The weirdest thing happened to me at work today. You won’t ever believe this, but I’ll tell you anyway, and you’ll call me a liar, but hey, that’s the way the ball bounces sometimes, right? Anyway, so before I can tell you what happened, let me give you a little bit of context. You know my sister, Maria, right? You know, Maria. She’s got red hair, kind of long, green-gray eyes. Yeah, that’s her, she looks almost exactly like me, only thinner and with bigger... hey, that’s my sister you’re talking about, buddy! Well, anyway, you know Maria, and she’s got this boyfriend, named Ralph. What kind of name is Ralph anyhow? That’s a stupid name. Ralph works at the Speedway over on Samson. He’s working his way through Community College. He wants to fix computers for a living. I don’t know about that being wise and all, with how fast computers change. It seems to me like he’d be out of date within a few years, but maybe that’s just me. I don’t know anything about computers, nothing at all, except that I know that they keep getting faster and smarter and bigger in memory and smaller in size. Hell, I remember when the smallest computer weighed thirty pounds and only had, like, 20K or something. Now they’re up to, what, a few meg? I mean, think about that. These things are getting smarter than humans, and one day we’re going to be taken over, just like in 2001 when that Hal thing goes nuts and then denies the whole thing. That’s gonna be us, all over the place. Ralph will be trying to fix a computer, and it’ll just laugh at him. "I’m sorry, Ralph, I can’t do that." That’s what it’ll say. And then it’ll kill him. And take his job from him, too. Damn computers. Ralph is going to be a traitor to the human race, fixing those things. What? Oh yeah, yeah, I was telling you about work. So Ralph works at the Speedway to make money for college, although he seems to work so much that he can’t really afford to stay in college, seeing as he’s not getting anywhere in his studies, but that’s neither here nor there, I suppose. That’s Ralph’s decision. He pulls the late shift at Speedway. They’re open all night, that one is, and he just sits in his booth most of the time all by himself, reading some magazine or other. He tries to study, or that’s what Maria told me, but he just can’t concentrate. I can see why, all things considered. Any second, some whacko with a gun could come up to the window and blow him away. I mean, sure, he has that bullet proof plexiglass stuff and all, but I wouldn’t trust that stuff to stop one of them cop-killer bullets, the kind that go right through that protective bullet-proof stuff that cops wear... what is that called? Shoot, it’s right on the tip of my tongue. Teflon? Velcro? No, geez, why can’t I remember it? What? Oh yeah, yeah, Kevlar, thanks. That’s a weird word, Kevlar is. I wonder where it comes from. So anyway, if there’s something that’ll go straight through Kevlar, and there is, I’m sure plexiglass won’t do much to stop it. I had a plexiglass boat once, rammed it into a rock by accident and the sucker cracked. If a rock will crack the stuff, what will those Kevlar bullet doohickeys do? Ralph is like a sitting duck in there, and he usually has enough money to make it worth robbing him, but don’t let him know I told you that, because it’s corporate policy to keep most of the money locked up, but Ralph isn’t all that bright or all that organized and he has a nasty habit of forgetting to deposit money in the safe, so there’s a lot for the picking... if you have one of those fancy guns. So that’s Ralph. Did I tell you, he’s got a gut on him, from eating candy bars. Locked in that fishbowl of a gas station all night, nobody to talk to, and he can’t even go out and get himself a real meal, so he eats the inventory and tells his boss that some teenage punks keep coming by and threatening to vandalize the gas station. He tells his boss that the teenagers wave the gas hose trigger thing around and tell him they’re going to start the place on fire if they don’t get their Zagnuts. His boss nods and sighs and all that. I’ve seen it. It’s a terrible lie. I saw him tell it once when I was picking Maria up from there. Maria, that’s my sister. Oh yeah, I told you that. She doesn’t have a car right now, so sometimes I have to drop her off places or pick her up. She’s living with Ralph, and Ralph usually drives her wherever she needs to go, or loans her his car, or whatever, but in this world everyone needs a car, really. Unless you’re an invalid and can’t drive anyway, I guess, or you’re going to college and live on campus, one of those real colleges, not like community college. Ralph couldn’t get into a real college. For what they charge, you can’t afford a car anyway. So like I said, Ralph has this gut that he gets from eating too many stolen candy bars. And his boss is going to fire him one of these days except that the boss knows that he doesn’t pay Ralph enough anyway, so the stolen Zagnuts are a tradeoff for not getting sued and having to pay real wages to his workers. That fishbowl thing reminds me of the time I went to go pick up my sister and I got there earlier than I said I was going to and he was boffing her right there in the fishbowl of a gas station. Can you believe