Legal To Own Slot Machine In California - Tatiana Anderson

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I ended up splitting off some of 8 into 9 based on feedback. The story I've thought of will end on 10, and then it's back to the drawing board for me. I'm not sure if I would continue with this universe or come back with another idea, let me know if you have an opinion either way.
I'll start posting these onto a site I found called RoyalRoad in addition to reddit. I won't take donations, but it does seem like it has nice utilities to manage all the stories even if the audience is smaller. Any advice on this welcome too.
And as always, I'm still a new writer trying to improve. Feedback about the story or my writing are all very welcome, and I read every one of them.
Galactic Credits weren't technically a currency yet. They had a lot of GCs in the bank, but as the aliens would say, that's just numbers on a screen. You couldn't pay rent and taxes with GCs, not yet.
As some human traders switched to exclusively buying goods from the market, they paid hard earned Dollars in exchange for virtual GC, and that became the revenue stream. This revenue balanced out almost perfectly with sellers who were instantly cashing out.
For every Dollar that someone paid GC to convert to credits, only about 95 cents would be asked to be paid out by a seller trying to withdraw their GCs for cash.
The transaction fees that GC made on every transaction can be visualized as credits disappearing into an untouched locked account. This was effectively a profit for GC, because it meant less credits that had to be exchanged for $. That 5% margin was a steady Dollar revenue stream that they could safely cash out.
But because all the humans needed to pay bills and taxes, they would withdraw their money almost immediately, which meant that they would always be stuck around that 5% margin. Unlike a regular bank, they couldn't make a lot of investments.
That's when the universe decided to give them a break.
Or rather, their interests had aligned with the self interest of some very rich people who had just started paying attention.
At first, the financial systems on Earth did not care much about GCs. They were used in spaceports all around Earth, and space was very exciting, but it was inaccessible to most people and the actual trade volume was a small percentage of total businesses done on Earth.
The aliens directly made a few people very, very rich, mostly traders and GC. But what were of more interest to financial institutions were the reverse engineered alien technology products that they predicted were coming shortly. At the same time Sarah and her friends were trying to fix a famine, the human economy was booming.
Like GC, banks were in the business of selling gold prospecting equipment, not looking for gold themselves.
Naturally, banks started allowing deposits and withdrawal of GC. This wasn't unusual. Banks have no issues holding onto cryptocurrency and non-USD currencies for customers' savings accounts. That was their business, after all. There were some costs, but it was generally a good business: fat transaction fees led to fat profit margins.
In the case of GC, banks needed to charge their customers a high transaction fee because GC itself charged a high transaction fee. This was bad for business. Not many people kept their credits in other banks because GC itself was a bank and they kept their money in there just fine without having to pay an even higher transaction fee.
They were understandably unhappy about several of their wealthier customers keeping a lot of money in another bank, but not enough to want to choke out GC's business. That would be killing their golden goose that is the booming alien knockoff economy.
So when GC decided to raise liquidity, as they would need to do to continue to bankroll a multi-planetary relief mission indefinitely, the banks saw an opportunity. Or rather, VISA did.
It was an incredibly generous offer: VISA would treat Galactic Credits like Dollars and allow full convertibility on their own network, in exchange for GC waiving their entire transaction fee for bank transfers. Their lawyers didn't want GC to go ahead and print money without limits, so they put a contingency that allowed them to cut off GC whenever they wanted and clauses that allowed for regular auditing.
Sarah and her friends thought about it, but not for very long.
Galactic Credit became no longer the only bank that could deal in credits.
Credits were now freely transferable between banks.
Now, you could pay taxes in credits converted to USD.
Which meant people stopped withdrawing their Dollars from GC immediately, and GC could "borrow" that money to pay for supplies, equipment, and then use some to invest in companies on Earth.
It was like a limited run of fractional reserve banking.
The aid operation to Gak continued.
"Isn't this technically a blatant violation of minimum wage laws?" Asked Sarah over the FTL video comms, the crisp and quick quality of which was a testament of how much human infrastructure had been shipped into Gakrek orbit, "doing some quick maths with the average fuel and maintenance costs here… it looks like we're basically paying the space traders only about $10 for every hour of shipping they do for us."
Kathleen Bryce, GC's head counsel shifted uncomfortably in a conference room chair 50 light years away, though her immediate reply indicated she had indeed thought the problem through, "Not if anyone asks."
She continued, "the short story is nobody has tested the courts to see if aliens working for us in space are subject to California employment and labor regulations, or federal minimum wage laws, or perhaps, even no laws."
"What's the long story?" Jen asked, slightly interested.
"We're pretty sure they're at most contractors, definitely not employees. Cali Prop 22 took care of that. The spaceport is probably considered international territory, or else the traders would be considered 'illegal aliens' every time they landed," Kathleen did a little chuckle at that most unoriginal pun around the GC legal team watercooler, "In which case, the lower federal minimum wage applies. Or maybe it's not even international territory, maybe it's some new thing. Too many edge cases to descri-"
"Ok," Sarah said after a moment, "it'll probably look bad though."
"What will?" Jen countered, rolling her eyes, "that they're being asked to voluntarily work just above cost to help save a billion hungry aliens, a problem that, let's not forget, most people in the galaxy think they helped create in the first place? Give me a break. There's fifty thousand Red Cross workers working for free on Gakrek and you're telling me we-"
"Ok, ok, we'll save this discussion for later, interesting as the implications are," Stearns interrupted, "until the labor board starts sniffing around, we'll let Legal deal with it. The other item I wanted to get to today is what we're going to do for Gak in the medium and long term."
"Right, the immediate crisis is over, but the moment we pull our people out and stop sending food constantly, the Gaks are back to square one in two months," Sarah returned to her presentation, "over the past two weeks, our models keep having to be revised down on the future of Gakrek farming. Their climate system has been dramatically spiraling downwards for decades now. With this disaster: the out of control burning and flooding, the trashed ecosystems, and the Gaks literally selling off their farming tools to squeeze out some more fruits from traders, they added up to one conclusion: traditional subsistence agriculture is no longer viable on Gakrek."
Here she put up a chart on screen. There were two lines. There's a straight horizontal line, marking the average calories that healthy Gaks needed, and then there's a quickly plummeting line denoting the drastic decrease of Gak agricultural productivity over time. They crossed about ten years ago. The meaning was clear.
"It's increasingly obvious that all Gak food will need to be shipped in from offworld sources until we completely overhaul their agricultural economy," Sarah continued.
"What kind of overhaul are we even talking about?" Benny chimed in. He owned a good portion of the company, but rarely came to these executive meetings. Today, he was making an exception for his son Benny Jr, who was on the view screen with the rest of the offworld team on Gakrek.
Stearns replied, "in a word: industrialization."
"The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race," wrote Ted Kaczynski, known more famously as his press nickname, the Unabomber. When this was published in the Washington Post in 1995 in response to a threat, a number of people thought he was making a lot of sense.
It made all the headlines, inspired countless hours of political debate, and gave a major boost to anarcho-primitive ideas in the academic sphere.
But as many historians knew, his ideas were not wildly original. Industrialization, like every major economic change, created winners and losers. Sometimes there were more of one, and sometimes the other.
In human society, previously skilled workers, usually guild craftsmen who made up the upper-middle class of late feudal Europe, became the biggest losers of industrialization as their labor was replaced by machines that could do what they did at hundreds if not thousands of times faster. Without skill, without rest, and without emotion. Some of them were so angry, they even went out and smashed the machines, but mechanization continued anyway.
The biggest winners of the Industrial Revolution were the subsistence farmers who made up the vast majority of lower class workers in feudal Europe. They went into cities, to work mind-numbingly boring jobs, doing the same thing day after day, on risky and dangerous assembly lines for excruciatingly long hours. Many got injured. Some died. A few were even children.
And yet mostly, they did so willingly.
That's not because they were all tricked, under some grand illusion that factory work was comfortable, safe, and enriching.
It was because subsistence farming on its worst day was a hecking nightmare.
The Gaks were living it.
"Why can't we just build a tractor factory there then?" Sarah demanded.
In her mind, tractors were synonymous with food. She'd been on a road trip through the American Midwest once, on the way to the Yellowstone. There, she'd seen rows of gigantic tractors plowing fields, endless food from horizon to horizon. To Sarah, the massive scale of the corn fields of America was just how industrialization was done.
"Because tractor factories depend on a thousand different parts. Who's gonna make the tires? Who's gonna make the motors? Who's gonna make the onboard computer?" Stearns explained, "and who's gonna bring them gasoline to keep running? And each of those components have a thousand factories to make them, and each have dependencies on thousands of other factories! It would literally be easier to move Los Angeles onto Gak than it would be to help them mass manufacture tractors."
Sarah made a facepalming gesture, but Stearns cut her off before she launched into despair, "there actually is a much easier solution to this problem."
"On Earth, most economists agree that the most efficient way to send foreign aid to areas that consistently couldn't produce enough food is not to send them food; it's to send them money so they can buy food, or if they have good soil, they can buy some tools to grow their own," said Stearns, leading Sarah to the obvious conclusion.
"But they don't use money here, we can't just send them money!"
"Exactly. So let's talk about that."
Gordorker's family had finally cleaned up his house from the dust storm. The broken roof was re-tiled as best as he could. His children had helped on some of the menial tasks, but that's what children were for.
It was nice to have purpose again.
The humans had said that their mission would be here for months, maybe years, but Gordorker was not so naive to believe that he wouldn't have to work for food again. He was certainly not so stupid to take this to mean he should be lounging around all day.
Winters on Gakrek were not bad in terms of freezing people to death, but the dry winds would not allow crop planting until spring again.
Next time, he would have 21 mouths to feed, not including his, and he'd have to get the fields plowed without poor Grunger. He was lucky he had so many children.
Traders Only
New Thread: Bohor spaceports have just banned bartering!
Body: If your friends want to do any business at Bohor, they better get themselves a GC Terminal fast! The Bohor are banning barter at their main port. You will only be able to conduct trades by credits starting in a few days!
Comment: Whaaaaat? Are you crazy??? Only two of my friends have Terminals. How is everyone else supposed to make a living?!
Comment: Get a Terminal lol
Comment: We told you guys last week this was gonna happen if you assholes keep holding up the line with your obnoxious rare fruit peddling. Newsflash, we don't care about how exotic your stuff is on Bohor. Just unload it. We weigh it, read the price list for food items, do the math, you get your credits, and you're out of there in minutes. You want air filters? We've got air filters for 2,800 GCs, no haggling, no bartering. If you don't like it, someone else will take it. Don't waste our time! -- Bohor Spaceport Management Team
Comment: Hey Bohor, have you considered maybe getting a Terminal yourself so that everyone else don't all need to get one just to get some fuel?
Comment: I'm selling air filters for 3,000 GCs in orbit above Bohor for traders who don't have Terminals.
"Our plan for the leasing model for the Terminals is not going to work," Sarah observed.
"Yup, the famine crisis on Gakrek is forcing our hand," admitted Stearns, "and we'd expected a much slower rollout to bring the aliens on board over the course of years, not weeks. In hindsight, it was obvious how this was different to how humans popularized credit and debit cards in the 1970s. We were replacing cash, which was just slightly inferior to a card, but with the aliens, we're replacing their entire dumpster fire of an economy. We earned a lot of goodwill with our relief effort and the galaxy is buying in."
"So what, we just abandon the original timeline and move to phase two immediately?" Asked Sarah.
"Exactly right. When the iron is hot, you gotta strike it," replied Stearns, "we'll give the merchants already with Terminals an option to opt out of their lease and switch to the new devices, but I doubt most will. Our internal data shows that they've universally been getting their money's worth out of those."
"Are our manufacturers even ready to handle the inevitable barrage of orders?" Asked Jen, eager to move onto the logistics and technology discussion.
They were not.
Version two of the offworld trading terminals were actually a downgrade to the original Terminals. The originals were prototypes, modified out of consumer tablets that cost hundreds of dollars to produce.
The new ones, branded Mini Terminals, were basic card readers with pin pads and a tiny OLED display, attached to a now mass produced FTL antenna you could get at RadioShack for $3.99. There wasn't even a thermal printer for receipts.
The whole device costs no more than $20 to make on a mass production line in Vietnam. GC was going to sell it at cost in credits.
Galactic Credit had prepared supply lines to ramp up production, ready to start rolling them out in a couple years. They've made a test batch of tens of thousands of units sitting in storage, but did not expect to need to start actually selling them for a while.
Carefully made plans were abandoned, schedules were expedited, employees in SE Asia worked overtime, and the company took on extra cost to push the schedule up.
It still wasn't enough.
On day one, all reserve units sold out. Some of the well connected human traders, unburdened with a strong conscience or ethics, bought them by the truckload as they were leaving their warehouses. They sold them at a large markup at the spaceport.
That was not very cash money of them.
GC sent a representative to the spaceport to let traders know that they were out of stock, but more would be made available shortly. Customers should just wait a week for the prices to come down.
The scalpers instantly sold out anyway. The alien traders lucky enough to be on the non-relief landing pads filled their cargo with the Mini Terminals.
Then, those traders sold them at a markup at other ports. And so on.
By the time the Mini Terminals reached average spaceport merchants on the other side of the galaxy, they were being sold for almost half the price of the original tablet Terminals.
By the end of the week, the craze died down. These electronics really were cheap and easy for human factories to make, and many of the production lines just needed time to start the machines. Prices returned to normal, and the average merchant could afford them with a bit of honest work and savings.
The Gakrek Spacelift was slowing down. The turnaround time had been increased to a leisurely 10 minutes, and the Livermore space traffic controller was occasionally allowing non-relief traders to land at open pads, which Zikzik was doing now.
Zikzik needed to refuel, but apparently that was still only allowed for the landing pads that had been designated for relief. He called up the Livermore port manager, pointed to his number one position on the relief pilot leaderboard, but she just shrugged her shoulders and said apologetically, "rules are rules".
Oh well, he could always refuel at Olgix on the way.
As he landed in Olgix, he realized this was the first time he landed at a non human or Gak port for at least a week.
He greeted the Olg who was running a reactor fuel line to his ship with a nod, and asked, "how much fruit to full?"
The Olg took one look at the sign on his booth, and said, "you know we also take credits on Olgix now, right?"
