weak wi-fi

2. hayden

        “Their username is ‘thefaultinourfries’.”

        Nancy gives me a confused expression, to which I simply respond with a shrug. I think of many things I, a teenager, could be doing in the middle of the night. I’ve read books of kids sneaking out of their homes to peruse through a junkyard until they find an intergalactic piece of machinery that can alter time, or a party that’s suddenly crashed by an apocalypse of zombies, or even a nice camping trip that goes horribly wrong when they encounter a cannibalistic tribe. I think of all these things, but despite it all, I end up going to the Laundromat and spending all my change on the claw machine.

        Which, in fact, is what I am doing right now.

        Going to the Laundromat is pointless considering we have washing machines back home, but I don’t like being crammed there all the time, so I begged my nurse, Nancy, to let me go with her to the Laundromat. Nancy’s a cool nurse; she let me go.

        “Isn’t that the title of a movie that just came out?” She asks me as she’s putting in the coins to the dryer.

        I try to rack my memory and I do remember seeing forums related to the name, “I think so. But I think it’s The Fault In Our Planets or The Fault In Our Solar System or something like that…”

        I’m pretty sure it’s a documentary. Yeah, definitely.

        “Are you checking out their profile?” Nancy turns on the dryer, and I watch it spin for a few seconds before responding.

        “I will, after I play some Pac-Man,” I respond.

        Nancy sits down on the bench and sighs. She’s very motherly when you look at her; light, brown hair that’s always in its natural form, dark brown eyes that remind you of chocolate, and rosy cheeks that signify she’s lively. Her duty as my nurse pays her rent, but she says it’s because of me that she stays.

        “Have you thought about what story you’re going to write?” She asks.

        I put in the coins to the Pac-Man game and grab the joystick. I shrug as a response, “I’m debating between a Sci-Fi, Biopunk or Dying Earth, Fantasy… a Steampunk would be cool too, though. I guess I have to hear out my partner, too, anyways. Maybe they’re into astronomy.”

        Nancy laughs, “You hate astronomy.”

        “Yeah,” I smile, “Should be interesting…”

        Just then, my Pac-Man is gobbled up by a green ghost. I would kick the machine if I had mobility in my legs, but I don’t, so I just punch it lazily. Oh, I should probably mention I’m crippled… yeah, that’s important.

        “I’m going to go get some Skittles,” I inform Nancy, despite the fact I’m already half way there. I hear her nagging, but quickly tune her out as she starts listing the cons of late-night eating.

        After inserting a dollar, I watch in suspense as the machine unwinds the Skittle from its grasp. It’s about to fall when… it gets stuck. My eyes droop in disappointment, but I sigh in defeat. I would have rolled away too, if it weren’t for the fact a man started shaking the machine vigorously. Of course, the Skittle pack fell to the floor, and the man gave me an awkward grin.

        Disability perk? Probably.

        “Thanks,” I say as he hands over the sugary candy.

        “No problem, at least I’ve done something right today.” He mutters the last part, but I catch it anyways. He looks older than me, but twice as tired and lost. No offense to him, but he reeks of alcohol, and I wonder what he’s doing in a Laundromat.

        “Are you okay?” I ask, because I think someone should.

        He sighs and laughs, but it’s a forced one and weak at that. “Don’t get married to an angry, Mexican woman, son. You’ll regret it.”

        I don’t know what he means, but I nod anyways. “Don’t drink when you’re upset. You’ll regret it.” I gesture at my lower half, and when I look back up, I know he’s gotten the message. He takes an awkward breath and an equally awkward silence follows. But after a while, he cracks a small, solemn smile.

        “God, I’m taking advice from a kid. Yeah, I know. Thanks, son.”

        I offer a polite grin in return and watch as he makes his way out the door. I also notice Nancy walking toward me with a worried expression. I assure her everything’s fine by lifting my Skittles victoriously in the air.

        “Who was that?” She asks when I get back.

        “I don’t know.”

        “What’d you guys talk about?”

        “Drinking and angry, Mexican women.”

        “Oh, is that all?”

        She’s being sarcastic and I laugh.

        “No, we also planned the next Presidential assassination.”

        She shakes her head, “Jesus, Hayden, you have one wild imagination.”

        I roll around in a circle, because I’m bored. “Disability perk.”

        Nancy doesn’t like it when I say that and I know it, but I say it anyways. She continues to plop in coins to the next load of laundry, and I realize I’m fresh out of my own change. Sighing, I decide now is as good a time as ever to look into my assigned partner. I turn on my phone and open the app to type in their username. When I glance down their profile, it doesn’t really tell me anything about them. Their bio is one line; “shout out to the sidewalk for keeping me off the streets” (which did make me laugh), their profile picture is a cat, and they go by the name of T. H. Enderson. I wonder if that’s on purpose.

        I scroll through their works next, seeing that they have exactly two in the making. One’s completed and the other seems to be half-way through. From the looks of it and their summaries, they both seem to be Teen Fiction and Humor; it’s not a genre I typically despise, but don’t typically love either. I love Young Adult, don’t get me wrong, but these seem to be put in ordinary time and in an ordinary place.

        The Notebook of Epic Proportions and How I Paid For College are the titles of the two books. One was about a notebook that got passed around an art classroom, and the other was the tale of a scrawny boy and his journey to paying student loans… To be frank, and with all due respect, neither really caught my attention. A little part of me sank; I don’t think they’re going to like my Sci-Fi, Biopunk idea. 

a/n: p.s thefaultinourfries does exist. it's an actual account.