that? God, I mean, I’m a voyeur and all that, I love to watch people fuck as much as the next guy, but my own sister? At least she was wearing a skirt, so she didn’t need to take any clothing off, at least not that I saw. All the same. I still remember her face, all glowy and awash with that weird aura thing that women get when they fuck, her face nearly smashing into the plexiglass over and over, and then when she saw me she gave me this real satisfied look, like she was getting laid and I wasn’t because she’s so much better than I am. Sure, maybe she’s in a steady relationship and I’m not, but that’s my choice, I could be picking up dates if I wanted to. I just don’t want to. What’s that? Yeah, I know she has bigger — Hey! Watch what you’re saying about my sister! You sleazebag! Some people, your minds are always in the gutter. I have half a mind not to tell my story now. I swear. So there was Maria, fucking Ralph in the Speedway fishbowl... wait, that wasn’t what the story was about. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, this funny thing happened at work today. No, no, it didn’t have anything to do with Ralph. I just think Ralph is a strange guy, and I wish my sister wasn’t going out with him. It had to do with Peter. Peter is this guy that Maria used to go out with in high school. He’s real tall, like a beanpole, maybe six-five, six-six. Thin as a rail. Now, he has a nice personality. Not like Ralph. Peter went away to college, studied to be an engineer. He didn’t make it. That’s a tough field, engineering. Gotta know a lot of science and math, and Peter was never good at math. So he washed out of it, but he did do a good job of making a name of himself and getting his face around places, so he wound up with a pretty good job, considering the fact that he only had maybe half a Bachelor’s degree. He’s an assistant tech down at that pharmaceuticals company downtown. Making reasonable money, I understand. Some of this he told me today. He wanted to know if Maria was seeing anyone, so I guess he’s still in love with her. Some guys are like that, you know, they fall in love and you just can’t get them out of it, no matter what. Maria dumped him, not the other way around. I still don’t know why she dumped him, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. He’s making a lot more money than Ralph, and I like him a lot more, and he doesn’t boff her in gas stations in the middle of the night, in front of God and everyone. I do remember one time, when I was thirteen or maybe fourteen. Let’s see... that was seventh grade. I had Mrs. Flanders for English for last period. Was that seventh grade? No, no, it was eighth, but it was right near the beginning, so yeah, I was thirteen. Almost fourteen. Mrs. Flanders was cool. She had those silly little horn-rimmed glasses, the kind that all the little old English teachers seem to wear, and she always wore puffy fluffy white blouses and skirts and talcum power and a kleenex shoved up into one of her cuffs, in case she got the sniffles. That was Mrs. Flanders. She had a great sense of humor. I read in the student-alumni paper that she died last year. That’s a real pity. She was a sweetheart. So I was coming home from Mrs. Flanders, and I had just come in the house when I heard these thunk-thunk-thunk noises coming from upstairs, and my sister making these screaming and moaning noises, so I think, My God! She’s being attacked! See, my sister had the afternoons off because she’d worked her schedule out that way. Sure, she was only a sophomore, but she was going to summer school to work off the credits. I don’t know how she worked that out with her counselor, because you’re not supposed to be able to do things like that, but somehow she did. She liked school, she just didn’t like being in school all day, and she would rather go all year half a day than half a year all day, that’s what she said. So anyway, that’s why she was home, and I hear this thunk-thunk-thunk and her screaming and I panic and I run upstairs to her room, making sure to keep quiet, in case the guy who’s attacking her hears me and comes running. I mean, I was a punk kid and all, but I knew I wasn’t enough of a man yet to hold my own against some big brute. Keep the upper hand, I figure. So I run up (as quiet as I can) and burst into her room and there she is, getting the fuck of her life from Peter. He’s pounding into her, and she’s gripping the headboard and her body is jiggling and... God! What a sight! I slammed the door real quick, because I didn’t want to look anymore. What a trauma for my poor little eyes! I just stood there listening to the bed squeak and her moaning and then he started moaning and then they started screaming together and all I could think of was watching her body jiggling... What’s that? Yeah, even then, she had big — Hey! You shut up! That’s my sister, pervert! I don’t know I’m telling you all of this, just so you can go home and fantasize about Maria’s tits, you sicko. Dammit, I’m trying to tell a story here. So I’m at work, and Peter calls me up. That’s the first part of it. It’s been years since I’ve even thought about this guy, except when I remember him and my sister going at it that time when I was thirteen, or was I fourteen? I still