I was up bright and early–at 8 AM. Bright and early, for me at least. I’ve never been a morning person. Ever since it wasn’t required of me to get up that early, I haven’t. It was the gamer in me.
I had to be at work at 10 AM today. I usually got up two hours before a shift to give myself enough time to prepare for the day. That often included taking a shower, eating breakfast, and brushing my teeth, among other things.
One thing that stunk about working at a place like Hobby Lobby was that my shifts were inconsistent. One day I could close, and the next I could open. In my position, that doesn’t mean much change, other than there usually being a backlist of orders to fulfill if I come in the morning. Most of them were to be shipped out, only a few orders being curbside pickup. It’s not like I had a wife and children to worry about–the only person this wishy-washy schedule affected was me.
On most days there were about twenty orders in the queue. It all depended on how many other people were working in fulfillment, or what kind of traffic was to be expected. During holidays, the increased workload was offset by more people being scheduled. Hobby Lobby, compared to other retail stores I’ve worked for, is pretty good about not overextending its employees. It’s a welcome change.
Given that this was in the middle of the summer, my expected workload today was going to be lower than average. Not completely dead, like in the middle of January, but with a rather low foot traffic, as is with most weekdays. There would be senior citizens (and other people with nothing better to do) that show up right before the store opens, which usually gives us a good amount of our foot traffic at the outset. I swore sometimes they were bussed in. Usually not more than a dozen, but they all stand next to the door, waiting for the store to open. Anyway, I wouldn’t have to worry about that, since they would’ve been admitted an hour ago by the time I parked. If I’m lucky, they would be mostly done shopping by now. The next rush would be after 5 PM. That ‘rush’, if you could call it that, would lead to steady traffic, not like the stampede of geriatrics that bang down the doors every morning. That would calm down by 6 PM.
While most parts of Michael’s job were undesirable, the ability to make your schedule was a great positive. Better yet, the ability to make your schedule and not be held accountable if you’re late. I’m sure there are those on imageboards and in the Twitter comments that bitch and moan about it, but they don’t matter in the slightest. The silent majority doesn’t care.
The typical ‘shift’ for a VTuber could be anywhere between two to four hours, with streams being as short as forty-five minutes and as long as twelve hours. The former tended to be specialized streams (ASMR and ‘announcement streams’), while the latter were either regular gaming streams that turned into a marathon session, a ‘Birthday Stream’ (which was when a VTuber streamed on their birthday (duh)—activities galore with coworkers popping in and multiple games played throughout), and charity streams. No matter the length of the stream, the final say fell on the VTuber. Their manager did a lot of stuff on the backend, but the schedule was decided by the streamer. Unless if it was a sponsorship stream that corporate hoisted on the VTuber. Those streams tended to cap out at an hour, which I assume was the allotted time the sponsored company paid for. Also, there were games that were no-gos due to licensing (I assumed), but that was only a short list of games.
Working from home, at least conceptually, sounds like a dream for me. It would make my commute way shorter. From twenty-five minutes from home to work to twenty-five steps from bed to computer. And that included steps to the toilet first!
The first issue with working from home was that…well, all the jobs that were ‘work from home’ were hard to find. Seemed like an oxymoron, since there were thousands upon thousands of openings when you searched for them. The thing is that, if you see those openings, everyone else does as well. Millions of people fighting for tens of thousands of openings. My chances of getting one were, well, next to zero. That was my experience so far, applying to hundreds of openings in the past. I was convinced that the ‘Easy Apply’ had no function other than to virtually shred your application. Think about it, if it’s easy for you to apply, it’s easier for everyone else as well. Good in concept, but in reality it only led to those positions having hundreds of choices. That’s a lottery at that point, one that I don’t think I’d ever win.
Those were the desirable work-from-home jobs. There were also ones that were hazards, ranging from being a poor place to look at to a straight-up scam, stealing your information while pretending to be recruiters that reeeallly like you. I’ve gotten a call from a ‘recruiter’ that ended up being one of these ordeals. You can tell because they’re very eager to move you along the application process without doing their due diligence. A company that’s easy to get hired onto is a red flag to start with because it implies several things, none of them good. That is if it’s a real job listing in the first place.
