Perhaps the aura manipulation technology is not yet ready for prime time. People ought to be more ambiguous, maybe. The further out on the tree limb one goes, the more likely it is it to snap.

Presently I detached the thread of spittle coming from my mouth from the floor and wiped it on my pants. I stood up and rushed to the window, searching for the source of some automotive commotion. Ted was driving the moving truck out front followed by his wife driving their Lexus. I beat my disappointment back with feigned satisfaction, "Good riddance." But really, I would miss borrowing Ted's tools and watching his wife sunbathe by their pool. She honked and waved to their house, but I pretended it was to me.

--

My girlfriend and I enjoy passing the time by perusing pedestrian retail establishments and separating that which is beneath us from that which we would suffer to enter our shopping basket. Smug satisfaction is the sweetest flavor, and nothing affords us as much of that as reaffirming our superiority over blankets with sleeves and useless culinary devices.

All of these products represent bold, albeit blind, stabs at catching the American dream, but life feeds on our ambitions and excretes our failures. Finding enjoyment in failure is as close to victory as I hope to achieve.