don’t understand why they didn’t hear me. Anyway, he calls me up out of nowhere and starts asking for information. Well, I’m just answering phones right now, until I can find a better job, you know that, right? Rewind, I guess I didn’t tell you that part yet after all. So I’m working for this company. We sell sex toys, and magazines, and videos, and stuff like that. Mostly mail order. I really don’t use that sort of thing, but I figure a job’s a job and at any rate the pay is better than I was getting at that other place. But I just started today, if you can believe it, this is my first day at this job. I guess that’s why I forgot to tell you. I got a new job. Some of this stuff is really weird, you know. We have this one vibrator that’s got beads in it, more like marbles, that spin around when it vibrates. And another one that’s shaped like a beaver... what? No! The animal, only elongated out so it’s the right shape for what it’s supposed to do, too, and the beaver’s tail is pointy and bent so that it rubs up against the... uh, clit, or the ass, whichever the woman wants. We have these plastic beads on a string that you stick up your... uh, asshole and pull out all at once. We have this little plastic clips that hold onto your nipples and don’t let go. They’re not supposed to hurt, but I don’t believe it. We have pens of all the Walt Disney characters that get naked when you click them. Can you believe it? Goofy’s wang right there, and him with his dumb look. We sell sex dolls with three vibrating openings, so you can choose your pleasure. We sell magazines with naked women, naked men, men fucking women, men fucking men, men fucking men who are fucking women, threesomes, foursomes, moresomes, bondage, sadism, women who love to shave, women who never shave, women who shave their slaves, women who get shaved by their slaves, chicks with dicks, men in daipers, golden showers, pierced nipples, pierced clits, pierced foreskins, pierced scrotums, pierced tongues, leather, lace, vinyl, food, fat women, pregnant women, lactating women, women with A cups, women with D cups, women with triple-H cups, men with two cocks, porno anime, porno superheroes, and people who just love to have sex with anyone or anything they can get their hands on! There are some real perverts in this world, did you know that? Why anybody would want any of this stuff, I can only imagine. But it isn’t my place to question, you know? I’m just the guy who sells it, it’s not my place to comment. But you should see the size of some of these women, geez, they must get backaches all the time. What’s that? Hey! Shut up about my sister already! Je-SUS! So anyway, this guy, it’s Peter but I don’t know that yet, calls up and starts asking questions about some of our stuff. You know, like, does this one come with batteries or do you have to plug it in? Which one is bigger, that one or that one? Are they easy to control? How long do they last? And I don’t know any of these things, so I tell him as much, that I need to have a supervisor get back to him and can I have his name and number? And he tells me. And I say, Peter? Peter Lawson that used to go to Sparrow High? And he gets real nervous, maybe because he didn’t think he’d run into someone who knew him working for a place like that, but he says, Yeah, that’s me. Who are you? he says. And I’m like, It’s me, Jim Carroll. You used to date my sister Maria. And he’s like, Wow! Jim! This is incredible. It’s been years, how have you been keeping yourself? And we just go on like that for a while but you probably don’t want to hear all of that stuff. Anyway, we get around to talking about my sister and all of that, and how she broke his heart, and all of that. But it’s weird, he says, because despite it all it turns out he doesn’t like girls anyhow. All the time he was sleeping with her, he says, it was fun and all but the feeling just wasn’t there. He was thinking about breaking up with her, it turns out, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He thought she was real pretty. She is, too, she looks just like me, don’t you think? All RIGHT, she’s got bigger tits! There, I said it, now will you shut up about my sister? Anyway, he says, her looks and all that were fine, her personality was fine, he liked her and all, but he just wasn’t into her kind, if I knew what he meant. That’s what he said. What are you laughing about? That’s what he said. So I said, you know, a lot of people think me and my sister are a lot alike. And he said, well, yeah, you two even look a lot alike. And I said, it’s just as well maybe that you don’t go that way because she’s got a boyfriend right now, even if I don’t like him very much because he works at the Speedway nightshift and only a psycho would do that. And he said, well, yeah, just as well then, I guess. And I said, but you know, I just happen to be between relationships right now. Hey, you! Stop laughing, I am between relationships! Anyway, he said, Oh really? That’s good to know. Well, ANYway, to make a long story short, one thing led to another and all of this is to explain why I have a date tonight and can’t come to the movie with you. Sorry dude. Maybe tomorrow. Gee, I wonder if Maria will be pissed when she finds out about all this.