A little surprised, Zikzik took out his card and terminal and allowed the Olg to swipe his. He'd used his Terminal when doing exchanges with other traders, but this was the first time he'd been to a non-Earth port where goods and services could be paid for using his credits.
"That's 295.50 GCs, pleasure doing business with you."
Grob was one of the wealthier Gaks in the world. The famine had affected everyone, but he and his wife did not have to go hungry because the spaceport management made sure to keep feeding the people that kept the mobs at bay.
Everything else stopped working though. He used to pad his income by making sure that the vendors at the spaceport knew exactly who was protecting their livelihoods. Only very rarely did new ones not cooperate.
Grob really wasn't a bad Gak, but he did what everyone else in his position also did. This was just how business was done on Gakrek. You didn't get to survive to become a security guard family if you didn't do that. Another Gak would come along, take your place, and do what you didn't want to do anyway.
When the humans arrived, things changed. They started peddling these credits business, which he'd seen some of the traders used.
Of course, he didn't think much of it. Instead of getting goods, you just get a card, and use the card to trade for food and items? Seems unnecessarily complicated.
He'd heard that they charged a cut just for you to use the card, a concept that he was intimately familiar with and in no hurry to be subjected to. The humans had insisted on giving one to him and setting it up. Which he had to do because they were in charge now, but that was fine by him. Just because he had a card didn't mean he had to use it right?
A few days later, when he was on a patrol route at the spaceport, checking off the vendor stands, one of the luxury item vendors asked him if she could pay her next cycle's fee with her card because she had traded away all her wares.
"You gotta make sure to save wares for me next time," he'd told her, "but I'll take it this time." He ruffled through his backpack to find the card, handed it to her, and she inserted it into her machine, typed in her code, and showed him that it had deposited 18 GC into his account.
Hoping that she didn't stiff him, he went on with his route.
"Let me say this again," Zarko said at the edge of his patience limit, "you can trade these credits for food on Earth. Lots of food, shiploads of food. So much food, everywhere."
"But I don't have a ship," whined the spare parts vendor at the spaceport, "why don't you just bring food with you next time you want my parts?"
"You can exchange credits for food from some of the other traders that come down here too! Some of them have the new Terminals now, look, that guy over there, he takes GC," Zarko was almost shouting while pointing at a fellow Zeepil food merchant who had a I ❤️ GC sign on his booth across the spaceport.
This was frustrating. Every time he came across one of these less traveled planets he had to explain himself to these yokels all over again.
The vendor looked over skeptically and said, "how do I know that you two aren't working some scam together?"
That was it for Zarko. It had been a long day, this guy wasn't making it any shorter, and he had just been accused of being a dishonest trader. It was probably because of his species. Just because he was a Zeepil didn't mean he was a scammer!
He internally cursed the unjustified stereotype of his people and blew up at the racist:
"Listen to me very carefully. You're going to give me the secondary fuel modulator. You're going to walk over to the food merchant over there. Then you're going to swipe this card over here, on his machine. He's going to give you at least a month's worth of food. And if you don't, I'm going to leave a one star review on your spaceport on Traders Only, and nobody is going to come back here to trade anything with you ever again, got it?"
The vendor whined some more under his breath, but eventually relented. The threat had sounded real.
He got plenty of food. Whatever scam these Zeepils were running, they didn't rip him off this time at least. Whatever.
Zarko was fuming as he took off. Didn't these ignorant primitives know that a liquid currency to facilitate free and fair exchange of goods and services was obviously the bedrock upon which a modern economy needed to be built?
When Grob got home from work, he handed his wife the credits card saying, "hey darling, one of the luxury traders gave me her protection share using the card. I trusted her because she normally always pays on time. Did I get scammed?"
His wife was a teacher at a nearby school. Ever the practical one, she asked, "oh, how much did she put on it?"
"It said 18."
She did some math in her head and replied, "yeah that sounds about right," and to his surprise, she pulled out a card and said, "I got one from the humans at the school too, and I used it to buy a new pair of shoes for you!"
He tried them on. They weren't very fitting shoes, but neither were his previous pair so he couldn't complain. They did seem very well made even though the little holes in them seemed to be a design choice.
Pretty soon, he noticed that the other guards at the spaceport started extracting their share of protection fees using cards too. Oh well, if everyone else was taking fees with a card, he supposed it couldn't hurt if he did it too. It somewhat lightened his load on patrols, which he didn't mind at all.
Besides, his blue shoes were really pretty. He was not sure why there was a big check mark on its side though.
"They're doing what?!" Sarah asked, her temper threatening to go off.
"It's a protection racket. A practice as old as time. The security guards have basically been taking a percentage of the vendors' wares, and recently switched onto using cards to take payment. It's been going on forever and it's probably just how they do things there. Using cards is pretty innovative of them, I'll give them that," Jen said, "but it made it pretty easy for us to track down all of them. Should we revert the transactions?"
"No, probably not," Sarah said, calming down and seeing a slight head shake from her head counsel Bryce, "but we need to make it clear to them that they can't be allowed to do that anymore."
Grob wasn't sure how to feel about the cards anymore.
The humans had found the practice of protection fees distasteful, and they'd warned that anyone caught doing it again would face severe consequences. They made their point pretty clear when one of the other guards was made an example of: her card stopped working. She had to get a new one that didn't have any of her credits in it!
On the other hand, the humans also made the spaceport authorities start paying them with credits, which was good because now they were being paid on time and Grob knew he didn't have to worry about not being paid as long as the humans were there.
His wife had been buying them new clothes with credits she was getting paid as a teacher too. One of his human friends had giggled when she saw his shirt, which apparently said "2016 NBA Champions Golden State Warriors". He wasn't sure what was so funny about that, but it was a very comfortable shirt.
Maybe this whole credits thing wasn't as ridiculous as he thought at first.
By the universal inheritance path known as "dibs", Gordorker inherited his neighbors Gyuotin and Gyuovin's farmable land and possessions. They didn't have much.
Trinkets, gadgets, and a bunch of junk. It was mostly items that couldn't be traded for food during the worst periods of the shortage. With his immediate food needs taken care of by the relative abundance of food items the humans have brought, Gordorker thought perhaps he should go buy a stasis box with the trinkets he got from his deceased neighbors.
When he arrived at the offworld market, he saw a high end luxury merchant proudly displaying some fresh new wares from offworld, including a number of stasis boxes. These were apparently new ones made by humans. These were slightly bigger than the ones he'd have before, but he'd brought his neighbors' life possessions, so he thought maybe he'd be able to trade for one of those with some haggling.
Gordorker started laying out his items on the table, but the trader cut him off, hastily saying the weirdest thing he'd ever heard from a trader in his life, "no barter, credits only." The merchant then pointed him towards a human tent.
A human volunteer, his nametag said Marco, asked his name and gave him a shiny card, then told him to memorize 6 numbers. "As the head of your household, you have also been given a small stimulus by the GC corporation," he said.
Then Marco took him to a junk trader stall, where he gave the trader all his items. Marco showed an increasingly confused Gordorker how to insert his card into a small machine slot to "receive payment".
Marco guided him back to the merchant selling stasis boxes. Gordorker was instructed on how to insert his card and enter his pin code, which he mastered with no difficulty.
Marco then took him to a farm tools stall, where Gordorker repeated the same process with a steel plow, a small box of "semi-dwarf wheat seeds", a long garden hose, and a hand pump, all loaded onto a brand new wooden wheelbarrow.
"BAL: 12.50," the small screen had read.
Gordorker was not sure what unnatural ritual he had taken part in, but he was in possession of the most farm tools he had ever been in his life and he had the stasis box he was looking for.
"Alright, that should be enough. Make sure to keep the card safe and remember your 6 digit code. Ask a volunteer if you need to know what the tools do.."
Gordorker put his card in his stasis box. Then, being the prudent Gak he was, he wrote down his pin code and put it in the box as well.
Whatever else it did, he was sure one of his descendants could probably find a use for it in an emergency one day.
In hindsight, there were obvious economic side effects for Earth becoming a mass producer of everything from food to cheap consumer electronics, the reverse engineering of millions of years of alien tech, and ripping down the barriers that the barter based economies of the galaxy had erected.
A young forward thinking economist wrote a whole journal article about it with a typical economic study title: "Development Osmosis: Capital Outflow, Argentina, and Extreme Poverty in Offworld Economies".
Three other economists read the pre-print as part of the peer review, who all sent him an email saying something along the lines of "wow, this gave me a lot to think about. Somebody important should read this!"
Nobody else did, for a while.
It didn't make the news.
The reference to high yield semi-dwarf wheat seeds in the story refers to the research of Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Norman Borlaug. Borlaug noticed that stalks of wheat that are too high yield would bend and then break their stalks, so he solved that problem by breeding these plants with dwarfed plants. Shorter stalk, supports more wheat. His work in improving food security in developing nations is credited with saving the lives of over a billion humans. A real life HFY.
The next chapter's working title is:
Rising Tide
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First post...be kind! This happened way back in the dark ages, 1986. I was 21 at the time and working for a gas station that was associated with a certain grocery store chain in Washington state. It was owned by a company not affiliated with said chain, but had locations at nearly every one.
As this was long before the days of debit cards, this was a cash only gas station. We didn’t even take credit cards. Customers would pull up, pump their gas and then come to my window to pay. We also sold cigarettes. No drinks, no snacks...customers couldn’t even get into my booth. I had been working there about a year when the company announced it was closing the location. My manager and I were offered positions at another location upstate and we both accepted. We moved our respective families and started our new jobs. As new hires (ugh).
This station was incredible busy. We did more business in 8 hrs than my old location would do in a week. This location also had a different set up: here you would pull into the station from a single entrance, pump your gas, and then drive forward to a single exit where the “Pay Here” booth was located. There were always 2 cashiers on duty. Each cashier had a cash drawer.
One thing I should note, there were also no computers. So closing the drawer down between shifts was timing consuming and tedious. We had to manually count the cigarettes remaining, and count the cash drawers. We would fill out an end of shift report listing the starting balances and the ending balances. We also had to list the gallons sold from each pump. At the end of the shift the total of gallons sold and the total cigarettes sold should equal the cash balance. It is important to note here that not once in the year I had worked for the previous location had I been off by more than 10 cents.
The following morning after my first shift I was informed by the manager that I was short $50. Impossible I said, I balanced out yesterday. He said that I must have stolen that money after I had completed the paperwork. I just looked at him and said, no I didn’t. He gave me a verbal warning and said if it happened again I would be fired and the stolen money would be deducted from my paycheck this week.
In the 5 days that followed I realized quickly the manager was up to something. My old manager who was just another worker now, was also accused of stealing. As was one other new employee. I can’t vouch for the other employee but I’m pretty sure she did nothing wrong. The employees that had been there awhile were never accused of anything. I did some checking and found out this manager was relatively new (had only been there about 6 months) and the other cashiers had been here before him. Only new cashiers were being accused of stealing. And that location had been having “stealing problems” for about 6 months and the turnover was high with the new employees.
I came to work at 6am on a Monday only to be told I was being fired. For cause. The manager accused me of taking $500 out of my drawer the previous Friday. He said he only discovered it this morning (even though he had worked Sat and Sun). I said ok and left. I was pretty angry and instead of going home, I parked in the grocery store parking lot and proceed to settle in to watch the gas station. I knew that at 9am sharp, he would take the cash in the safe and make the weekend deposit. At 9am he left the gas station and headed to the bank. But instead of walking into the bank, he walked into the Indian “casino” next door. It’s not really a casino like we think of today, but more of a betting parlor for the races. It did have slot machines, but no card tables.
I think “Well, this is interesting”.
He comes out of the casino at exactly 10 am, walks next door to the bank, does his business and then heads back to the gas station. I head home with a plan.
Every morning I follow him from the gas station to the casino. I take a picture of him leaving, and one of him arriving at the bank and walking into the casino. I take pictures of him coming out and then heading to the bank. I do this for 5 days straight. He even went on Saturday. On day 3 my old manager was fired for “stealing” $150.
I get the film developed (no digital camera in the dark ages) note the times and dates on the back of each one. Then I call the main office of the gas company. It’s after 5 but I’m hoping someone is there. And there is. I speak to a woman and explain my situation and she says she knows exactly who I should speak to and transfers me. By some grace of God, she has transferred me to none other than the President/CEO of the company!
I tell him my story and tell him I did NOT steal from his company and could prove who actually did. He took down my information and said he would be in touch. I’m thinking to myself “yeah right”. The next morning I went to the station to perform my usual observation of the manager. At 9am he leaves for the “bank”. At 10 am he comes out. At that moment 2 stern looking gentlemen approach him. One pulls out his wallet and shows him something. The other one is talking. The manager goes pale and takes a step back. Next thing I know he is being escorted to a car I hadn’t noticed and they drive off. I lose them at a traffic signal so I head back to the station. They all show back up about 5 min later, and a few minutes after that a police cruiser pulls in. The officer talks to the stern gentleman and proceeds to place the manager in handcuffs. The other man says nothing but is glaring daggers at the manager.
The President called me later that after noon and informed me that the manager had been arrested for embezzlement (turns out that in 6 months he had managed to steal about $5k). He would take the store cash into the casino and gamble with it; if he won, he would make the normal bank deposit. If he lost, he would make the deposit and note in his records that we had been short the previous day. The CEO had already been focusing on that location because of the stealing and high turnover rate, but my information helped them figure out what exactly had been going on.
I was thanked and sent a substantial check as a reward. My old manager was offered the manager’s job and I was offered my old job back. I declined as I had already found another job that I liked more and paid better. The gambling manager was sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to attend counseling for his gambling addiction. His wife divorced him and took their 3 children to California. His house was foreclosed on and he ended up in a homeless shelter.
Don’t accuse me of stealing. I will get revenge.
** UPDATE**
Thank you for the likes and awards!
Update 2: this was my first post and I really didn’t expect all the awards. Thank you!

