Mista BLICK

LOBO -Predator Press

I haven't had much time to delve into the VR world. And, until recently, I regarded it merely as "nifty."

But then I got a copy of something that changed my opinion.  There is software on the way that will let you make "handwritten" notes and a really cool 3-D archive system.  Anyone that knows me knows that I have notes EVERYWHERE, and my current organizational skills have me finishing this post February 2027.

Just saving the paper excites me.

"Man you really like that," Barbarossa observes. "Can I try it?"

It was about 6 minutes before he was hurling the writing tools, hoping for explosions.

Nyx

LOBO -Predator Press

As I slowly wake up, how and why Barbarossa is driving me home from Vegas is growing clearer.

"Man," he says as I slap his hands away from the radio.  "These office parties just aren't the same with out Maddy."

"How far away are we from food?" I demand, scanning billboards.  "And who is 'Maddy?'"

"Mads!" he blurts in disbelief, like that clears it up.  "The crazy girl with all the tattoos?"

Vaguely remembering, I ask "How is she doing?  Hey take this exit, or I'm going to pee in my own car."

"Dude, it only has 16,000 miles on it" he concedes, eyes wide as he decelerates. "She got married in October.  Husband disappeared four days later.  The cops finally issued a warrant to have her questioned, but she violated probation … "  He does a flourish with his free hand. "Poof."

"Huh," I says.  "So Maddy is single?"

"She asks about you all the time."

Area 52

[LOBO]-Predator Press

With Twitter now a smouldering wasteland, I figure I'm safer writing on something nobody reads.

"So you pissed off a bunch of nerds," says Barbarossa. "What is the big deal?"

"Because a nerd," I explain, peering through blinds pushed apart with a finger, "will put on a costume and kick your ass."

My day was spent in fairly meta thought. I guess I didn't need to explain why I canceled my subscription? But my job is to troubleshoot problems. I can't do my job without input, and I welcome it. Am I the one "out of step?" A mental analog comparison has me sending all our current accounts out to wreck up one that just left.

"Can I at least turn on the TV?" he asked.

"No lights," I reply. "Some Daredevil cosplayer might me taking a sniper bead on me even as we speak."

"Daredevil is blind," Barbarossa replies.  "He tracks stuff down by, like, sound and stuff."

"Okay fine," I concede.  "I suppose we can watch TV on mute."

I just read the news ticker for maybe thirty seconds.  The President of the United States is arguing with the National Football league.

"This isn't helping," I says.

"Did you know Hugh Hefner died?"

 "This is really not helping."

Suddenly the phone rang.

Oh shit they found me.

***

"Johnny Listen" isn't this kids real name.  His real name is Johnny something, but I found myself saying "Johnny, listen!" so often it stuck.

"Hey man," Johnny Listen says over the speakerphone.  "Can I have next week off?  I want to go on a fishing trip to Canada."

"You just started this job last week, and you want to .... ?"  I am listening to myself talk, sort of in disbelief.  Johnny Listen has the job I started with, and I remember being so infinitely grateful for it.  This kid, in theory, is following in my footsteps.

"You are going to have to call H.R." I says.  "I don't know what to tell you."

"Dude, will I be fired?"

"If you disappear for a week?" I says.  "Probably.  This is a job.  J-O-B.  And job you just started a few days ago."

"My girlfriend will break up with me if I get fired."

"Well," I sigh exasperated, "You should maybe put some thought into this."

"She thinks I am a loser.  I got fired from McDonalds because I kept messing up the orders."

The Return of Mister Insanity

Predator Press

[Mr. I]

"Our intelligence suggests that LOBO defected to the Saudi," explains Sapphire.

"Hmm," I says ponderously.  "You are aware that this blog has killed me off three or four times.  Are you going to offer the readers any explanation?"

Sapphire stares.

"Well okay then," I says.  "Has anyone thought of going on a manhunt to get LOBO back?"

Sapphire stares.

More.

"Well," says Barbarossa finally.  "I don't think we want the parade called off."

Taste

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"... and that is why," I conclude, "Every time you blew on a rose petal, a dust of diamonds would float off."

"Wow, man," Barbarossa breathes.

"So okay, your turn. If you could bang a celebrity, who would you fuck?"

"Sonia Sotomayor," he replies. "She is sooooo hot."

"Who?"