As for other benefits…there weren't that many when it came down to it. Sure, if I got lucky and managed to land a ‘bullshit job’ type of work-from-home job, I could perhaps watch something or play video games on the job, but I can already do the former at my current job. Being able to half-watch something wasn’t as big of a flex as it seemed on the surface. Unless you were playing something turn-based you would most likely have to pause your game in an inopportune spot when needed.
There was a ‘benefit’ that you didn’t technically need to dress up, or even clean up, when working from home. I use scare quotes because I didn’t really see this as much as a benefit. More of an indulgence. I was as lazy as they came, but I valued taking showers and changing my clothes semi-regularly. I never have felt comfortable going more than a day without washing off. The stink doesn’t affect me but the feeling of being unwashed makes me feel nasty. Like a miasma that makes everything around feel icky and negativity affects my ability to exist. I don’t know how others did it.
Maybe one day I’d join the work-from-home revolution, but for now, I still had to commute. A few years ago I would’ve been called ‘essential’. I’m glad they stopped with that shit. My ass wasn’t essential when I was selling clothes, and my ass is arguably less essential now that I sell paint tubes and beads with a side of Christ.
Enough bitching—it was time to go to work.
I had driven to work enough by now to know how late I could leave without being ‘late’ at work. The art of arriving at exactly six minutes past your shift's start time wasn’t easy to learn. It was luck that decided if you arrived at that time or five minutes over. Hell, I could leave five minutes earlier and still struggle to arrive on time. It all depended on traffic. Tractors were occasionally roadblocks—they appeared enough around the area that it could be a good enough alibi if I was late one day. Most days I didn’t test my abilities to that extent. If I wasn’t a lazy shit, I wouldn’t have to do this silly game of Speeding To Work every shift. One day I’ll grow up…
Going to my car the same way I’ve done probably a hundred times now, I threw my lunch into the passenger seat and started to crank my car…
…let me try it again…
…
…oh shit.
No cranking at all. Pressing my key buttons, nothing happened. No locking and unlocking. Oh fuck. Guess that means my car was left unlocked for now. Not like that mattered. The most valuable things in my car were CDs.
After failing to crank it a few more times, I sat there. Fuck. What’s the matter?
I had gotten an oil change the month before—I was told that there weren’t any major issues with the vehicle. Well, obviously that was a lie.
I opened the hood to see if the issue was standing out. There wasn’t. Looking inside the hood of my Honda, nothing looked out of sorts. Nothing was smoking and nothing was on fire—nothing out of the ordinary…great.
…fuck, now I have to call work and tell them my car broke down. Fuck!
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Fast forward a minute–I had called work and told them I wasn’t going in today. I don’t know why, but I felt nervous calling as if they were going to say to me “tough shit kid, walk or don’t come back ever”. Instead, I got an “okay, hope your car gets fixed soon”.
I was now on the internet on my phone desperately trying to find a lede on what the fuck could be wrong with my car. There was nothing to go off of. No crank, no start. That was all I had when I searched for what could be wrong.
…
‘Honda accord no crank no start’ gave me a myriad of answers. No help at all, but not surprising since I had no clue what the fuck was up. I was doing the same thing as trying to diagnose an illness based on a cough. Or a lack of one in this case.
Scrolling down, an impending sense of doom swarmed around me. It already had been for about five minutes, but now it was jumping me. How the fuck was I going to get this fixed? I had insurance, which included ‘reduced-charge towing’, but I had no clue how much the bill would be once the issue was diagnosed. Anything car-related can easily move into the thousands of dollars range. Car insurance didn’t mean shit in many cases. There was also the issue that my car could be stuck at a repair shop for weeks on end, leading me to have to rely on a rental. In the past, I wasn’t old enough to get a rental myself—my parents had helped me in that case. That was when I backed into a wall and tore off my back bumper. Embarrassing, but at least then I knew what the problem was. That, and my car still worked then.