I had the misfortune of backing this campaign based on a video featured on the campaign's page in which several individuals are shown reacting to a prototype version of the product. The video strongly implied that the team had already developed a functional prototype and were ready to begin production. However, since then the project has been delayed multiple times. In their most recent update (in which they announced yet another two-month delay) the excuse they gave was that the sound quality was lacking and they needed more time to improve the frequency response, which implies that they are still in the prototyping phase and nowhere near ready to begin production.
It has now been over a month since they gave us that update, with no further news with regards to how they are progressing. I am starting to think that the video they posted might have been faked to trick unsuspecting people into backing them, or worse, that the whole project is a scam. Digging a little bit deeper, it turns out that the company's facebook page is being managed by someone in Poland and it's "headquarters" is located in an empty building in Cheyenne, Wyoming, despite the fact that they claim to be based in San Diego. A quick search of the website for the California Secretary of State reveals that there is no SND-Ray Labs, Inc. registered in the state of California. The company was supposedly founded by a man named Jack Adrian, but his name is nowhere to be found on any of the official documents. It appears that the company's only registered employee is someone named Xi Li.
Literally the best-case scenario at this point is that they lied about having a functional prototype, but based on the above information I'm starting to think it's an outright scam.
UPDATE:
I managed to get in touch with a representative for EXP Realty in Cheyenne, WY, (the company which leases the office space where SND Ray Labs, Inc. is supposedly based) and got the contact info for the secretary of the office building at the address in question. She told me that the company never showed up to do business or provided them with a valid forwarding address, and thus EXP Realty was forced to resign as their registered agent.
So basically, the company is currently unregistered and may not actually exist anymore, if it ever did to begin with.
UPDATE #2:
The company that filmed the commercial of the alleged SND-Ray prototype seems to have scrubbed all references to the SND-Ray brand from their website (link removed to avoid implying any association between the advertising company and the potential scammers), although a quick glance at the source code for the page reveals several instances of the term "SND-Ray" are still present. I find this suspicious and will attempt to contact them for more info.
UPDATE #3:
According to the company that made the advert, SND-Ray did in fact send them a working pair of bone conducting glasses, but they may have been slightly different from the one's shown in the diagrams on the campaign page. They reason they removed the SND-Ray name from their website was because they were asked to do so by the company.
It's possible that I'm wrong about this whole thing and the company does (or at least did) exist and was not a scam. It's also possible that I'm not wrong, and that the glasses they provided to the advertising company were a pair of generic smart frames with the SND-Ray logo airbrushed on the side. I honestly do hope that i am wrong, but their refusal to post pictures/videos of their development process, infrequent updates, and overall lack of transparency don't leave me very optimistic...
UPDATE #4:
In the time since i originally created this post, the status of SND-Ray Labs, Inc. has officially been changed from "Active" to "Administratively Dissolved" on the Wyoming Secretary of State website.
UPDATE #5:
I've been exchanging emails with the person who directed the video that SND-Ray featured on their Indiegogo page, and he shared an interesting tidbit of information with me that he said i could quote him on:
"We almost didn't get our final payment [for producing the SND-Ray video] but were smart enough to watermark our video for the final transfer because we felt something might be off. It took them months to come back with final payment but it did clear in the end."
He also had this to say regarding these generic smart glasses from AliExpress:
"I'm not sure what the company is promising as a final product but the link looks like it could be similar to the glasses we shot...Actually looking deeper into the Aliexpress link, the buttons and tint of the lenses are nearly identical. Just FYI but still can't say for sure."
UPDATE #6:
It seems that i am no longer able to leave comments on the campaign's Indiegogo page. Instead i just get a message saying "You must be a backer to comment." (EDIT: Apparently this might be due to the fact that i requested a chargeback from my credit card company.)
I am, however, still able to leave replies on my previous comments, so i have done so in order to direct people seeking to open a chargeback case with their bank/credit institution to this reddit post. If any other backers are reading this, i implore you to leave a comment on the Indiegogo page doing the same. Get the word out to the other backers that this is very likely a scam.
UPDATE #7:
I created a graphic using images from AliExpress and the SND-Ray campaign page showing numerous suspicious similarities between the two products.
UPDATE #8:
Just finished filing reports with both ic3.gov and ftc.gov against SND-Ray Labs, Inc. I highly encourage other backers to do the same.
UPDATE #9:
All of my comments on the Indiegogo campaign page pointing out the company's suspicious behavior have been removed. It looks like they might be trying to cover their tracks...
UPDATE #10:
The campaign has changed the location listed on its Indiegogo page from San Diego, California to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. If anyone here can read German, i would be very interested to know if SND-Ray Labs, Inc. is actually legally registered to do business there.
UPDATE #11:
They have posted an updated on the campaign page saying that they are now planning to ship in May. The reason they gave for the additional delay was a very generic "we need more time to improve sound quality and reliability" excuse. They also tried to clarify why they claimed to be based in San Diego despite that clearly being a lie by saying that's where their "marketing agency" is based. No comment was given as to why their company's status was changed to "Administratively Dissolved."
In my opinion, this is all just damage control at this point.
UPDATE #12:
Someone else left a comment earlier today telling people to do a search for this reddit post (he didn't even link to it or anything, just said to "check reddit"), and his comment has already been removed. It definitely seems like i am on to something here and the company is just trying to do damage control to sell as many perks as they can before the truth comes out.
Oh yeah, did i mention that they're still selling perks? For an extra $45 you can pre-order a leather charging case for your hypothetical smart glasses that don't actually exist...
UPDATE #13:
In addition to changing their location from San Diego, California to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, it seems that SND-Ray have stealthily edited the "Story" section of their campaign page. The changes are subtle, but significant, and include the following:

• Changing the founder's name from the very American sounding "Jack Adrian" to the more ambiguous sounding "Jack."
  
• Changing the phrase "Mountain states" to "Mountain states, USA," likely because the former implies that they are based in the USA while the latter implies that they are not based in the USA.
  
• Changing the sentence "Jack has built SND-RAY Labs Inc into a fully fledged company with experts from various fields with decades of experience" to "Jack has designed and built SND-Ray with the help of experts and team members from around the world." This is probably because the new wording implies that the company has always been an international effort, as well as removing the reference to "SND-RAY Labs Inc" now that a Google search of this phrase quickly reveals that the company has been administratively dissolved.
  

UPDATE #14:
A quick search of the German Company Register within the date range of 2015–Present shows that no company matching the description of SND-Ray has operated anywhere in Germany during that time period.
UPDATE #15:
They are now claiming that they are incorporated in England and can be found by searching for "SND" in the UK Companies House Register. However, this search yields over 150 results, none of which seem to match the description of SND-Ray. Curiously, they have failed to specify the specific name that their business is incorporated under, almost as if they don't want people searching for it...
UPDATE #16:
After scrolling through a few pages i finally managed to find them. Unsurprisingly, there is a big red message on the page stating that the documents they are required to submit are overdue. Also interested is the fact that the company is listed as being either mostly or entirely owned by SND-Ray Labs, Inc. of Cheyenne Wyoming, a company which i have previously proven does not actually exist.
Additionally, the most recent document in the company's filing history has its description listed as "First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off." Here is what that means according to this website:

A Gazette notice will declare that the company will be struck off Companies House and cease to legally exist. The strike off notice will give you three months until the company is removed from the register as a result of failure to file company accounts or non-payment of tax.

