Buzzfeed, Boys, Black Magic

shenanigans/corporate blood sacrifices

He texted me "good morning," at 10 AM on the dot. The notification buzz rattled my nightstand and woke me up. Like a genuine, good-guy alarm clock.

I was going to jump off a cliff if he kept this up.

Sup? I texted back, and poured myself out of bed. On my way out of the bathroom, I got this response:

Shenanigans

I didn't care enough to text back. I decided to make breakfast. But when I climbed down my stairs, I got this:

You take any pre-law classes during your undergrad?

I was confused at first, but also somewhat pleased. He must have forgotten what my major was. Astrophysics is about as different a discipline from pre-law as possible. There were cracks spreading in the façade, I thought. The fuckboy would soon emerge, and the end of this nascent faux-relationship would follow, oh happy day.

Then a series of clarifications pinged my inbox.

I mean in between your astrophysics classes?

Any theory of argumentation 101, even?

You're extremely articulate.

I fought the urge to throw my phone across the kitchen.

Instead, I texted this:

            ???

And took the carton of eggs from the fridge. Just as I cracked one into my designated egg scrambling mug, I got this:

            Cody's in jail. Public intoxication.

Jesus Christ, Cody, I thought. 10 AM, on a Sunday? I knew he just got fired, but this kind of excessive hedonism was only going to ruin his life further. Before I could comment, I saw Rafi's typing bubble pop up again. He didn't give a damn about double-texting etiquette. He also apparently didn't give a damn about looking completely out of his mind. I couldn't decide if this was cool, or a red-flag-crazy-eyed warning sign. I set my phone down on the island counter top, and bent down to the cabinet underneath. I kept my ears tuned for the notification. It arrived just as I had retrieved my frying pan.

            Wanna play lawyer with me?

Red-flag-crazy-eyed warning sign, I thought, as I drafted my response.

            Not on my agenda for today, thanks for asking.

Just as I thought I had been maybe a little too rude too soon into this adventure, he pinged back.

            Don't blame ya. It ain't like Phoenix Wright in real life.

I almost dropped my phone. I wasn't expecting Rafi to have heard of my favorite childhood Nintendo game, let alone to reference it unprovoked. What were the chances, I thought as I cut a pad of butter, of stumbling into a pothead with the same interests as me? Who made very similar jokes? As I plopped that butter into the frying pan, I thought that Rafi was probably the most dateable pothead I had ever met. The only dateable pothead I had ever met. And to meet him now?

Coincidences are a statistical fact, I reminded myself over the sizzle of butter and tried not to think too hard about the past few weeks. But I'm a physicist. I think too hard. That's what I have always done. About stars and shoes and emails from autistic doctors and whether the act of wearing a certain shade of lipstick turned a get-together-hang-out into a genuine date.

Statistics be damned.

As I flipped the eggs in my frying pan, I wondered what pact Jonah Peretti had made with which Devil, which High Voodoo Priestess or Goddess of Destruction. I imagined the terms of this unholy contract. I pictured the ritual. Peretti blood-sacrificing one of his 'ethnically-ambiguous' ivy-league interns. Pushing the poor, unicorn-haired virgin into the mouth of an open volcano. Maybe on a company vacation to Hawaii. The kid had probably spent all morning working on his highlight. He had to get ~glam for da 'gram~. Little did he know what horrors the big boss had in store for him. I wondered if that murder was worth it for Peretti. Probably. A guy like that is probably above the law, and it's not like Buzzfeed hasn't squashed the little guy in content wars before. Anything for that viral hit. And just imagine the free marketing when the lamestream media wises up to the fact that Buzzfeed controls the entire universe.

I wondered what was taking some cornball journalist so long to discover that the fate of a person's bloodline could be spelled out by a Nostalgic Jonas Brother Quiz (front page, last night: PICK YOUR FAVORITE JONAS BROTHER AND WE WILL TELL YOU WHETHER YOU WILL HAVE KIDS. I couldn't bring myself to click that one).

As I scooped my eggs onto my plate, I felt a strange sense of calm. I would date Rafi. He would dump me. And then I would meet my soul mate.

On my way to the kitchen table, I picked up my phone and realized I hadn't yet responded to Rafi's Phoenix Wright joke.

OBJECTION. I texted back.

😂  he replied.

Defective. I sighed into my scramble.

And then, his usual double-text.

Slushies later though?

Maybe.

***

He texted me at 6:57 PM. After a long day meme-browsing on Instagram, I was exhausted. I considered not even reading his message. It didn't matter what I did. Buzzfeed controlled me, whether I answered my phone that evening or not.

Abby's new post- a sunflower at the farmer's market- made sure I did. After all, if Instagram could be believed, she did go on that date with Mike. I'd have to hold up my end of the bargain.

I opened my messenger.

             So, midnight slushies? I'll pick you up this time?

Midnight was unappealing. Abby couldn't fault me if I flaked on a midnight thing. I had work tomorrow.

            Yeah, no can do. Got work tomorrow, don't wanna be out late.

He pinged back:

            Well, why not right now?

It's 7. I replied. Doesn't that defeat the point of midnight slushies?

We can do midnight slushies at 7.

The imprecision of your language irritates me. I texted back. You cannot do midnight slushies at 7 pm. You can only do 7pm slushies at 7pm.

Midnight isn't a time. He responded, like some stupid Rumi poem. It's a feeling. You can have midnight slushies anytime if you're with the right person.

I was going to hurl. Maybe midnight slushies was, as Abby had suspected, a sex thing and I wasn't up on the kid's slang these days. I was only a few months out of school, but who knows? Culture changes fast. I opened up Safari and Urban Dictionary-ied it. Just to be safe. Nada.

            What are you even saying? You're not making sense.

I watched his typing bubble pop up, vanish, and reappear.

What's your address? I need to put it in my GPS.

***