The Trickster Diaries, part 3/Chapter 16

The following week I run into a clever, and most courteous boxgirl. As a point of clarification, she wants to know if I mean putting the plastic bag inside the paper bag, or the other way around. “Whoa, look at you,” (I’m tempted to respond), “going all Jean Paul Sartre on me. Trouble is,” (I’m tempted to continue), “it’s a stupid question. The paper bag is just a bag. The plastic bag has handles. So why…”
Me: (Passing on the insult) Other way around, please.

I’d had enough of stupid and insulting for one week. As in Spectrum, (formerly Time Warner Cable), HSI technicians, supervisors, phone support staff, robo phone surveys, dispatch, happy “on hold” music, happy “on hold” prerecorded ads, billing and sales department drones authorized to offer you 50, 60, 70% off your next bill if you’ll just please give them one last chance. “Love to,” I tell the guy. “Problem is, Spectrum has already revealed its incompetence. Your last chance has come and gone.”
So I cancel and that’s that. Except, in doing a file transfer using Bluetooth, I remember something rather brilliant: Mobile Hotspot.
Yeah yeah, I know — stream a two hour movie and lose two gigs. But, see, since Sabrina is giving me her spare 32” flat screen, I’ll just upgrade my Netflix account to include DVDs and zap! Entertainment dilemma licked! Then I’ll upgrade my MetroPCS account to unlimited data, get their 15 gig Mobile Hotspot plan, buy a new 32 gig memory Samsung J7 Star — (Amazon Prime included w/purchase) — for only $176, and…
Wait.
Wait wait wait wait wait. It’s like that scene in It’s a Wonderful Life where the good guy, George Bailey, is about to seal the deal with the evil banker, Mr Potter, then comes to his senses seconds before taking the bait, falling down the corporate rabbit hole, losing sight of the principles of an honest and simple man.

Yeah. No, thanks.

But I’m slower to see shit like this coming now that Hank and Linda are gone. I knew the answers to such questions instinctively, back then.

Maybe if Sabrina hadn’t shown up when she did last week, I’d have found a way of telling Lupe the truth. That as much as I enjoyed our little sex games, I’d no more play left in me, and even fewer marbles.

Seven months after their departure from planet Earth, I was still crazy heartbroken.