No wonder they didn't want to directly post the link to their company's registration page...
Also of note is the fact that the one actual human who's name is listed on the company's registration page, a person calling himself "Nils Lind," seems to have misspelt his own mailing address. The registration page has his street listed as "Grobe Seestrabe," but a quick google search reveals that the actual name of the street is "Große Seestraße." Since the letter "ß" in the German alphabet is equivalent to a double S, the correct spelling of the street name using the english alphabet would be "Grosse Seestrasse." You would think that this is information which a person who actually lives in Germany would likely be aware of, which gives me reason to suspect that it might be a fake address. (If there are any Germans here, please let me know whether i got this part correct or if i am completely wrong.)
Furthermore, the building at the address listed appears to be a medium-size apartment building with what looks like 8 mail slots next to the door, and given that they didn't specify a unit number, i don't see how any mail sent to that address could possibly end up in the correct mailbox...
(Side note: This "Nils" person also appears to be the individual sending emails out to backers asking them to purchase additional perks. It is my opinion that Nils, whoever he is, is likely the only "employee" of SND-Ray Labs and is therefore the person behind this entire scam.)
UPDATE #17:
I have attempted to contact the German authorities in order to explain the situation and ask that they investigate the address in question. While i suspect that no individual by the name of Nils Lind resides at said address, i hope that one of the agencies i reached out to will be able to find out for sure.
UPDATE #18:
They have changed their company's registered address to a large office building called Aldgate Tower located at 35 Whitechapel High St, London. However, they don't seem to have provided either a floor or suite number indicating where in the building there office is located. I will attempt to investigate further. In addition, the proposal to strike them off of the Companies House register still remains active as apparently they still haven't submitted the proper documentation.
UPDATE #19:
It's starting to look like 35 Whitechapel High Street is not actually an address that exists. Google Maps says that Aldgate Tower is the building that is located at that address, but according to the building's service desk their address is actually located on the intersecting Leman Street.
If anyone here happens to live in London, would you mind putting that address into your GPS and seeing where it takes you?
I'm also considering getting in touch with London's black cab service and asking them if that address exists, as i believe that London taxi drivers are still required to memorize the address of every building in the city.
UPDATE #20:
Aldgate Tower says that they don't seem to have a company called SND Labs based in their building, but there is a company called WeWork that provides office space for other businesses and has 35 Whitechapel High Street listed as their address. I am currently attempting to get in touch with them to see if they have any info on SND Labs.
UPDATE #21:
I just received an email from the Frankfurt am Main police department stating that nobody by the name of Nils Lind resides at the address in question.
UPDATE #22:
I just heard back from WeWork, the leasing company to which the address 35 Whitechapel High Street is registered. They say that they do not have a company under the name of SND Labs in their database. It's looking more and more likely that SND-Ray used a false address when they filed with the UK Companies House.
UPDATE #23:
It has just occurred to me that i may have misinterpreted the scammer's intentions. It's possible that his plan is to send backers pairs of the generic AliExpress bluetooth glasses that were featured in the promotional video and claim that any differences to the product that was advertised are simply due to some sort of production-related difficulty, all while pocketing the money he made from selling add-ons such as Rx lenses and charging cases that he never actually intended to produce. If this turns out to be true, i urge backers to not be fooled by the charade, as a scam that involves repackaging an existing product is still a scam nonetheless.
UPDATE #24:
Another backer sent me a "production" photo that SND-Ray shared with him. It's literally just a picture of the generic AliExpress glasses with a USB cable plugged into them.
UPDATE #25:
SND-Ray posted a 7 second, 240p video which they claim shows the glasses being produced and stress tested. I'm no expert, but to me it looks like a CNC drilling machine with a part from a completely different pair of glasses placed underneath it.
UPDATE #26:
SND-Ray has updated the fake address that they registered with the UK Companies House. Unfortunately, the new address appears to belong to a shady company called Kemp House which specializes in providing London-based forwarding addresses to offshore businesses.