"The Supreme Court Justice. I would bend her over the waffles,  and smack that hot booty ... "

-I will reply as soon as I can stop blinking.

Bob White

Predator Press

@SnarquisdeSade

The murmuring stops suddenly as I enter the cafeteria.

Sapphire, clearly distressed, stands as she notices my entrance. "I'm sorry I couldn't get a conference room Mister -"

"And I'm sorry to have called this on such short notice," I says reassuringly. "This will do just fine. I didn't hire you because I thought you could put together last-minute meetings. I hired you because your resume says you can read Braille with your nipples. You never know when that might come in handy."

"Thank you," she replies.

Scanning the group of motley losers assembled, I watch them squirm under my gaze for a moment.

"Ladies and gentlemen and Bob," I says finally, "I have uncovered a deadly threat -one that could destroy the company with inefficiency, property damage, and injury lawsuits."

Barbarossa raises his hand. "Is it me?"

"Not this time," I reply.  "Now let's imagine we have an inept and dangerous driver. I'll make up a name and spell it backwards for this hypothetical situation. Eh, Bob. Yes. Bob-"

Bob White, coincidentally an inept and dangerous driver that could destroy the company with inefficiency, property damage, and injury lawsuits, snaps his pencil.

"Fuck you," he replies.

"So this guy, uh, Bob," I point the PowerPoint remote at the microwave. "Has been at this for a long time as you can see ... "

"You can't do a PowerPoint presentation on a microwave, dumbass," Bob White guffaws.

Feigning confusion, I open the microwave -revealing dozens and dozens of Dunkin Donuts.

Barbarossa stands.

"Death to Bob!"

The 2013 "Knock it Off!" Rebirth

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"I mean who really cares if we call it 'Christmas?' Now we call it 'Winter Holiday.' Or if the Ten Commandments are on display someplace in public?" A migraine almost certainly looming, I rub my temples. "At some point America lost the ability to call an asshole an asshole. And as a consequence, we lost the ability to tell assholes to knock it off."

"Man you think about this stuff too much," replies Barbarossa. "You need to relax more. Why don't you try golf?"

"I love golf," I point out. "I play it on X-Box all the time."

"No," he replies. "I mean for real. You meet a different breed of people. Last week I met a guy who is sooooo rich," he pauses for a second, "His name was Rich, and-"

"You met a rich guy named Rich?"

"Yeah. He's got a horse-"

"Is the horse's name 'horse?'"

Barbarossa ponders this for a moment, rubbing his beard. "I don't know. But he's got this wicked Corvette, too ..."

"What the hell would a horse do with a Corvette?"

"You're telling me to knock it off, aren't you?"

Com-Castrated

Predator Press


[LOBO]

One of the casualties of trying to pay for my car was my cable television.

-Between renting the equipment and blah blah services, I cut my bill by ninety dollars.

Still it was rough; pulling those cables out this morning was a very painful experience, analogous almost to euthanizing a pet. 

"So why are you working here?" I ask Barbarossa as we stand in the cafeteria chow line.  Friday chow has a Mexican food theme, and it's the only day of the week I may deign to eat there.

And the only lunchtime I see Barbarossa, now a non-smoker.

"My last boss was a racist," he replies.

The lady behind the counter 'wraps up' her last customer and turns to me.  "What can I get you?"

I manage a smile, despite the fact that I don't have cable.  "I would like the mega nachos with everything -including jalapenos- but without beans."  Well rehearsed and recited, my thoughts never left my dearly departed cable TV.

-But I decided to be strong.

"A racist?" I asked Barbarossa.  "What happened?"

Barbarossa, next in line, stares at the menu, jaw agape.  "He found a half a joint in my F-16.  And then he had me take a piss test."

"Did you want jalapenos?" asked the lady behind the counter.

"Yes please,"  I nod politely.

"So," I pause, "where did the racism come in?"

Barbarossa, still reading a menu that said, "Nachos or MEGA Nachos," scratched his beard in thought.

"I think he was like ... Ukrainian  or something," he replied.

The lady making my nachos dips the big spoon into a big, blacked pot.

"You said extra beans, right?"

Go Fighty!

Predator Press

[LOBO]

It's a fact: people never give Predator Press any credit for the huge socio-economic and medical advances we have provided Humanity.

And how about the Science and Engineering?

Hm?

