"FWLS38" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

A Future We'd Like To See 1.38 - Hard Sell
By Twoflower (Copyright 1994)

Lucky me, lucky me. Lucky me who has to go shop around for
the perfect defense mechanism. Lucky me who has to suffer
humiliation for picking the wrong one.

I'm not cut out for shopping. I can't handle it... I go to
the supermarket with the sole intention of just getting a box of
doughnuts. Then some clerk tapped me on the shoulder. "Anything
I can help you with, sir?" I panic and blurt, "Yes, I'd like
that, that, some of those, and fifteen of that." Then he gave me
a knowing grin, and reminded me that I couldn't buy the checkout
lady. I had actually pointed to some poor girl, who was only
taking the job to work her way through school, and asked if she
was for sale!

People often wonder why I keep things like rutebegas, wheat
treaties, and frozen fishsticks around if I don't like them.
It's mostly because I'm too spineless to avoid buying them, and
too spineless to let good food go to waste, down the garbage
chute. After a day or two of denial, I usually donate the food
to charity. I'm really popular at the local shelter.

So why did they pick ME to go to the MekShow and find a
suitable model for the defense project? Because I drew the
shortest straw, that's why. I just know what's going to happen.
I'll get hassled by salesmen, and either suffer an instantaneous
brain hemorrhage or automatically select the biggest, most
expensive, most useless 'mech in the show. My boss Tony spazzed
when I brought in glazed instead of jelly; how will he react when
I buy a glazed doughnut that costs upwards of fifty thousand
credits?!

Well, this jellyfish wouldn't go down without a fight. I
had my positive reinforcement, non-gullibility pscyhotherapist
approved treatment CD2s loaded up, and I was ready. Bring out
your worst!

I almost turned right around and walked out after paying my
five-credit fee to enter the MekShow. Mechs! Hundreds of them!
All under one roof (at least there would have been a roof, if
someone hadn't destroyed it in yesterday's demonstrations). I
tapped the PLAY button on my CD2.

*Remember, nobody is pushing you into anything,* the calm,
sensitive voice soothed, as light music played and a babbling
brook churbled its way from my left ear to my right ear. *You
don't have to buy it if you don't want to...*