I was in a panic. It was all the most embarrassing, considering that the issue at hand wasn’t that dire. Yes, I potentially had a thousand dollar plus bill coming at me, but it wasn’t like I was stranded at sea or had just run over a child. What made me so uncomfortable however was that I wasn’t in control of the situation. I was going to have to do something, but I didn’t know what that something was. Of course, I was going to probably pay out of pocket for people who know what’s going on with my car to fix it, but it all comes back to me. Was I really that clueless? That worthless? Usually, I would know that the answer is no, but in times like these, I couldn’t convince myself that. The self-doubt seeps into your mind and you can’t shake it, the notion that you are a worthless sack of shit that’ll never amount to anything in life. Think about it–I’m a man who's wandering on his way to being thirty with no family, no career ambitions, and generally no ambition at all. I did have a job and was able to make all of my payments without needing assistance from mommy and daddy, but that was on account that I didn’t do that much outside of work, game, and sleep. In the past, I had a semblance of a social life. I had so much free time on my hands that I’d be playing games and watching anime for 14 hours a day if I didn’t wander into a bar every few days. That was the reality of going to university. My degree ultimately didn’t lead me to have long, rigorous study sessions. At the most, I would do research on JSTOR or read for a few hours. The secret about majors like Political Science is that if you can write essays and do research, it’s not that hard. Most people hate reading and typing even more, which makes PoliSci seem daunting. It wasn’t easy, I’ll tell you that, but it also wasn’t particularly difficult. It was just school. It was profoundly easier than anything relating to science or math, that’s for sure. That being said, I had still not done anything with my PoliSci degree. Whether that was an indictment on me or PoliSci itself was still to be seen. Either way, I was in debt because of going to university. It would eventually be paid off, but the weight of a fifty-thousand dollar loan along with the untold amount I would have to pay to fix my car was simply too much for me. I was spiraling.
[*RING RING*]
My phone started vibrating—I was getting a call from Jean. Wonder what she was concerned about.
“Hello?”
“Hey, are you at the house right now?”
“Yeah…” I was stuck here, but I didn’t want to get into that on the phone.
“Alright, I’m gonna be showing up soon so keep an eye out for me.”
“...okay…” …so she was coming. Wish I knew sooner.
“Alright bye.” She hung up immediately, probably acknowledging that she shouldn’t be talking and driving at the same time. I never got to ask why she was coming by…
That brief interruption distracted me from the issue at hand. My car’s issue was still unknown, and I still had the miasma of self-doubt following me, but Jean’s sudden entrance distracted me. Keys still in hand, I tried once more to crank my car…and once more…yep, still nothing.
I was stumped. For now, I was going to go back inside, since staying out here would only guarantee me giving myself a headache or bashing my head into my steering wheel until I knocked myself out. Better to worry inside rather than out. Instinctively I pressed the lock button on my keypad—oh yeah, that didn’t work. Locking my car manually, I slowly walked back inside, feeling less well than I was when I was still expecting to go to work.
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I was on my computer figuring out how easy it was to get my car towed. Thankfully, I was right, and it wouldn’t cost that much due to insurance. I should’ve known that I would get a discount. Serves me right for not reading the fine print. There’s a first time for everything, and also you learn something new every day. Wonder how many stock phrases I’d use before this day was over.
On cue, I heard a bang at the door. Loud enough for me, and definitely loud enough for Michael.
Walking to the door, I opened and greeted the Landlord.
“So what brings you here today?”
“I’m taking measurements for the back deck.”
“Oh…well…” Wait, why? “Why?”
“So I can measure the dimensions of the deck and get an estimate of the materials I’ll need to rebuild. Not to mention that some of the boards may be rotting by now so I need to check on that as well.”
“Alright, but the deck seems fine…” It could use a fresh coat of paint, but other than that it looked good.