When we presented the alternative to 'Doggie Stairs' with our 160 horsepowered Doggie Centrifuge, did this fantastical technological advancement get mentioned in a Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, or maybe even a lousy Readers Digest?

No. We got "-but the dogs land in random places at crazy speeds!" blah blah.

So now where is Sports Illustrated on our groundbreaking 'Mag-Cat' Research and Development? My theory that cats -cunning natural predators equipped with lightning-fast reflexes, guile, and grace- are ideally suited for intense Air Hockey competition is gonna make us millions.

Just kiss my ass, Forbes.


***

First and foremost, the Air Hockey table -pointedly designed for humans- would have to undergo some minor modifications to provide for a suitable and level playing field for serious Feline Competition. So at great expense to you, our own Predator Press Scienticians magnetically reversed an Air Hockey table surface.

Unfortunately, cats are naturally highly-resistant to magnetism, and tiny little magnetically-repellant boots needed to be developed to respond to the magnetic fields. This realistically replicates the 120-decibel gravity-free Air Hockey environment for cats exactly as it would occur in nature.

We should have a good “regulation” set of these boots available commercially by Christmas. And while coming in at a hefty $850, you must remember that there are four ... plus we throw in our patented "This Side Up" polarity collar and a Buell helmet totally for free. Further, we think $850 is a small price to pay for any serious Air Hockey or cat safety enthusiast: once augmented with the $800 fire extinguisher mandated by California State, your cat will be howling past you on the freeway.

Four of our cats can get to Madison Square Garden from here in eight minutes.

-Theoretically. They cannot read maps, and are complete suckers for every Stuckey's they see along the way.

But truthfully I do not consider an insatiable Pecan Roll dependency a side effect of our regimented and complex training: for several months now, one of Phil's kittens (due to her inexplicable and irritable disposition I call her "Fighty") has undergone 1,074 hours of observation actually wearing the boots, and she finally acclimated well to her vastly improved mobility -even with the chainsaw attachments.

And let me tell you buddy, she hates Pecan Rolls.

Fighty -already a Mag-Cat first season veteran- is ready for some healthy competition. And she's virtually undefeated! Her 27-1 record was most unfairly despoiled by Barbarossa rubbing her fur backwards during the Winter Halftime Show last February; this triggered a static discharge resulting in one hell of bang, four molten transformers, subsequent rolling blackouts, two crashed satellites, an irrepressible odor of burning hair permeating everything in the Lab, and me spilling my coffee.

Now, the fire department gets cats out of trees all the time, right? When's the last time you saw a cat skeleton in a tree? But you call those jerks and tell them about your smoldering and pissed steroid-jazzed chainsaw-wielding cat magnetically attached to the side of a water tower and see what happens.

I swear those fire department guys are totally worthless.

Nonetheless, lil' Fighty today is an Air Hockey Champion nose-to-tail; just show her that plastic puck or a Pecan Roll, and she yowls, spits and hisses ...

(I should probably get her spayed.)

Tools

Predator Press

[LOBO]

"I bought a tool today."

"Wow," says Barbarossa, genuinely impressed. Setting the phone on 'speaker,' he proceeded to trim his beard. "What kind?"

"A screwdriver of some kind. Kinda 'T' shaped. Heavy on the end you hit stuff with."

"That sounds more like a hammer."

"It drives screws just fine."

The Jawbone of an Ass

Predator Press


[LOBO]

Monday Night Football -opening night- is something I've been looking forward to for six months. But staring up at the large television screen, I suddenly realize I have no idea who is playing.

And like a ship coming in from a midnight horizon, I slowly realize Barbarossa is talking to me.

"... I mean it's your third divorce right?" he shrugs in a saccharin optimism. "It's just like riding a bike."

We are regulars here. I even have a drink named after me.  But from somewhere deep behind the warm, invisible shield provided by my third or fourth "el LOBO" (a Fuzzy Navel with a miniature umbrella), I concede that there are far too many witnesses present to kill Barbarossa; despite the chemically-exaggerated comfort level and nigh irresistible appeal to irony, "Happy Hour" lacks the sadistic discretion required for murder.

-And it's hard to kill a man with a jukebox, napkins, and neon beer signs frankly ... it would be a lot easier, for instance, if we were at Sears in the Craftsman tools section.

Tall and lanky, Barbarossa's skinny arm lands across my back, grabs my opposite tricep and pulls me in for a sympathetic hug. Balancing haphazardly on the barstool, my eyes bulge in sobering panic.