This is a follow-up to a diary that I posted a little under a year ago. Since then, I’ve started a new job and moved into a new apartment! I began this position fairly recently (back in October) and I am still in the process of figuring out my new budget and how much I would like to save on a monthly basis. Link to old diary here!
Section One: Assets and Debt
Retirement Balance: I have ~$17,000 in a 401k from my previous job. I had to rollover money from my old plan to my new one this week, so I’m glad I got that done with! I’m not eligible to contribute to my new job’s plan until 90 days in, which will be in January. After that, I think I will likely contribute 8-10% per paycheck, still deciding!
Equity: Haha, I wish. Unfortunately, no :( it is a goal of mine to buy in the next few years though!
Savings account balance: ~$11,880 in my account as of today - I typically don’t keep much in my savings account, about 3-4 months worth of rent + expenses as an emergency fund. Once the number goes above $10,000 or so, I’ll move money to my investment accounts (this happens every 3-4 months; although this time, I waited a bit longer because I didn’t want to put too much in around election time). I’ll probably transfer a few thousand into my investment accounts at the end of this year.
Checking account balance: ~$3,290 in my account as of today - I only keep my paychecks in here and typically don’t withdraw any money unless I need cash, which is rare. At the end of each month, I’ll transfer any money I have leftover to savings so I can start each month with a clean slate.
Credit card debt: None, I consistently use 1-2 credit cards and everything is always paid off in full at the end of every month. Since I was a teenager, my mom has taught me never to spend more than I can afford and always pay off the statement balance of my credit cards.
Student loan debt: None, and I’m so thankful. Not going to college was not an option in my family and my parents were very determined to put me through college successfully without any debt at the end. I helped out by getting multiple scholarships that covered about 40% of all my expenses but it was still a lot of money. My parents had to work very hard throughout their lives to do this, after coming to America with nothing, but I’m so happy that they did.
Section Two: Income
Income Progression: I’ve held multiple jobs throughout my life and I’ve always been extremely work-oriented, I get pretty bored and restless when I’m not busy so I made sure to use any extra time I had in high school productively!
2010-2013: I worked as a tutor for little kids a few days after school, taught them math/reading and helped my boss with random admin work. Also had a brief stint at a music store for a few months during the summefall of my junior year just to get some extra money.
2013-2017: Had multiple jobs throughout college, all were pretty chill and paid minimum wage. I had work-study positions in my school’s psychology department planning events and was an office assistant in various dorms on campus helping with packages, mail, administrative work, etc.
2017-2020: I was very lucky to receive a job offer in spring of my senior year as a software consultant. I loved this position and my salary rose ~$11,000 through the 3.5 years I was there, from $64,000-$75,000. I received a 10% performance raise in April 2020, but never actually received it as all salary changes were postponed until Jan 2021 due to COVID-19.
2020-present: Switched jobs last month (Oct 2020) and made the jump to management consulting. I won’t say too much about my job since it’s a small company but I appreciate the change in industry and that I’m gaining more project management skills that can be used in the future. They offered me $125,000 as a starting salary and, after three days of debating whether it was too risky to jump ship during a pandemic, I decided to take it. I have heard that our bonuses are $10,000-$20,000 per year but, since I’m not 100% sure on the amount, I’m not including it. I typically put all of my bonus money into investment/savings accounts and don’t touch it.
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6580.00 after taxes, health insurance, etc. Once I’m eligible for 401k contributions in Jan, this amount will go down significantly.
Side Gig Monthly Take Home: No consistent side gig; I sell clothes on Poshmark here and there, but only when I need to.
Section Three: Expenses
Rent: $1,500.00 a month for my room in an apartment with three other girls; my room is the smallest and hopefully, I can move into a bigger room in the place once my lease is up!
Retirement Contribution: $500 a month to my Roth IRA, I always contribute the max of $6000 every year, I currently have about $23,000 in here as of now
Savings Contribution: Stated above, move all money leftover at the end of the month to savings.
Investment Contribution: Stated above, all extra money (that isn’t meant for my emergency fund) to my investment accounts. I don’t really see a point in keeping a ton of money in my savings account. I currently have about ~$55,000 in my investment and Roth IRA accounts combined.
Debt Payments: Currently none.
Donations: No monthly set donations, although I do send money to different organizations frequently when I see causes that I would like to support.
ConEd: $17-$25 per month, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays for us
Wifi/Cable: $45 per month; again, I Venmo my roommate for this and she pays the actual bill
Cellphone: I’m still on my parents’ plan but my company reimburses us about $35 every month, which covers my share of the charges.
Subscriptions:
Netflix: $0 - my parents cover this, they pay for some services and my sister and I pay for others. It all evens out in the end!
Hulu: $12.39 - my parents and sister all have access to this
Spotify: $0 - my sister pays for our family plan
HBOMax: I pay for this, my roommates and I all share a login - the cost is covered in our cable bill
FabFitFun: $200 per year, this is definitely my guilty pleasure - I definitely don’t need it, but it’s so fun to get this box every few months
Gym Membership: None at the moment, since I’m pretty iffy about working out with so many other people around mid-pandemic and it doesn’t look like the situation in NYC is going to improve anytime soon. Thinking about getting an Equinox membership though since there’s one pretty close to me - NYC people without a corporate discount to Equinox, is it worth it?
Section 4: Money Attitudes
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If so, how did you pay for it?: Yes, I think there was always the expectation that I would attend college, my parents both immigrated to the U.S. in their early 20s and told me that they would support me in any kind of career I chose, but that I had to go to college prior to doing so. My mom and dad made sure I was very involved in the process and we used to talk about all my college expenses together as a family. They also had to pay for my sister’s education too so I understand that it was a huge burden but they never complained about it. My parents are also very supportive of me getting my MBA, but I don’t think they would have the means to financially back me for this, since they’re getting close to retirement age and need to build as large of a financial cushion as possible.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have around money? Did your parents educate you on finances?: My parents have become more and more transparent about money as my sister and I have grown older. Both my parents are very frugal and taught me important lessons about debt and financial risk when I was growing up. My mom, since she handles most of the finances, was very truthful about how much we had and what we could/couldn’t afford.
What was your first job and why did you get it?: I got my first real job when I was 15, working as a tutor. I didn’t need the money because my parents supported me with anything I needed, but it was helpful to have some savings when I got to college. My parents didn’t pressure me to get one but I figured that it would also look good on college applications.
Did you worry about money growing up?: My parents didn’t really let me worry about money growing up, but I’ve always been more of a saver, rather than a spender. My parents have definitely told me that we couldn’t afford things at times, but if anything really needed to be bought, they found a way. They are now very truthful, since they’re getting older, about what their financial situation is and how much money they have set aside for retirement.
Do you worry about money now?: Constantly, I don’t know if there will ever be a point at which I won’t worry; you always need money for something. I do think that my parents have prepared me to be practical about money instead of wasting it on silly things.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?: I would say that I became financially responsible for myself once I graduated college, since I started paying my own rent and expenses at that point (minus my cellphone bill). I have a comfortable safety net of savings at the moment, but if I ever really found myself in a bind and couldn’t afford to get by, I would likely turn to my sister for help.
Section Five: Money Diary!
Friday 11/13:
8:00 am - Wake up! It’s finally Friday and I’m so thankful. This week has felt incredibly long for some reason. I have a bit of a later start to my meetings today so I want to get in a workout before. Brush my teeth, change into some work out clothes, and get going on a Sydney Cummings arm/upper body workout video.
8:45 am - Done! I recently discovered her videos from an Instagram influencer I follow; I can actually keep up with them without dying on the floor in pain!
10:00 am - Calls begin and basically do not stop the entire morning. I get a few administrative tasks done here and there but ultimately am not super productive.
1:30 pm - Towards the end of my last call of the day (finally!), I make a quick egg scramble with veggies, lots of hot sauce and some avocado and toast on the side. Pair that with some OJ and get back to work!
4:30 pm - My sister and I text throughout the afternoon about things we want to do while she’s in NYC during Christmastime! I’m so excited to see her; look up times for The Greens in Chelsea but of course, they’re all sold out. Bookmark it on my computer to keep checking for the next few weeks.
6:15 pm - Log off for the week after sending in my timesheet, it’s the weekend!!! I hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and she convinces me to order Thai food for dinner (mainly because I’ve been bringing it up every day). Order Pad Kee Mao from UpThai (best Thai food on the UES) and watch The Parent Trap to distract myself while I wait, classic. - $19.16
7:45 pm - Spend the rest of the night flipping between random movies on TV and talking to Verizon since our Wi-Fi randomly shuts off. I finally fix it and am exhausted by the end of the night.
12:30 am - Fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown - can’t believe I haven’t watched this show until now, love Queen E!
Daily Total: $19.16
Saturday 11/14:
8:30 am - Wake up and stay in bed for a bit scrolling through texts/TikTok/Instagram. Try not to do this on weekdays but it’s inevitable on weekends.
9:45 am - Make coffee, put clean dishes away, and chill on the couch. Eat a Kind bar and some Cheerios while watching a bit more of The Crown.
12:30 pm - I’ve spent too much time on the couch at this point, oops. Put my workout clothes on and head to the East Side Running Path, it’s such a nice day for a run!
1:45 pm - 4.5 miles done! I head home and pick up some veggies from the fruit stand on my way: tomatoes, green pepper, mini cucumbers, and an avocado. The stuff here is so much cheaper than grocery stores. - $8.00
2:00 pm - Heat up some of the leftover Thai food from last night and spend the afternoon hanging out on the couch with my roommate.
5:30 pm - Going out to dinner with a few friends tonight so I take a shower and put on some makeup. I honestly forget how to put on makeup sometimes because I do it so rarely, anyone else?
7:00 pm - Head down to Little Italy on the subway (using money already on my MetroCard) and meet my friends, S and K, at Aunt Jake’s! This place has the most AMAZING pasta. I get the rigatoni with spicy arrabiatta sauce and we split a bottle of red wine between the three of us. Sit outside in the cold and eat with my huge coat on but it’s better than being inside the restaurant with way too many people. Plus, the wine helps a lot. - $46.30
9:45 pm - We part ways and I subway back up to the UES, the Q makes it so quick. Spend the rest of the night on the couch watching Schitt’s Creek with my roommate.
Daily Total: $54.30
Sunday 11/15:
9:00 am - Wake up and the scrolling happens again, albeit for a shorter time than yesterday. It’s the little wins! I quickly go to the grocery store across the street to grab milk because I can’t have my coffee black, no matter how hard I try. - $2.39
10:30 am - Spend the rest of the morning talking to my mom and then my best friend, L. L and I have been fighting a bit lately so it feels good to get things cleared up. It feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders once we’re done!
12:30 pm - Heat up the pasta from last night (with some sautéed veggies added in) and watch a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory. I’m the queen of leftovers.
3:30 pm - Scour the internet for a place to buy paper towels and finally end up scoring some at Staples. Looks like COVID Round #2 is coming in hot. Wear your masks, please! - $21.55
5:00 pm - Between freaking out over COVID infection rates and episodes of Schitt’s Creek on in the background, I raid my fridge and realize I’m out of a few things. Wish I had known this before I went to the grocery store this morning, damn. This doesn’t really help in limiting my exposure....
5:45 pm - Run to Staples to pick up my order of paper towels and then head to the grocery store to get romaine, waffles, onions, and olives. Also see some apple cinnamon donuts while I’m in line and can’t resist.... - $16.40
7:00 pm - Veggie sandwich and tomato soup for dinner while watching The Crown. Clean up the kitchen after I eat and FaceTime my parents for a bit. Spend a majority of the call trying to convince them to get a new laundry machine since theirs keeps breaking. Maybe my sister and I will surprise them for Christmas...
10:00 pm - Walk around my apartment to get my steps in for the day and take a quick shower. Watch a bit more of The Crown while ordering a gift for my old boss. She’s the best and I felt so much guilt leaving my last job mainly because I loved working with her. Ship her a gift basket full of wine (obviously), cheese, cookies, crackers, almonds, and other good stuff. Write her a quick thank you note (110 characters is not enough) and send it off! - $91.00
12:30 am - I call my brother-in-law to wish him a happy birthday and fall asleep immediately after; work is going to be rough tomorrow.
Daily Total: $131.34
Monday 11/16:
8:15 am - Snooze multiple times and finally manage to get out of bed. I have a heated mattress pad inside my bed so it’s especially hard to get up on mornings when it’s 35 degrees outside. I stretch, brush my teeth, and change into work clothes (lol leggings and a tank) before dialing into my first call of the day.
10:45 am - Quick break time! I heat up my coffee while I make a waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup on top. Banana on the side. Back to Excel!
12:20 pm - Morning calls are almost at an end so I head to the kitchen to make lunch. Put some quinoa to cook on the stove (ever since I learned how to correctly make quinoa, I’ve become obsessed and put it in everything) and quickly assemble a harvest bowl a la Sweetgreen. Add in spinach, apples, quinoa, sweet potato, broccoli and carrots. Topped with a pesto vinaigrette, it’s probably a weird combination, but I like it and it fills me up.
3:30 pm - I recently started a new job about a month ago and am finally getting around to rolling over my 401k into my new plan. I requested a check from the old company last week and spend some time going through the rollover process. It’s relatively easy, thankfully, and all I need to do now is get HR to sign a form!
4:45 pm - Tortilla chip snack break because I always get hungry around this time.
6:15 pm - Work is finally over and I’m about to start a workout when my roommate complains that she hasn’t done one in a while. I convince her to do a Sydney Cummings boxing workout with me and we’re both dripping with sweat by the end. Our downstairs neighbors probably hate us though since there was a lot of jumping, whoops!
7:20 pm - Heat up the last portion of TJ’s Roasted Red Pepper and Tomato Soup and eat while watching an episode of The Crown. I wonder how much of this stuff is true and Google random things about Prince Philip while I watch.
10:45 pm - After talking with my mom and sister for almost an hour, I run the dishwasher and finally take a shower. It feels so good to get into bed!
12:00 am - Scroll through random TikTok videos and send a few funny ones to my sister. Pass out while watching old episodes of The Big Bang Theory.
Daily Total: $0.00
Tuesday 11/17:
8:20 am - I wake up too late and scramble around quickly to get ready before my 8:30 call begins. Manage to brush my teeth and make coffee, still in PJs though. Luckily, it’s a conference call with our team in Spain so I don’t have to turn my video on and can sip my coffee while listening.
9:10 am - I have some time before my next call at 9:30 so I change into leggings and a tank, throw a sweatshirt on, and fix my bed. I hate late start days but the time I get to spend under my covers almost seems worth it every time.
10:30 am - Same breakfast as yesterday: waffle with peanut butter and maple syrup with a banana on the side. Can you tell I’m a creature of habit?
12:30 pm - I’m STARVING. I quickly make a small plate of nachos because I have calls until 2:00 and can’t eat until after.
2:00 pm - Yes, calls are over! I swear, half of these could be summed up into an email. Make a harvest bowl like yesterday with broccoli, apples, sweet potato, etc. Make a quick honey mustard vinaigrette with my almost empty mustard bottle - I love hacks like these!
4:15 pm - My paycheck dates have changed so I call to ask Chase if they can modify my credit card statement closing date to be right before I get my first paycheck so I can start each month fresh after rent gets paid. Also get the rollover form back from HR and upload my check to my new 401k!
6:00 pm - Go downstairs to the CVS on my block to get a quick flu shot. I’m in and out within 15 minutes, thankfully!
6:45 pm - Hang out with my roommate before she goes to work and spend the rest of the night watching The Bachelorette and talking to my parents. My sister and I are trying to visit our cousin in California for NYE and we’re not sure if it’s going to be okay getting on an airplane in a month. I tell my mom to book the tickets now, since they’re relatively cheap, and we can always cancel and get our miles back since refund policies are lenient at the moment. Walk around my apartment while talking on the phone to get some steps in. At some point, I make a sandwich with broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s on the side.
10:30 pm - I spend some time just laying on my couch, my back and shoulders completely kill from boxing yesterday.
11:20 pm - Shower, hot cocoa, a few episodes of The Big Bang Theory, bed.
Daily Total: $0.00
Wednesday 11/18:
7:30 am - Wake up earlier than I want ta so I can get in line early at CityMD to get a COVID test. Quickly brush my teeth and slip on leggings and sneakers and run across the street. The line is already around the block to the next street...great.
8:30 am - Contemplate leaving as I dial into a Zoom meeting, decide wait it out some more.
9:00 am - Okay...pretty sure I have pneumonia by now. IT’S FREEZING and we’ve only moved by half a block. I did not prepare enough for this. Complain/vent to my mom a little on the phone and decide to cut my losses before I freeze to death. Run back home, immediately change into comfy sweats, and spend over an hour trying to get warm again while in meetings.
12:30 pm - Text with my sister while I’m in a meeting about the testing situation in NYC. She wants me to get tested before I go home for Thanksgiving so we don’t have to worry about our grandparents. I search around for other testing sites in the city while I’m in calls.
1:30 pm - I throw together a bunch of vegetables with some spinach and brown rice I had in the fridge and make a quick salad. Use up the last of the honey mustard vinaigrette as dressing.
4:00 pm - Research face masks while I’m on my last call of the day. I like the ones from Rothy’s (recommended by another money diary) but I hold off on buying them for now until I can decide on a color I like.
6:15 pm - Finish up work after sending out a few emails and turn on a Sydney Cummings workout. My butt and legs are on fire after I finish...I take longer than I should to get up off my yoga mat.
7:15 pm - Heat up the rest of the broccoli cheddar soup from TJ’s - it’s actually much better than I thought it would be!
9:00 pm - Head down to CVS quickly because I have a coupon for a free item and my mom would be disappointed in me if I let it go to waste. I can’t really think of anything I need so I grab a muscle relaxant cream to give to my grandma, she has arthritis so I think it would be helpful.
10:00 pm - I get an email that a dresser I’ve been looking at is back in stock. We remodeled my room at my parent’s house last year and it’s basically empty at the moment, so I think it could be a nice addition to the space. I call my mom to ask if she likes it - luckily the color matches perfectly with the rest of the furniture so I go ahead and make the purchase. Open up a Wayfair credit card to get $40 off; I get approved quicker than I thought! - $383.84
11:15 pm - I take a shower, try on the items I got in my latest Stitch Fix box, and get into bed. Exchange random funny TikToks with my sister and fall asleep while watching an episode of The Crown.
Daily Total: $383.84
Thursday 11/19:
7:30 am - I have a call at 8:30 so I wake up early to check if the urgent care near me has time slots. It already says that no walk-in appointments are available for the next hour so I make a note to check throughout the day. Lay in bed and am in and out of sleep for the next half hour.
8:30 am - I get on my first call of the morning after cleaning up my room and brushing my teeth. I listen to our project lead talk about doing business with Asian countries while making my coffee.
10:30 am - Still on calls, ugh. Take a quick break from the Excel file I’ve been working on in the background to make a multigrain waffle with peanut butter and some maple syrup on top. No banana to add on the side today, unfortunately.
11:45 am - I’ve been talking to a guy I met on Bumble for a few weeks now and we were supposed to meet tonight for the first time. I text him to postpone since we’re both seeing our families in the next few days and it would be too risky to meet tonight for the first time. Luckily, he’s really nice about it and totally understands. This pandemic has definitely pushed back my potential wedding by 2 years, ha.
1:30 pm - I finally have a break from meetings to make lunch! I quickly heat up some parmesan arugula ravioli from TJ’s with a salad on the side to use up all of the random produce I have left. Get back to my desk and work while I eat.
4:30 pm - I read a funny article about the little owl that was found in the Rockefeller Center tree and I text my old coworker about it. They call him Rockefeller and he’s so cute! My coworker says he gives her Baby Yoda vibes. I agree.
6:45 pm - Finally finish up work, it’s almost Friday! I check the urgent care site again and it still says that no appointments are available for the next hour. My roommate and I complain about how it shouldn’t be this difficult to get tested in the city. I walk down to the center anyway and the receptionist tells me that she might be able to fit me in if I come back tomorrow around lunchtime. Semi-success!
7:30 pm - I eat a few soft/hard tacos for dinner while talking to my roommate and watching an episode of The Crown - I just want to get to the Princess Diana-era already!
10:00 pm - I spend the rest of the night cleaning up the kitchen, running the dishwasher, showering, etc. I decide on one item to keep from my Stitch Fix box and check out the app. I think I might cancel my subscription, especially since we’re probably not going anywhere for the next few months. - $59.00
11:30 pm - Get in bed, pull up old episodes of Friends on my iPad, and fall asleep at some point.
Daily Total: $59.00
WEEKLY TOTALS
Food + Drink: $92.25
Fun / Entertainment: $0.00
Home + Health: $21.55
Clothes + Beauty: $59.00
Transport: $0.00
Other: $474.84
GRAND TOTAL: $647.64
REFLECTIONS: Aside from the furniture purchase and gift for my boss, I would say that this is a standard week. I honestly don’t think I spend too much but sometimes my credit card bill is way higher than I thought it would be. I thought it would be fun to do a follow-up, especially with my job/apartment change! Still trying to figure out how to live with this salary since it’s a big change for me, has anyone struggled with this? Would love some advice, I realize that it’s a great problem to have but I still feel uncomfortable since I don’t really know how much is right to spend/save.