“Well you think that, but if you took a closer look you’d see that it’s in bad need of repair. By the way, am I allowed in?” Oh shit, I’ve been blocking her way.
Once she let herself in, she walked to the back door.
“Come out here with me so I can show ya what’s wrong.” You could’ve just went to the back door in the first place…
Well, I had plans to do nothing, but sure, I guess I’ll go outside.
Slipping back on my shoes, I followed Jean outside to the back left corner of the deck. She placed her foot down, not in a slam, but not a tap either, on a dark part in a board about an inch from the edge. The wood creaked a little and gave in some. Hard to tell how much since her shoe covered most of it.
“Feel that.” Jean was pointing to the dark part, which I placed my foot over. Before I could feel whatever she was worried about, I got interrupted.
“No, feel it with your hands.” I paused, bit my lip, and did as she requested. The wood there was fragile. Soft to the touch, with a lot more give than I’d like for something I stand on. I guess this was what she was concerned about.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“That’s rotted wood.” She was sharp with her words, as if she just thought of it pissed her off.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to step on that.”
“It wouldn’t be that way if the guy that sold me this wood didn’t lie about it being treated. If it was treated it wouldn’t be doing this.”
“How long has the wood been on here?” If it’s been on here for twenty years, it was likely time to replace it anyway.
“About five years.” Yeah, that was kind of not long for it to already have spots rotting away. That being said, this was, as far as I knew, the only bad spot on this whole deck. It was on the far left corner of the deck, a spot I’d never stepped on. Hell, I didn’t know there was anything wrong with the deck until now. Makes me glad that Michael was hopping in the middle of the deck instead of back here.
Looking at my car, I suddenly remembered that I still had to get it towed.
“Shit…”
“What’s wrong?” Jean, still inspecting the deck, stopped and faced me.
“My car isn’t working. It’s completely dead.”
“The battery needs a charge?”
“I highly doubt it, but it’s worth a shot.” This was going to be a waste of time, since I knew it wasn’t the battery. When I had a battery start to fail on me, I knew it was happening since my car’s dashboard lights would start flickering. It’s the reason why I don’t chill in my car on anymore. In this case, if it was the battery, it would mean that it was a sudden failure, which implies that it can’t be recharged.
This was my thinking, but Jean was stubborn to the point where I would have go along for the time being.
“Can you pop the hood for me real quick? I wanna see if it’s anything I can fix.” She was walking to my car, curious as to what could be wrong with it. She wasn’t going to find out, but I’ll entertain her. Maybe she’d buy me a new one if she couldn’t fix it.
I still had my keys in my pocket. Instinctively I tried to unlock my door, forgetting that it was already unlocked.
Inside the car, I pulled the lever that opened the trunk.
“Try to crank it.” Jean, looking at my engine told me to do what I knew couldn’t be done.
“It won’t do anything, but alright.”
I ‘started’ my car several times, demonstrating the problem. After I stopped, I leaned out the window and looked at Jean.
“Well?”
“Take your keys out for a moment.”
“Okay…” I leaned back in and took them out. This was pointless. Ideally, she would pull out a hundred grand and tell me to buy the car of my dreams, but that wasn’t her. She still operated as if she was a middle-class woman, even though she was by all accounts a hundred-millionaire. She complained about taxes a lot–never about where they’re going to, but the concept of them. She had half of her lottery earnings taken by the government, which was most likely the main point of contention for her. Still, she had more money than 99.99% of people, so while she may not like it, I couldn’t give a fuck less. I’d still humor her if she opined about it, since I was getting a good deal on my lease. Anyway. This was wasting her time. This would be wasting my time as well if I had anything better to do. I couldn’t even properly bitch about doing this pointless activity, since she was technically helping me out. This was the vehicle equivalent of ‘Have you tried turning it off and on again?’, but it was still something. Jean was stubborn to the point where she would try to fix it herself if she thought she could. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. Of course, there are millions of men out there who believe that they can fix anything, but I’ve never seen a woman share that mentality. She was an odd woman, that was for sure. Considering that all of the improvements around the property were done by her, she was pretty useful with tools. That much was true. However, was it worth the time spent? Compared to what else she could be doing? Every other rich person I know pays someone else to do their chores.
