How to Date an Android

Chapter 3, revised & improved

"Where did you get this old beater anyway?" he is cringing while looking at my dashboard.

"Bought it from my dad, when they took his license away," I answered.

"Oh, and you aren't going to upgrade it?" he raised an eyebrow while people were staring at us left and right because of how slow we were.

"Why? There's no point. Upgrading costs a lot, and it doesn't up the value that much when compared to how much money you have to dump in. An older car like this would cost a fortune to get up to the line of other cars anyway. The most I was able to do was convert it to an electric motor two years ago and that was because gasoline was phased out to divert resources against the Russian arms race," I replied.

"Got it," he said. "You sure aren't going to pick up any girls in this you know bro," he said sadly right after that. He has ducked down in his passenger side.

Is he ashamed to be seen in my car? That bastard...

That part hurt. I couldn't help but have my face twitch in irritation though I don't think he saw it.

"People really should look at someone for economic freedom and not who has the newest stuff. You know when you see someone with a brand new mag beamer or other fancy car those are people who are losing more than half their paycheck to a monthly payment?" I said.

"Really? You think so?" he questioned while we merged onto the interstate.

"Yeah, I've done the math. So people will 'mortgage' their whole paycheck for a brand new flashy car to pick up girls or guys or whatever in...then they can't afford to settle down because they spend more than they earn and have no future and can't even make their rent because of their pick up girls toy. But then girls won't go out with you if you don't have a flashy new car. It's a conceited system of looking for the most bling, but the only bling there is happens to be rented. That doesn't work and it's a cycle of entrapment," I answered.

"Oh. You might be onto something. If you'd described it as rented bling from the beginning I would have gotten it sooner," he said biting into an apple. It was my lunch that he's stolen. We'll have discussion about the utilities and making sure he knows to buy his own groceries later when we get to the house.

He keeps chomping on my apple. It's too late to take it back, nor would I want to now.

I can see partly why the cops wanted to lock up Matt. I'm tempted to turn around and go back to the jail.

Asshole...

Even if he is an asshole, he's mostly pretty honest. I think he just made that one mistake right? I didn't sympathize with him at all for what he did though. But I was raised to try to help people, and he was one of my best tenants even if he was trying to figure out his life still.

The next few weeks are a bit boring. Matt settles in paying rent like before. I can tolerate it because he never faulted me on the rent in the past, doesn't destroy stuff, and there isn't any surprise visitors. His job is pretty rough though. He has to work with a bunch of androids doing heavy manual labor. Because of his new background he can't qualify for any good jobs, so it's a rough cycle.

For me it's the opposite.

I qualify for the good jobs and have gone to school and worked hard for a few years. I work within an office and I'm doing pretty well. My day job is that I work as a mechanic on mag cars, and some types of commercial vehicles like work trucks and stuff like that. It's not as physically demanding as it used to be since much of it is done through computer diagnosis now and there are lifting machines available to help with anything heavy. I like working with some independence and I don't try to cheat anyone, although that's difficult when everyone else is and often gives bait and switch offers. It's the love of wanting to be independent and not just be a tool that has led me to do this job.