You are Moses, a Ocean man shopping at IKEA. Once you retrieved your Sticks and a guide to free jews, you realize you're lost. As you explore further, you suddenly see an Employee walking down an aisle. But upon a closer look... you realize it isn't human.
You are forced to make a decision to either kill the abomination or follow it.
> You find a shovel.
You find a Shovel, you remember you had plans to kill the creature. As you try to find a good location to hide in, you hear the sounds of Tools coming.
> You quietly follow it.
As the sounds get louder, you are hidden behind a shelf full of batteries. You watch as an IKEA Monkey comes into view, holding a large flashlight.
> You throw batteries at the monkey.
The monkey squeals in horror, dropping the flashlight, trapping it. The IKEA Monkeys succumbs to its wounds and bleed to death.
Thank you for reading! You unlocked all trophies!
> You grab wrapping paper.
You hold up a roll of wrapping paper and realize you are in the "storage" room. Off to the right you can see a massive city, full of IKEA furniture, electronics, and hardware.
> You buy some gifts.
You walk along with your gifts, unsure of what to do next. You are met by a human IKEA employee. Upon a closer examination, it's not a human, but rather a mannequin.
> You hit it with a shovel.
The Mannequin feels pain, and lets out a horrible cry. The pain of the hit is so great for you that you feel you'll faint. You keep going, passing a dressing room full of clothes.
> You grab some clothes.
You enter the room and look at all the clothes, mostly skirts and dresses. You are unsure what to get. You find a pair of black pants with a weird pattern and a red tank top with large black shoulder pads.
> You equip the newly found clothes.
The new outfit is strange. The shoulder pads are too big and make you look like the Micheal Jackson impersonator. The pants are tight, and they too made of some sort of stretchy material meant for a child.
You wander along the isles, unsure what you are really getting. You are met by a mannequin.
> You stare at the mannequin.
The mannequin looks back at you, her eyes following you the entire time. They're bright blue, one brown, one green. You stare into them, and feel like you've known that gaze your entire life.
Suddenly, the mannequin walks into you.
You scream as you feel her cold dead hands touch your shoulder. You try to run, but it only makes the mannequin move faster.
> You bite off her finger.
You grab a mannequin's finger, and pull it off. The finger tastes salty, almost fishy, in your mouth. You try not to retch, but it's too late.
> You swallow the finger.
You find yourself puke- ing on a shelf full of curtains. You retch again, but nothing is coming up. You wipe your mouth and continue wandering.
Your stomach starts to hurt. Really hurt.
> You look for food.
You are in a room filled with electronics, with small tables surrounded by chairs. You see a desk with a computer on it.
You can hear yourself groaning.
> You use the computer.
As you push down on the computer keystrokes, the monitor flashes a green light. A website comes up, which is IKEA.COM.
You scream as you see the site is frozen. You are unable to browse to what product you're looking at, or where the nearest IKEA is located.
You hit F5 over and over again, but nothing works.
> You head to the food aisle.
You are met by a massive food hall. You are unsure of what to do next, so you decide to explore.
The first aisle you come across is meats.
> You cook the meat.
You grab a package of sirloin steak and open it. You take out a strip of meat, about the size of a band-aid, and bring it near your nose to smell it. You quickly realize you're not supposed to be eating raw meat. You drop it on the ground, and it breaks apart.
The smell is overpowering. You can't help but breathe in. You feel sick.
> You build a fire using nearby shelves as tinder.
You find a pile of wood. You grab a nearby piece of wood, and find a stud in the shelf. You hit the stud with your hammer, and it falls into the shelf below.
> You burn the wood and cook the meat.
You add the wood to the fire and throw the steak in. The meat quickly becomes medium rare. You enjoy a meal, still unsure of what to do next.
It's only been a few hours of the day, but it is already dark. You decide to find a bed for the night.
You come across a room filled with beds. They are all occupied.
> You quietly look for a bed that has no occupants on it.
You find a bed that no one is in, and take it. You flop your body down, and rest your head on the pillow.
The dream comes again.
You are back in grade school. The dream is all too familiar. You are walking to class with your friends. On the way, you see your friend Kyle, and he's talking to another friend.
> You kick Kyle.
As you start to turn, you feel something hit your toe. You look down, and a plastic army man is lying in the middle of your shoe. You bend down to pick it up, but the bell rings. You can't stop to talk to Kyle now.
You walk into the classroom with everyone else, take a seat, and open up your book.
> You read the book.
You open to a page that has the word "READ" written on it in marker.
You read the words, not sure of what they mean.
You wake up at two in the morning. You look outside your window, it's raining.
The rain pounds against your window.
You feel tired again. You've been feeling tired a lot lately.
> You wake up.
You open your eyes and sit up in bed.
You get out of bed, walk into the bathroom, brush your teeth, and take a leak.
You look out your window.
> You gather your things and head to the next aisles.
You stand up, and gather your things. As you head to the front of the store, you see a mannequin in a blue dress. It catches your eye as you pass, and you pause.
The dress is gorgeous. It covers the mannequin, but leaves nothing to the imagination.
> You push the mannequin and leave.
You step back from the mannequin, and notice a remote on the floor. You walk up to it and press a button. A loud beep sounds out, and a red light starts blinking. You look around to see if anyone noticed the beep, but it's just you in the room.
You walk over to the mannequin, pick up the remote, and press another button.
> You put your hand on the mannequin's shoulder.
The mannequin turns, and looks at you.
The mannequin's eyes are empty. There is no recognition, no intelligence, nothing.
> You poke the mannequin's eyes and run.
You touch the mannequin's eyes with your fingers. You poke at them, and they feel like clay. The clay mannequin's head turns from side to side. It's eyes follow you. They're not blank, they've got something in them, but they don't seem to comprehend what you are.
You look at the eyes, and poke at them some more.
> You keep poking until something happens.
You keep poking at his eyes, but nothing seems to happen. You begin to get frustrated and angry. You feel like you need to do something, anything.
As you keep poking, the mannequin's eyes seem to look right through you. It's like the mannequin is thinking about something else, even though its eyes are still just blinking at you.
> You poke the mannequin.
You reach out and poke the stupid mannequin.
The mannequin doesn't move, but your hand starts to feel like its on fire. You quickly pull your hand back and the pain goes away.
You wait a few seconds, and try again. Same thing happens. You try to touch it, but the mannequin's eyes make you stop.
A bright light appears in the middle of the room.
> You look at bright light.
As you step into the room, you stop in your tracks.
A stream of light comes out of the bright area, and hits each wall.
> You poke the mannequin again.
You press your hand against the mannequin again and feel the heat rise. You pull back, but you still feel the heat.
The light grows brighter and brighter until you have to look away.
A split second later, the lights go out. The darkness is so complete that you can barely even see your hand in front of your face.
You stand in the darkness, wondering what is going on.
> You hold the mannequin by its eye sockets and look for a wall to stand against.
You grab the mannequin's head by its eye sockets, and feel for a wall. As soon as your hand hits the wall, you find that you can no longer see. You are blind.
You place one foot against the wall and begin to feel around for the other wall. You slowly move around, until you have found the opposite wall.
> You hug the mannequin.
You squeeze the mannequin tightly, still feeling your way around in the dark. As you do this, you begin to feel warmer. Not hot, but warm. You feel your body relax, and stop sweating. You stop feeling scared, and relax completely.
You are safe here.
You feel something wet on your face. You reach up and touch it. It's blood.
> You run.
You hear a voice coming from everywhere. It's deep, guttural, and it isn't talking so much as screaming. You begin to get scared again, but you don't know why.
> You drag the mannequin while you run.
You begin dragging the mannequin along with you as you desperately try to make your way back to the exit. You stumble forward, but in the darkness it feels like you're moving in reverse.
You keep dragging the mannequin, even though you can't see it. You feel your way along the wall. You scream as you accidently run into a corner, and run into the wall behind it.
> You feel for a weapon.
You reach out and find the corner of a table. You run your hand along it, trying to find a weapon.
As you do this, you run into the other wall. Your hand hits something, and your fingers wrap around it. You pull it back. It's a revolver. It's black, heavy, and huge. It has a giant "W" on the side.
> You shoot blindly.
You raise the revolver with your non-dominant hand and shoot it into the middle of the blackness. You hear a loud bang, and you feel a kick to your hand. You feel a burning sensation.
Your sight begins to clear, but you're still in a mad dash to get out of the room. You swing the revolver around and point it towards whatever direction you can, firing again.
> You shoot the mannequin.
You raise the gun and shoot at the black figure again, but you miss. Suddenly, the mannequin's head explodes and blood splatters onto you and the walls.
You scream as you feel something hit your leg. When you look, you see a bloody finger pointing at you. You step back and almost fall into the pool of blood on the floor.
> You take the rest of the mannequin with you.
You stand in the dark, still feeling around for the wall. You feel around some more, and you find a corner. You wrap your hand around it and pull yourself up.
You look around and see that you are outside the room once again. You are still holding the mannequin by one leg.
> You leave the dark room.
You exit the room, running as fast as you can without tripping over anything in the dark. You scream for help, but no one hears you.
> You shake the mannequin.
You shake the mannequin, but it doesn't work. You try again, harder. Still nothing. You begin to get angry, so you hit the mannequin with your fist. It doesn't break. You begin to cry.
You stop and take a breath. At that moment, you are reminded of another time you were in a dark room, scared to death.
> You look for an exit.
You begin to look for a door or an exit from the room. You look around for any kind of handle, knob, or some sort of opening.
You stand up, and as you do, the mannequin's leg snaps off. You scream.
You look down at the broken limb in your hands.
> You repair the mannequin.
You take a deep breath, and begin to reassemble the leg, thinking you'll do it in sections so you can more easily see what you're doing. You work slowly, feeling very tired and tired. You've been in an endless corridor, in darkness, holding a mannequin leg that is crushing your fingers.
When you're finished, you look at your handiwork. You've reassembled the leg in a way that looks less like a mannequin leg and more like a brownish-yellow bone.
> You look for light source.
There's a long hallway of IKEA-quality wood with walls painted a pale yellow. There is a single, dim light bulb in the ceiling. You can make out the shadows of IKEAs, desks, and chairs in the darkness.
You take a step forward, and then another.
The floorboards creak.
You stop, listening.
> You walk with the mannequin.
You hold the mannequin's arm, walking towards the darkness with it.
The hallway is very long, and there's nothing but the darkness and you. You take another step, and another. You begin to regret the mannequin.
The shadow of a mannequin appears in front of you.
> You grab a flashlight.
You reach into your pocket and pull out the flashlight, turning it on as you hold it in your hands. You can make out the walkway now, a wooden wall along the floor and up the stairs.
The walls are covered in stacks of IKEA cabinets and other furniture.
> You hide with the mannequin in the closet.
You look around. There's no one else here. You see the closet, with a bolted door and wooden shelves nailed to the wall. There's also a set of stairs that lead up to the walkway. You can also see the window through which you came in, at the other end of the walkway.
You position your mannequin legs so that you're halfway in the closet and out of sight, then go over to the window.
> You pull the mannequin over and head to the next aisle.
You see a long white table spread with platters of shrimp Newburg and canapés. At the head of the table sits an older man in a black suit, with a stern but kind face.
> You feed the mannequin.
You hold up the shrimp to the mannequin's face, and he opens his mouth slightly. You stick it in, and he begins chewing. You do this with three more shrimp, and then hold up the platter. The mannequin nods, so you take it over to the table.
> You talk to the man in the black suit.
The man in the black suit looks at you over his glasses, and you notice his eyes are obscured by dark lenses.
"Yes," he says. "That will be five dollars."
You pull out your wallet, and you notice it's nearly empty. You'll have to make another stop at the bank.
You look around, and spot a cash register by one of the IKEAs.
> You leave the mannequin and withdraw money.
You smack yourself in the head. "Dumb idea to start with. Shoulda just robbed a bank, been easier," you mutter to yourself. You get out of the kitchen and head over to the register. You pull the register out and find the money, then slide it into your pocket.
"Okay," you say. "Time to go."
You turn and spot the man in the black suit standing in the doorway.
"Five minutes," he says. "I have to wait for my food."
> You give the 5 dollars.
You walk forward slowly, opening your wallet as if to give him the ticket. The man smiles.
"It's okay," he says. "I trust you."
> You eat with the mannequin.
Your stomach rumbles. You've been too nervous to eat, and it's time to put that right. You look around. There's a kitchen counter filled with condiments and gadgets. You spot a large knife with a rosewood handle and a serrated edge. You reach for it, but the man grabs your wrist.
> You tug away from the man.
The knife slips from your grasp and falls to the ground. Before you know it, his hands are around your neck. He begins to squeeze tightly, not letting go.
> You ask the mannequin for help.
You tug at the man's hands, but they're like bands of steel. Your eyes dart from the man to the mannequin and back again. At least, you think they do. It's hard to tell through the mask.
The man's hands tighten around your neck. You gasp and struggle, but you know it's no use. With a crack, your neck snaps like a twigs. You gasp once, twice, then go still.
It's over in an instant, but it seems like forever before the man lets you go.
> You signal the mannequin to help you.
The mannequin raises its arm, and you take a deep breath. You reach out and tap the glass over the punchbowl. This action causes the guests to applaud.
You raise your eyebrows at the mannequin. It's time for it to do something.
The mannequin nods, and both of its hands go up into the air. Guests clap, and you join in.
The mannequin beckons to you, and you can't help but approach. It leans in toward you, and your lips touch the edge of the mask.
> You run away with the mannequin.
You run away with the mannequin, jumping over the couch and out of the room. You make it into the hallway just as the fire alarm goes off.
"Person in the house, duh!" Vincenzo says.
Firemen run into the house as smoke fills the halls. People scream and float away.
> You realize you're hallucinating.
