoft Vista actually.” Pete stated flatly, returning his gaze to the now blue lit computer screen. “Yeah I have it right here, you clicked “I agree to all terms and conditions.”
“But I…”
“You didn’t read them?”
“Well no, who does?”
“Look,” Pete sighed again and turned the screen around to Steven could view it. “You did click that box right there, correct?”
“Yes, but…”
“Well then sir, a contract is a contract.”
“But Pete…”
“It’s Your Holiness to you.” Saint Peter said and pressed a small red button atop the pedestal. Steven dropped through the clouds and disappeared, crying at as he fell into the abyss. “That’s five this morning alone.” Peter sighed to his assistant.
“Yeah, it’ll be everyone pretty soon.” She replied.
“That’s precisely why I use Linux.”
Before them a middle aged woman appeared. She wore the black robes of a nun, and had a glint in her eyes of such pure kindness that Peter smiled immediately.
“Well, a member of the team, how was your trip?”
“Quite well, Your Holliness.”
“Call me Pete!” Pete slid her disk into his computer and pulled up her file. He began to speak, but then frowned and sighed so deeply it startled his assistant who leaned over his shoulder to see the problem. “Sister, did you agree to all the terms and conditions when you installed the new iTunes?”