I reached for my phone and only had enough time to check the weather when I heard “Alright, try to crank it now!”
Huhhhh, fine. I plugged in my key once more and tried…holy shit! It was cranking! It started! My car was working! It was fixed!
I exited my car—I needed to see what magic she performed on my ailing Honda.
“How’d you fix it?”
“Your battery wasn’t connected properly.” She was pointing to the red knob on top of my battery, where the ‘positive’ power came from. “All I had to do was tighten the connection. Not a hard fix.”
I went back to turn off my car, then back to the front. Tapping on the knob, I thought of many things. I wasn’t going to need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars anymore. I wasn’t totally at ease, however—how could I be when I let a simple fix like that go under my nose? Especially with how much I think about cars in the first place, you’d think I would know how to tinker with them as well. The reality is that I like cars because they go fast–I don’t know that much about how they work. All I can say is that I don’t like to play with expensive toys.
“Well, at least I know I don’t have to get anything fixed.” I was relieved, to say the least. It was all quite silly, reflecting on it. What if I had gotten my car towed just for the fix to be as simple as that? The embarrassment would kill me for the whole day. It would be better than having a car with a dead battery or something more expensive, but it would at the least make me feel incompetent. Emasculated. A good-for-nothing idiot who can’t even check his battery before getting it towed.
Well, enough stewing about it. Not that I want to go, but if I’m going to pay the bills, I needed to go to work. Good thing I left my lunch in my passenger seat.
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$9.95 for a GPS tracker…yes…fuck yes. My plan is working out exactly how it should.
Now that I had come up with exactly where The Roommate works, it was time to track him down. Knowing where he works isn’t enough. I need to get him when he’s not in public.
How could I find where he lives without trailing him home? Attaching GPS trackers to the vehicles of men who work at Hobby Lobby was the best choice. How did I know where to go to? That would be thanks to Francis…
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Fuck. I can’t stand this asshole. Dudetubers seriously are the worst.
I couldn’t tell you how many streams of his I’ve watched. His shitty streams were most of what I had consumed within the last month. I’ve played his streams in reverse order, trying to find a nugget of knowledge about where he lived.
As a corpo VTuber, it was a prerequisite that they don’t give out where they lived. Some of them had ventured outside of VTubing where they revealed their face–that ruined the immersion for me, I didn’t watch those tubers. With that in mind, they still didn’t reveal where they lived. The most you would get was which country they lived in. A lot of them lived in Canada. Some lived in Europe. A lot lived in Japan, despite being part of the English branch of their company. Making the move to Nihon made it easier for them to be in touch with management, which was located in Tokyo more often than not.
As for Francis Fukuyama, I knew that he had moved from the West Coast to the East Coast. Going back in time on his Twitter page, he documented the trip as such. His reasoning behind it was that he wanted a place more ‘lowkey’ to live in. He had enough of Commiefornia, which was where I assumed he lived before. I wasn’t going to go that far back in his backlog to find that out. I was sick of the guy as it was.
He had made the move around a year and a half ago–the first mention of The Roommate was on his Twitter page late last December. Before, he had an entire house to himself. The Roommate wasn’t mentioned again until Valentine’s Day, when he had an incident hurting his toe. Francis was cooking some shitty pancakes and had come up with the excuse that he had to go to the restroom. Everyone in the chatroom had heard The Roommate’s scream, so Francis had to fess up eventually and tell them what happened. The Roommate’s toe had been hit so hard that it started bleeding. Something about him hitting a drawer in the living room. If only he had gotten Tetanus from it.
After that, The Roommate’s cameos on-stream were infrequent–there were a couple of streams where he played a supporting role–one where Francis did the One Chip Challenge and failed and one where he was driving in Gran Turismo 7. He had also made an appearance on Violet Bridgewater’s stream once, playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive with her. Whore.