"Stop walking around so ... so wounded," he slurs in sincere sympathy. "Don't think of them as marriages.  Think of them as leases. You know, serial monogamies."

"For some of us maybe," I says, peeling his spider-like arm off. Scowling thoughtfully, the urge to drive ample fistfuls of spent miniature umbrellas repeatedly through his eyes and deeply into his brain melts away; instead I find myself reeling in Barbarossa's unprecedented nugget of dark philosophical wisdom -an observation so devoid and pure of subjectivity, it borderlined math.

Barbarossa wobbles visibly. "That's the spirit," he agrees apropos of nothing I can readily discern. Then, after perhaps suffering a fleeting glimpse of self-awareness, he sits more upright, raising his drink in an courage-inspiring toast to me.

"So what are you going to do first?"

Absently, halfheartedly colliding my drink into his beer mug, I weigh this murky prospect carefully too.

"Everything," I decide.

"Seriously?" he says in disbelief. "Man, it's already like nine thirty. How about pinball?"

Fifty Shades of Grey Matter

Predator Press


[LOBO]

"So who are you voting for?" Barbarossa asks in a disinterested, sing-song manner.

"Obama," I reply through a foamy upper lip.  Setting the large mug down authoritatively on the bar with my left hand I simultaneously hold my right fist to my heart, belching softly. "Jesus. Are you kidding? The Dems are going to hunt the rich people down and burn them at the stake."

Looking to me from the overhead television for the first time in a half hour, he grunts.  "I never had you pegged as a Liberal."

"I'm not," I reply. "At some point the Conservatives will get tired of being burned at the stake, and hire me to eliminate the 'Liberal Scourge' out of desperation.  Remember, the Republicans have all the money.  And guns."

"Wow. What's fucking awesome," Barbarossa ponders.  "You're gonna play one side to eliminate the other.  Then what?"

"I dunno," I shrug at the television.  "Margaritas maybe?"

It's Official: EVERYTHING Pain in the Ass Now

Predator Press


[LOBO]

"Just because I took you off of Probation doesn't mean I don't still own 51% of Barbarossa Enterprises," I says, menacingly poking my finger into his birdcage chest. "And things like this could get you right back on Probation."

"Well I don't know if you're aware of this," Barbarossa retorts, "but congratulations J.R. Ewing. You are proud owner of 51% of all four seasons of Sealab 2021 on DVD and 100,000 pairs of socks."

"Ah-HA!" I says.

Wait.

-What?

"And don't ask about the sock thing," Barbarossa warns. "I have OCD as a consequence of childhood trauma. If I don't buy socks, I stab people."

Man those must be some pretty cool socks.

"Fine," I demand. "Then we'll start with the socks. I would like my 51% of them immediately. And don't think you're gonna to give me all the crappy socks either -I want all of the left-side ones, and 1,000 right-side of my choice."

Sex Offender

Predator Press


[LOBO]

"How come you haven't been going to work?" asks Barbarossa. "Did you get fired already?"

"No." I reply. "The Spanish Fly Industrial Complex closed down. Everyone is dead. I would be too if I hadn't called off sick my first day."

"What happened?"

"Apparently they tried my suggestion of using ionized water. This created the unexpected result of Spanish Fly that actually worked. What ensued was the most fantastic HAZMAT situation in history, and within two hours everyone died from severe trauma to the pelvis."

Barbarossa stares.

"I still get a check in the mail every two weeks," I shrug.

"Cool!"

Obama Told Me There'd Be Days Like This

Predator Press


[LOBO]

“For a guy that got the job,” says Barbarossa, “you sure don’t look very happy about it.”

“Nah I’m fine,” I says, checking my mirrors. “It‘s just weird. Nobody has passed that test in 30 years. Doctor Yakamoto died in 2006. So everybody has gotta pull on my hair to see if it’s a wig.”

“So it’s the Spanish Fly Industrial Complex, huh? What do they make?”

Watching the road, I didn’t realize he wasn’t kidding.

“Spanish Fly,” I say finally, migraine already creeping in.

“Wow,” says Barbarossa, staring vacantly into the rolling scenery. “Do the Japanese make American ones too? Or are those shipped to Japan? And who makes the flies for the Spaniards?”

Idiot.

“Spanish Fly is a drink that supposedly makes women, ah, amorous.”