As you stand in the doorways of the rooms that were once occupied by IKEA's guests, you realize your life has become a bizarre dream. Your mind is playing tricks on you. You're still in IKEA, and there's a fire. Because of the smoke, you're having hallucinations.
What will you do?
> You grab a mannequin and run.
You run into the room with the displays and find the mannequin from the "Lounge" set up. It's wearing a plaid button-up and khaki shorts, and has clear alcohol in hand. You grab the mannequin and run out of the room.
> You head to the nearest food aisle.
You run into the kitchen, but you don't find what you're looking for. You keep looking until you find a knife on the counter. You pull it out of its packaging and walk back into the living room.
> You give the knife to the mannequin.
You hold the knife out to the mannequin. He nods with approval and walks you over to the punch bowl.
The mannequin pours a measured amount of red liquid into a glass. He walks you over to the couch, and you sit down.
The mannequin hands you the glass of wine.
> You check if the wine has been drugged.
The wine isn't drugged. You've become a pawn in some bizarre game. How did you get here, and why are you the only one who knows?
The mannequin sits across from you on the couch. He grins in a friendly way, and you can't help but relax.
> You run away with the mannequin.
You grab the man's hand, and he pulls you up. You run out into the hallway.
As you run, a pain shoots through your head, and the room begins to spin. Your legs feel leaden, and you have to lean against the wall to stop your knees from shaking. Your heart pounds in your chest.
A wave of dizziness hits you, and you close your eyes.
> You wake up.
You wake up and find yourself in a hotel bed. You're in a cheap hotel in Sweden. You sit up in bed and look around the room.
"Finally up, I was starting to worry about you."
> You look at the mannequin.
You look at the mannequin. He's missing his clothes, and his face and hands have been pixelated. He's sitting on a chair in front of a laptop.
Who are you?
> You check if you're still in the infinite IKEA.
You're still in the IKEA. You're sitting on a hotel bed in Sweden.
Who are you?
The computer beeps, and the man looks up at you.
> You go back to sleep.
You close your eyes and listen to the sound of the airplane. You try to sleep, but your mind won't let you. Why are you here? What is real and what is a dream?
> You stand and leave the hotel room.
You walk down the hall and find yourself outside the front door of the hotel. The doorknob feels strange in your hand. You look down at your arms and see long, slender fingers. They're not your own.
You look up and see a beautiful woman with long, curly black hair and bright red lips smiling at you. She's not real, she's a hallucination.
> You smile back at her.
The woman smiles, and her face becomes more defined. She looks familiar. As you stare at her face, the image begins to shift and morph into countless others of women with long-lived faces and perfect features.
> You kiss her.
You lean in and press your lips against hers. As your mouth makes contact, you feel a charge of energy run through your body.
Her face is perfection itself, but now it begins to decay. The smile becomes a grimace. The skin sags and wrinkles. Blood runs down from her eyes, and her teeth gap at you.
> You kiss her again.
This time she seems to accept your advances, she smiles. You feel a little more energy coursing through you, but this feeling soon gives away to a wave of nausea.
The woman's face becomes a mass of bleeding sores. Her eyes have turned into deep, black holes. Her mouth gapes open, and spit runs down her chin.
> You kiss her again.
The woman's face explodes, and a trillion insects swarm out from the ruins of her skull. You scream as their dozens of legs crawl all over your body. Your scream turns to one of terror as you begin to feel the effects of the insects.
You look down at your arms and see that your skin is covered in dozens of black insects.
> You roll on the ground, crushing all of them in the process.
You grab handfuls of insects and squeeze them, crushing their wings and killing them. As you do, dozens of new insects crawl out from under the doors and begin to swarm over you.
Your body begins to feel heavy. Your vision begins to blur, and it feels as if every inch of your skin is being covered with the insects. Your vision goes dark.
When your eyes open again, you find yourself in a completely different setting. You're no longer on the hotel floor. You're lying in bed in an old house.
> You look at the mannequin.
The mannequin is dressed in black pants and a red button-up shirt. It is not your body, but it feels as if it could be a perfect fit.
It appears that you're in some sort of house, or possibly a barn. The setting is dark, and you can see only the mannequin, a few scattered instruments, and a few half-installed items.
> You pick up a instrument and give it to the mannequin.
You walk over to the mannequin and pick up an electric guitar. You place the instrument next to it.
This appears to be a bedroom, but you're not quite sure. You see a suitcase lying against the wall with the name 'Bertrand' scrawled across the front in black marker.
> You open the suitcase.
As you pull the suitcase open, a stack of love letters fall out onto the floor. You pick them up and thumb through them. They appear to be love letters written to a now dead woman by a man named Bertrand.
There's a knock at the door.
Who could it be? your imagination wonders.
> You make the mannequin answer the door.
The door is locked, and the mannequin doesn't have a key. There's a slot by the door where you could put a key, if you had one.
You could fake being a hotel concierge and answer the door.
Or you could leave the mannequin locked in the bedroom and sneak out another way.
This room is bewildering.
> You grab the mannequin and exit the room through another route.
You grab the mannequin's hand and pull. The mannequin doesn't move.
You panic, and immediately exit the bedroom, heading back down the hallway. You head towards the staircase, towards the front door. You don't know where the hell you are, but you have to get out of here.
You rush down the stair case and into the foyer.
> You jump with the mannequin.
You watch as the mannequin falls. It hurts your eyes to look, so you close them. Your ears begin to ring as your head strikes the floor. You pass out.
When you wake up, you're in a hospital bed. You're alive. The police believe that David killed himself and the woman. There was a note saying he couldn't continue without her.
> You check if i'm still within the infinite IKEA.
You find yourself still within the endless store. Everything is just as it was when you fell asleep.
The only thing you notice is a figure standing near you.
> You look at the figure.
You open your eyes. It's a mannequin, dressed in red clothing, standing upright.
The lights are bright, and you need a moment to adjust.
> You grab the mannequin and lay beside him.
You and the mannequin fall to the ground. You're disorientated, in pain, and don't understand what's going on. You begin to panic. All you know is that you're stuck within a room of a store you don't remember entering, and you have no idea how you got here.
The mannequin looks at you.
> You grab the mannequin and leave the room.
You run your hands along the red clothing of the mannequin. It's so realistic looking, with out a doubt the most life like thing in this entire place.
> You check for any exits.
There's an exit to your right, a long hallway. But it seems very far away, you don't know if you could make it.
> You run towards the exit while dragging the mannequin.
You begin running down the hallway. But halfway there, you realize you are dragging the mannequin with you. That's not a good idea, as you find yourself tripping and falling. You didn't quite learn that one.
The mannequin looks as if it's screaming, but it's so lifelike, it would be more correct to say its grimacing.
> You keep running with the mannequin.
You struggle back to your feet and continue running. But as you run, the mannequin's weight slows you down and now you're tripping and falling again.
As you pick yourself up and begin the walk back to the room, you notice a small card on the floor. It reads:
Eat Me
You look up at the mannequin in confusion.
> You make the mannequin eat the note.
You pick up the note and look at it again. You try reading it aloud, but nothing comes out.
Now you're angry. Mad that you fell for such a trick. Why didn't you exit the room when you had the chance? You're madder at yourself for being so stupid.
Tears stream down your face as you look at the lifeless mannequin.
> You exit with the mannequin.
You exit the room with the mannequin in hand. You look to your left and right, but there's no one else in the hallway. The mannequin stares at you blankly, as if staring into your soul.
Then, it disappears. You're very confused. Did you just slip into a state of psychosis?
> You look for the mannequin.
You run down the empty hallway, desperately looking for the mannequin. You call out it's name, "MANNEQUIN", but there's no reply.
Your heart begins to race, as reality sets in that you're trapped within a room with a dead mannequin. This isn't real. But it is. You're completely and utterly terrified.
> You revive the mannequin and give it life.
You pick up the lifeless mannequin and begin to yell, "Wake up! MANNEQUIN! Let's go! Do your thing!"
You begin shaking the mannequin, and this causes you to laugh hysterically. The laughter is hollow though, for no reason other than you know it's all true.
> You force the mannequin to come alive again.
It's dead. You killed it. The adrenaline wears off and you begin to feel scared again, not realizing what you've done. You exit the room as you hear sirens.
> You bring the mannequin home.
You enter your room and place the lifeless mannequin into your closet. You get dressed, as you have no idea what else to do. You leave the house, but nothing looks real. Everything seems like a dream.
At this point you decide to go home and sleep it off.
> You realize you're still in the IKEA.
You find yourself in the hallway of the IKEA, unsure of how you got here. You don't remember going to the movies. You don't remember talking to people. You don't remember ordering food.
> You look for the mannequin.
You try to exit the room, but you're unable. Since you're already in the IKEA, you decide to look for your mannequin.
You find it in the "Door of the Future" room. It's still lifeless.
You notice something written on the nearby table.
> You sit down next to the mannequin and read the writing on the table.
You read the note, and begin to laugh again. It's a joke, right? You aren't dead, so it must be some sick joke.
You notice your ATM card on the table.
> You grab the ATM card and tell the mannequin that you're totally not bankrupt.
You enter your PIN on the ATM, and $200 appears in the number one slot and $100 in the two slot. You take out $50 and put it in your wallet before entering the first number, $20.
Nothing happens. The screen says, "Please wait five minutes before entering your number again."
You put the card back onto the table and notice a small box on the bottom right hand side of the machine.
> You tell the mannequin to open the small box.
You hear a quiet "click" sound, and the closet door swings open.
Inside the closet is a red chair, a large wooden dress box, and an old lamp.
The lamp is already lit, so you leave it as-is and take the red chair out of the closet. You look at it for a moment, then notice a black rectangular box on the floor underneath the lamp.
> You take the rectangular box and open it next to the mannequin.
You open up the black rectangular box and find a lighter, a note, and a pack of matches.
The note says:
I'm in the closet. I can't come out.
> You tell the mannequin to open the closet.
You tell the mannequin, and he makes a "push me" gesture. You push him.
The closet door opens.
> You look at the closet.
There's a person hiding in the closet. At first, you think it's a joke, and start to laugh. But then you realize this person is in real life, not a joke.
> You talk to the person.
You approach the person and address them, "Hey."
The person turns around, and it's a woman. She is wearing a Yellow Wallpaper-esque nightgown.
> You ask her how she got into that closet.
The woman seems confused by your question, and asks you "How did you get here?"
You explain to her that you went to the movies, and when you woke up, you found yourself here.
> You show her your mannequin.
The woman is fascinated by your mannequin, and approaches it closely. She touches it's face, and then starts sobbing.
"It's so lifelike! How long have you had it?"
> You tell her that you've had it for as long as you can remember.
The woman seems very confused by this answer. She says "But don't you need a special guy to put you together? Where does he get the pieces from?"
> You tell her to stop asking questions and prioritize escaping together.
The woman begins sobbing again. "I've been stuck here for years."
She makes no more questions, but instead tells you that her name is Helen, and that she has an uncanny connection with the dead.
> You tell her to talk to the mannequin.
The woman, still crying, talks to the mannequin as if it can hear her.
> You wipe her tears.
The woman, surprised, wipes her eyes and says "Thank you."
The two of you plan your escape. The woman has some ideas, but as an outsider she suggests more options to explore.
> You ask her what she suggests.
The woman thinks for a moment, and then suggests two escape routes.
> You ask her what are the two escape routes.
The woman tells you that there is a window at the back of the closet, and that the back door of the house is also unlocked.
> You ask her if that will let you leave the IKEA.
The woman nods. "Perfect. Let's do that."
The two of you leave the bedroom and explore the rest of the house.
> You look for something to eat with the mannequin.
You find a cookie in a jar on the kitchen counter. You open the jar and take a cookie, and then put it back.
> You give the cookie to the mannequin.
The mannequin eats the cookie and smiles. "Thanks. I'm starving."
You laugh and head to the window. You open it and climb out.
> You leave with the mannequin and the woman.
You are outside the house now, on the grass. You realize that the woman can escape through the window, as she promised, but that she won't be able to unlock the front door from the inside.
> You help her down from the window.
Helping the woman out of the window, you realize you have a plan.
You have a mannequin in your closet. It's hardly lifelike, but you also have a key for it.
> You open the closet.
You remove the lifelike mannequin from the closet.
The mannequin is placed on the window.
> You proceed with the plan.
The window opens.
You grab the woman and help her down.
The woman grabs onto the mannequin.
You jump down to the grass below.
> You run away from the house with the mannequin and Helen.
You run away with the mannequin in tow. You reach the street, where taxis wait.
> You realize that you have escaped the infinite IKEA.
You look at the house. It disappears into the distance.
> You look towards Helen and the Mannequin.
The mannequin is gone. In its place is a lonely looking woman, still crying.
You walk over to her.
"Helen?" you ask.
She looks at you.
> You wipe her tears.
Helen smiles. "I'm sorry if I made you cry." she says. "But I can't find my husband's body."
The police arrive at the scene.
> You tell them everything that happened.
The police listen to you, but say that the house was likely just a really elaborate set.
You know it was no set. You were really there.
> You leave the scene and make your way back to your home.
You board a plane back to the states. Before take-off, you notice that you're actually a little tired from all of this.
> You realize that you're gonna miss the mannequin.
You look around the plane, expecting to see a mannequin in a seat. You are disappointed to realize that you are alone.
> You say "mannequin"
The stewardess turns to you. "Will there be someone with you for the rest of the flight?" she asks.
> You tell her no and that you ask for some peanuts.
The stewardess nods, and soon you're enjoying some peanuts. The peanuts taste salty and crunchy. A nice taste.
Soon, the plane lands back at JFK airport in New York City.
> You head home and move on with your life.
You return to New York City and board a plane to California the next day.
You and your father move into a small house in Los Angeles.