From the outside, it seemed as if The Roommate was content with being a side character that didn’t interfere with the tuber’s lives. But I knew that wasn’t the case. I knew what his intentions were. And even if those weren’t his intentions, I had to move forward to ensure that no man would ever think about it. A precedent needs to be set.
The final clue, the one that zoned me in on where Francis was located, was from a stream that aired months before The Roommate moved in.
[ZATSUDAN] long time no chat [ANYCLOVER EN | Francis Fukuyama]
It was a three-and-a-half-hour-long stream. I didn’t want to listen to a second of it, but it was necessary. The fruits of my labor finally had come.
Twenty minutes in, Francis veered into a conversation about seeing ‘a lot of boats today’. He had been driving back home from the airport, and had seen ‘hella boats’ on the Interstate. “Like dozens of them, all looking like fishing boats”.
Since he lived ‘near a lake’, it made sense that he would see boats on the road. That was a given, but to that extent? That meant there had to be an event going on. According to him.
“I also saw an 18-wheeler with ‘BASSMASTER’ plastered on it. What the hell is going on? The fishing Super Bowl?”
Bassmaster…isn’t that the fishing thing? They hold fishing tournaments where the man who catches the biggest fish wins. I think that’s how it works. Fishing is based in theory, but in reality, it takes too long to catch one. It’s boring. Not for me.
The stream was from October 4th, 2022. I had to look up if the Bassmasters were holding a tournament at that time.
The third result was what I wanted:
2022 St. Croix Bassmaster Southern Open at Lake Hartwell presented by Mossy Oak Fishing - October 6-8 - Lake Hartwell
Bingo. I got him. Finally.
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There were only three Hobby Lobby stores within a reasonable driving distance of Lake Hartwell. They were all in separate counties, which were an hour's drive from each other. Theoretically, I could hit them all in one day and try to locate The Roommate there, but that would be inefficient. I could only be at one location at opening time, and there was no guarantee that he would be there. He could come in later, at noon or at 2 PM. It was a wildcard–all I knew was that he wouldn’t be there Sunday, since they’re closed then.
How many trackers would I need…I thought around ten would be good enough. Probably more than enough, but I would rather have too many than too little. It would be easier to buy around thirty and place them on every vehicle a male employee stepped out of, but I also wanted to cover my tracks. Leaving the trackers on the vehicles once the job was done would eventually lead back to me. Being a martyr for a purifying cause sounded nice, but I didn’t want to go to jail. They only have TV in there, no YouTube.
As for the acid…that was harder to find. I could make it, but I don’t trust myself…plus I don’t have the supplies. I think. I’d rather order it.
The strongest Hydrochloric Acid I could find was a 37% solution. It was strong enough–according to the bottle, it can ‘cause severe skin burns and eye damage. May cause respiratory irritation.’ It was perfect for what I wanted to do to The Roommate. I didn’t want to kill the guy, even if I had the urge to do it at times.
Along with that warning, there were warnings to not breathe it in and to use proper protection when using it. I had gloves, and I could buy goggles at a store. No need to get everything at the same place.
The acid would come in a quart-sized bottle. That would be more than enough for the purpose I was using it for. The problem wasn’t the volume, but if it was able to be easily opened. That, and if it could be easily splashed on someone. The bottle I was looking at seemed to be one that could be screwed off and on. I would have to ‘test’ it to see how long it would take to do that. According to the reviews, it is pourable, which means it is splashable as well. It’s something I couldn’t test out beforehand, so I’ll have to trust them on it.
As for my plan to find The Roommate, I came down to the following solution”
* Stake out Store A from 8 AM to 2 PM (longer if my laptop was still on) from the edge of the parking lot.
* Take note of each vehicle a male employee came out of.
* Hobby Lobby employees wore blue vests, which would be how I knew they worked there. There was the possibility that they wouldn’t have it on, but at most they would be carrying it.
* The Roommate had pale skin, so Black, Latino, and other dark-skinned men were automatically struck out.