“Will it work on Agatha?”

I stare. “No. You should stick to something traditional like Wild Turkey.”

“But that’s because you think Agatha is a guy. And if Agatha is a guy, I would be gay. And I’m not gay.”

“Have you had sex yet?”

“Not in the traditional sense,” he explains. “She’s saving herself for marriage.”

I scowl as all the car's cylinders rise willingly to the sudden burst of speed request at my toe. “Barbarossa, if you say one more goddamn thing I’ll jump the median and kill us both.”

He's like having a conversation with a rock that has learning disabilities. And true to form, he get a few miles before he forgets.

“They’re gonna miss you at the warehouse,” he says.

“Yeah,” I sigh happily, relaxing my toe. “And I wanted to talk about that. You’ll probably end up with my old job if you play your cards right.”

“I’ll have to if me and Agatha are going to raise a family.”

Picking my battles, I let that slide. Rubbing my chin, I choose words carefully. “A car, good job, steady,” I wince painfully. “-girlfriend," I blurt. “You’ve come a long way. “And I’m proud of you. Sort of. I’m taking you off of Probation.”

“Fucking awesome,” he beams. “Hey. Will you tell me what that big red button you threatened me with did?”

“It wasn’t hooked up to anything,” I confess nervously. “It didn’t need to be. Your imagination was infinitely worse than any nightmarish device I could devise.”

“I’ll say,” Barbarossa agrees, eyebrows arched high. “I started wetting the bed last September.” Still staring at the scenery, he adds, “How come we don’t put Spanish Fly in the water supply? We would probably get medals or something.”

“I’m way ahead of you,” I says, scowling. “It turns out Spanish Fly doesn’t work. All it probably does is give a guy some confidence.”

Barbarossa nods slowly. “But what if he’s an asshole?”

“Well, let’s face it,” I says, turning down Barbarossa’s street. “The guy who is going to slip this into someone’s drink for sex is a moral level of scumbag just inches from using roofies or whatever in the first place.”

“Do you get an employee discount?”

“Hell yeah,” I grin. “40 percent off!”

Borne Leader

Predator Press


[LOBO]

"I regret to inform you," sighs Barbarossa, "That you have been nominated as Union Steward."

My attention snaps from the computer screen. "What?"

"The People like your plan to bring back sexual harassment. Restoring the two martini lunch would be cool too." He scratches his chin. "Even piss testing us is a violation of the HIPPA law."

My eyebrows furrow. "I can't be a corporate lickspittle and a Union Steward. And have you looked around? SFIC is a soiree of Asperger's Disease and, well, ugly. You want drugs too? This place would be a seething cesspool of literally toxic DNA."

"We want the American workplace to be restored back to the glory days of 1960."

"Barbarossa, what year were you born?"

"1961," he replies.

"I rest my case."

Phillip K. Dickhead

Predator Press

[LOBO]

Picture a gigantic five-story hamster cage a quarter of a mile across, and each of the five floors separated by a maze of its own storage, industrial equipment, and systems of belts to bring freight in and out.

A demented child’s toy, blown up to the size of an amusement park.

-But I often forget its subtle and elegant genius; here at the precipice, the fifth floor, I can see down through all the cage floors, and clearly make out faces of my coworkers clocking in.

Coburn, my boss, is explaining something in excruciating detail. Probably the daily goals and hot issues, and I’m pretending to listen. But frankly the last thing I remember hearing him say was at the cafeteria pizza party two weeks ago, when he announced to some forty of us workers he “couldn’t eat with us because he is vegan.”

Well, I don’t want to work for a vegan –especially the world’s only fat vegan. At 5’2" and with a blunted-looking head, Coburn almost casts a perfectly cube shadow from any direction.

Coburn stops talking at the same moment I see Barbarossa, out of breath and sweating, clocking in on the ground floor.

Barbarossa is four minutes late.

“We will descend upon this like the angels of an angry God,” I growl.

Coburn, I’m surprised, is still here. In fact I’m reflexively engaged in his weirdly-hard, excruciating handshake.

“You’re a good man,” Coburn explains. “And the company has its eye on you.”

Prey-dar

Predator Press


[LOBO]

"I'm not going to be able to make it in today," wheezes Barbarossa over the radio. "I'm actually in the hospital."

Knowing Barbarossa's susceptibility to allergies, his first sick day doesn't really come as a surprise ... particularly in the pollen surfeit of this early Illinois Spring. But I have a corporate meeting scheduled this morning where toothy, well-dressed execs will want to decide what he should be fired for; Barbarossa's absence today would be professional suicide.

"Dude," he rasps over the phone cradled in my palm. "I think I just saw a the nurse fart!"

Switching the labels on his nasal decongestant spray and eye drops was merely hastening the inevitable.

-And inspired.

Reversing the Mayan Prophecy One Day at a Time

This is me in the picture.  Probably.

Predator Press

[LOBO]

For an additional $6.85 a week (after taxes), I am now officially in charge of Barbarossa -the closest approximation to a friend I have- and his girlfriend Agatha, who I strongly suspect is a transsexual.

The toothy boss-guy gripping my paw painfully gushes, "I think we've overlooked your rare qualifications long enough."

"I agree whoreheartedly" I reply, shaking back in a sincere and enthusiastic manner. "How soon can I fire people?"

Pthbbbt ... Stupid Mayans.

LOBO's Discourse on "The Nature of Reality." Yes, there's a Quiz.

Predator Press


[LOBO]

As the economy slowly recovers, overqualified people compete for grunt work.

(-I imagine you’ll hear a lot more stories like this in the near future.)

But one of my squad is getting a promotion.

And it might be me.



***
It took a lot of effort and misdirection to get to the Battery Room earliest this morning, but I had completely forgotten I reset the entire battery bay the night before. Personally. While I was expecting only one charged unit left, there was a full array of “juice” for all the walkie-talkies.

Still, the morning meeting wasn’t for another twelve minutes. I let the door close behind me and basked in the restorative quiet, slipping into the deskless swivel chair for a contemplative moment.

"Honey. we can't see each other anymore.
-It's not you, it's me."

Absently doing the well-practiced battery swap, I ponder having forgotten I set them up yesterday. Indeed I now remember explicitly doing it. But I could have walked in on a single battery today, and never given it another thought. The good ole sterile, irrefutable, mathematical Universe confounded its favorite Existentialist again with a potent dose of non-subjective Reality -alas only demonstrating my full embrace of the lens from which I choose to view it.

The “promotion” is nigh inconsequential, and hardly warranting attention. Paywise, it is about a quarter an hour -$10 a week. Before taxes.

And I am apparently competing with the rest of my “squad,” Barbarossa and Agatha –both of whom burst suddenly into the room, startling me slightly, and apparently discussing the same subject.

“It’s not worth it,” explains Agatha. She greets me with a dismissive wave, engrossed in conversation with Barbarossa. “It just makes people complain to you more. And that’s all people do around here is complain.”

The fact that Agatha is ironically complaining hasn’t escaped me, but I got lost in thought about Agatha's hands.

I don’t think "Agatha" is a woman.

***

See you can tell a lot about people by their hands. Their real age. Their occupation.

Their sex.

It beats that “Adam’s apple” crap all to hell. You can have the Adam’s apple surgically altered. But to my knowledge there’s no plastic surgery for hands -and could you imagine the expense? Thus, I suspect this large-handed, sometimes flat chested, six foot two, athletically-built, redhead-sporting-rare-patches-of-unfreckled-flesh “woman” -who personally chose the name “Agatha” BTW, and visibly smolders about all the above- is competition for this dubious honor with me.

In any case, she will kick ass on our softball team. Barbarossa, on the other hand, is of little concern. His eyes are black and swollen from sleepless exhaustion. And his hands shake from nervous anxiety. Addled. He really, really looks like he could use some pot to relax. But remember he thinks I am his probation officer for some reason, and I promptly dispose of unprocessed piss tests of his on a weekly basis like clockwork.

 -I can't let him cloud his judgment now, potentially on the cusp of a potentially huge career move for him, can I?

As a Professional, I would prefer Barbarossa seek out the Universe's source of his issues -like the fact that someone using a surreptitiously-made car key has been sneaking out of the morning meeting and parking his car someplace different, adjusting his seats, reprogramming his radio stations and, yes, occasionally slightly deflating a random tire here and there.

I only know this because I have been paying Agatha twenty bucks a week to do it for over a month now.

And with Barbarossa out of the running, I’ll just point out the parking lot security tape of Agatha doing it.

But then I noticed something else disturbing about Agatha's hands.

-Barbarossa was holding one of them.

I think I screamed.