* The Roommate, from the one pixelated picture I had seen, appeared to be thin. Skinnyfat at most. Obese men were automatically struck out.
* The Roommate more than likely was in his twenties or thirties. Age is hard to tell from a distance, but any elderly pale-skinned male employees were struck out, for now. There’s no confirmation that he isn’t a geezer, but it would be stupid to assume that he was over the age of forty.
* Tactically place a GPS tracker on each of the vehicles after an acceptable time of staking out.
* Return to my hotel room and write down the address of where each vehicle went after the male employee left work.
* If I have time, drive by where said addresses are. If they don’t have Leyland cypresses in the yard, strike them out. Go back to the hotel room and rest for the next day.
* Stake out Store B and start the same process.
* If I ran out of GPS trackers, automatically call it a day and return to the hotel room for the time being.
* If possible, return to Store A and retrieve the GPS trackers so they can be used on another vehicle.
* Wait until the next day and stake out Store C.
* If The Roommate is not located, then retrieve GPS trackers from Store A, B, and C and restart the process, looping from each store.
* If a week goes by without locating The Roommate, start again, going in B, C, A order.
* EXAMPLE: Week 1-
* Monday, Thursday = Store A
* Tuesday, Friday = Store B
* Wednesday, Saturday = Store C
* Week 2-
* Monday Thursday = Store B
* Tuesday, Friday = Store C
* Wednesday, Saturday = Store A
* Continue until The Roommate is located.
This process has its flaws, the most prevailing one being that I could be staking out a store on days when The Roommate is guaranteed not to work. However, I doubt he has that liberty since retail stores tend not to have set schedules, having their staff on variable schedules instead.
A pair of binoculars will be necessary so I can scope in on people who exit their vehicles. I think I have some in the house–if not, I can buy one at a store. I don’t need super powerful ones, just ones good enough to zoom in 10x at most.
Money is no issue. Any shithole hotel will work for my purposes. All I need good WiFi and a bed that won’t fuck up my back.
The journey down there will take two days of driving. I could get there in one if I didn’t sleep, but I need to keep my mind sharp. I’ve dulled it enough already listening to Francis. I’ve never checked in for a hotel room myself. I’m nervous about it, but I assume I’m not the only single white male checking into a seedy hotel for one night.
Today and tomorrow, I’ll prepare for my trip–buying all the supplies and planning on where to stay once I’m down there. I also need to wait until my Amazon order with the GPS trackers and hydrochloric acid arrives. I can’t leave without those.
Also, I need to mentally prepare myself to leave my sanctuary. The outside world is scary. Never mind how screwed up society is–I’ve lived my life able to not need to go outside often. For a few weeks, I’ll have to go outside my bubble. My comfort zone. I’ll have to be strong–if I chicken out, then The Roommate will never learn his lesson, and Juliet will be tainted forever. It’ll all be over soon.
image [https://i.imgur.com/ynUykA5.png]
Map of the three Hobby Lobby locations The Roommate could work at. The blue dots are their approximate location, and the lighter blue blob is Lake Hartwell, where the fishing tournament was held at. Making a round trip from Store A to Store B to Store C and back to Store A takes around an hour and a half, according to Google Maps.
image [https://i.imgur.com/h95Oiod.png]Store A’s parking lot. There are only a few parking spaces which are suitable for observation, highlighted in red. Perhaps there are more, but from a bird’s eye view, trees obstruct the view.
image [https://i.imgur.com/svTVKmg.png]Store B’s parking lot. There won’t be a problem with picking a spot to observe here–I just don’t need not to make it obvious what I’m doing. Perhaps parking facing the road and observing from the back window is the way to go. How does one sit backward in the back seat…
image [https://i.imgur.com/zdoiv9H.png]Store C’s parking lot. Parking at the end might be the best option–I could observe from the driver’s side window while having a sun visor cover my windshield. If I park closer to the store, then I’ll have to once again park facing the road and observe from the back window. The more I think about it, the dumber that idea sounds, but if I get caught it’s game over.