Going through old issues of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter and posting highlights in my own words, continuing in the footsteps of daprice82. For anyone interested, I highly recommend signing up for the actual site at f4wonline and checking out the full archives.
• PREVIOUS •
1987
FUTURE YEARS ARCHIVE:
The Complete Observer Rewind Archive by daprice82

1-4-1988	1-11-1988	1-18-1988	1-25-1988
2-1-1988	2-8-1988	2-15-1988	2-22-1988
2-29-1988	3-7-1988	3-14-1988	3-21-1988
3-28-1988	4-4-1988	4-11-1988	4-18-1988
4-25-1988	5-2-1988	5-9-1988	5-16-1988
5-23-1988	*	*	*

• The NWA is the nexus of the three biggest stories this week, and the possible Turner buyout of the promotion may be the biggest story of the year. It’s been rumored for weeks that the Crockett family will sell the majority of their shares to Turner Entertainment, and Dave can confirm that such a deal is currently awaiting approval from Turner’s acquisitions committee. If all looks good, we should know within a week. We're not going to know within a week, this is going to take more time.
  
• If Turner does buy the NWA, Jim Crockett is likely to remain in charge of day-to-day operations. The rest of the family would be divesting themselves of their interest in the company, and Turner will be in charge of promotion, PR, and other business activities. This should theoretically result in a “more professional and business-like approach.” Peers into the future HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Anyway, Dave thinks it’s foolish to speculate at this point about possible ramifications of the deal. And getting out of speculation and into fact: if the deal doesn’t go through, NWA is in a lot of trouble going into the summer, and they need to make major changes to how they conduct business no matter the outcome of the deal. There are wrestlers in the NWA who are owed money, and they’re not going to work for free.
  
• Thanks to Turner’s help, the NWA has already cleared availability for over 8.5 million homes for the Great American Bash ppv on July 10. Vince McMahon’s attempt to monopolize ppv wrestling has failed, at least for the moment. This is the second widest potential audience for a ppv wrestling event ever (Wrestlemania IV cleared 10 million potential homes). With WWF running a ppv (the Summerslam) from Madison Square Garden on August 29, that means most ppv providers have elected to ignore Vince’s ultimatum prohibiting competing wrestling ppvs 60 days before and 21 days after a WWF ppv. That ultimatum killed Starrcade last year, but let’s be thankful it’s pretty much dusted. This all means WWF has failed to kill Crockett’s ability to run ppv events, which was one of their goals.
  
• The card for the Great American Bash is set. Flair vs. Luger for the NWA Title; Windham vs. Rhodes for the U.S. Title; Triple tower of doom featuring the Road Warriors, Garvins, and Steve Williams vs. Kevin Sullivan, Al Perez, Mike Rotunda, Warlord, and Barbarian (yep, they’re going forward with it); Tully and Arn vs. Sting and Koloff for the world tag titles; and Midnights vs. Fantastics for the U.S. tag titles.
  
• The income potential is big for the Great American Bash. If they equal their previous buyrates, they should clear over a quarter million homes and take in ppv sales of over $4 million (ppv for the show will be $15.95), which will at the most conservative estimate give the NWA a cool $1 million in revenue after all the other splits on the ppv total revenue.
  
• The FCC ruled in favor of syndicated exclusivity this past week, and this has some potential consequences for the NWA. Syndicated exclusivity means that any program carried in your local market (so a show that’s put on free tv) cannot be shown on cable by bringing it in from another market. Dave gives the example of how if your local channel 7 carries the Beverly Hillbillies, then your cable company can’t show Beverly Hillbillies by pulling it in from another station in a different market, even if it's in another time slot. This is a potential catastrophe for WTBS, because so much of their programming is old network reruns which duplicate stuff shown in most markets, meaning they have to completely change up their programming or have so little of their material picked up by cable companies that they drop the station altogether. This is effective a year from now (plus any time that might get it stalled by court appeals), so there’s probably a couple years before it really goes into effect, but this is the main reason Turner is starting the TNT network and why eventually you’ll see wrestling get on there alongside the sports and movies and there won’t be old network tv reruns on it.
  
• Curiously, the NWA was doing the hard sell of the May 22 Omni house show on this past Saturday’s TBS show. The press boxes were really full (they’re usually totally empty), and Dave supposes they were probably filled with Turner executives checking out what they’re considering buying. It worked, by the way - 7,300 fans turned up for the Omni show, triple the crowd at last month’s show (and no, the card wasn’t any more enticing than last month’s either).
  
• Reborn UWF had their first show on May 12 and the fans flooded in. They sold out Korauken Hall in 15 minutes about a month ago, with all seats priced at $40 (a $92,000 gate). The first match of the three match show had Nobuhiko Takada vs. Shigeo Miyato in a ten minute exhibition, where Takada won with two submissions to nothing for Miyato. Tetsuo Nakano made Yoji Anjo submit in a 24 minute match for the second match of the show. Lastly, Akira Maeda and Kazuo Yamazaki had a match with tremendous heat and it is clear that there is no man in wrestling as over as Maeda is. Maeda hasn’t wrestled since he shot on Riki Choshu in November last year, and as a result he wasn’t quite in top condition and blew up part of the way through the match, but they went 25 minutes and Maeda won by submission. Dave was told American fans would likely be bored by the match, but the fans there were eating it up. UWF’s next show is set for June 11 in Sapporo, and all 6,000 seats sold out on the weekend of May 13. The real test is coming, though: will they be able to maintain interest with only three major stars and no regular foreigners? They’ll have foreigners in Sapporo, with those guys probably doing singles matches against Takada, Yamazaki, and Maeda.
  

Watch: Maeda vs. Yamazaki

• Former wrestler and referee Fred Atkins passed away at the age of 77 on May 13. He was originally from New Zealand and refereed for Frank Tunney in the Toronto area for a long time. He also managed Giant Baba in the 1960s during Baba’s heel tours of the U.S. His biggest match as a referee was the Terry Funk/Harley Race NWA World Title change at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1977.

Watch: the final ten minutes of Funk/Race

• Financial News Network, which debuts Continental Wrestling Federation on May 29, announced that they’ll be airing World Wrestling Council’s anniversary show this fall. WWC’s show drew 42,000 fans to three locations last fall, and will be aired live starting at 8 EST on September 10. Just an aside, but that means the card starts at 9 pm in Puerto Rico. Billed for the show are 12 championship matches featuring the likes of the Road Warriors, Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, Iron Sheik, Bruiser Brody, and more. Sadly, we’re going to have very different news related to Brody soon. As far as Dave knows, this is the first time an international big show is being broadcast live in the U.S.
  
• Dave got a chance to see the tv from the Oregon promotions and there’s a lot of sly remarks about the other promotions going on. Haynes’ OWF (Oregon Wrestling Federation, the Washington part isn’t there anymore) is emphasizing the size of their wrestlers and how they’re trying to put Oregon on the Map. Don Owen’s Big Time Wrestling, on the other hand, is emphasizing action as well as touting how they have only a 3.5 hour delay between taping and airing, as opposed to the OWF taping a week in advance. Dave says it pretty much is a battle of action vs. size from watching the shows. And if you know Dave, he prefers action to size.
  
• On Big Time Wrestling, they announced Curt Hennig would defend the AWA World Title against Col. DeBeers on May 19. Two reasons for that to be silly. First, Hennig lost the title five days before they announced this. Second, why are they billing DeBeers with his South African gimmick when he was a major headliner here for years as Ed Wiskoski?
  
• Turns out Abdullah the Butcher had gallbladder and ulcer surgery, not kidney surgery. He was released from the hospital on May 19, and should be back in action in late July. This really hurts the current All Japan tour, since he was set as one of the big headliners for the tour.
  
• All Japan will be unifying the tag team titles rather than the singles titles on June 10. Tentatively, they have Tenryu and Ashura Hara putting up their World tag titles against the Road Warriors and their International tag titles. But first they have a world tag title defense scheduled for June 6 in Sapporo (just 5 days before UWF’s show there, so note the timing and how they’re dealing with competition) against Jumbo Tsuruta and Yoshiaki Yatsu. Most expect Tsuruta and Yatsu to win and go on to the unification. And All Japan will deliver on expectation.
  
• JWP, the younger of the two women’s promotions in Japan, will be closing up shop after their May 29 Korauken Hall show. The wrestlers haven’t been getting paid lately because there’s just no money coming in for them. The promotion debuted in 1986 and just never got a television foothold established to ensure survival and cash flow.
  
• All Japan Women is limping along after the retirements of Dump Matsumoto and Yukari Omori, which has led to their ratings being cut in half. There are even rumors that Chigusa Nagayo may retire out of shame that the company’s business has fallen so far and that she hasn’t been able to keep ratings up.
  
• In other news about All Japan Women, some of the owners (the Matsunaga brothers, the last of whom died in February 2020), are trying to sell stock and divest themselves of a portion of the company. They thought bringing in the Jumping Bomb Angels as WWF tag champions would drum up interest, but they haven’t proven to be drawing and really what they are drawing is pretty much down to Chigusa Nagayo. So if Chigusa leaves, the whole company’s in major trouble. On June 8, the Jumping Bomb Angels defend the WWF women’s tag titles against the Glamour Girls, and spoiler alert - that’s going to be an unauthorized title change and kill the women’s tag division as a thing in WWF.
  
• [Stampede]: Steve Blackman’s nickname is Rambo. Just thought that was funny.
  
• Owen Hart wrestled his last match in Calgary for Stampede before going to his Japan tour. It was an absolutely wild brawl against Makhan Singh for the North American title. The finish had Hart thrown onto the floor and Singh’s manager Abdul Wizal started choking him with a chain, only for Hart to escape and tuck the chain in his trunks, which led to him using it to KO Singh and pin him. Then Vulcan Singh (Gary Allbright), dressed as Jason the Terrible, came and attacked Hart and told the referee to check Hart’s trunks, where he found the chain and reversed the decision.
  
• Jerry Lawler’s first defense of the AWA World title against Bill Dundee drew only 2,200 on May 16. Face vs. face and Lawler used a chain to win. Other matches included Robert Fuller beating Jeff Jarrett and Max Pain beating Curt Hennig by disqualification in a CWA title match.
  
• Dave got a chance to watch the tv from the week before the AWA World title change in Memphis and is amazed they didn’t sell out the show with the title change. They hyped the show great, but it’s clear Memphis is trending downward, and no amount of local news coverage or having the mayor on air begging people to come support Lawler seemed to get them there. All the local stations, bar one, covered the title change as just straight up news without even being tongue in cheek about it, and you never see that in tv news these days. When ESPN and CNN and ABC radio covered Wrestlemania, all of them were treating it like a joke. Memphis is really the last bastion of kayfabe, in a way.
  
• Visiting Memphis on the May 23 tv show and making his Rewind debut is Bob Holly. He’s teaming with Pat Rose in an AWA Tag title match, and they’re coming in from World Organization Wrestling in Pensacola. Nobody knows who Holly is, and nobody in the area remembers Rose, so they’re not going to be exciting anyone at the show.
  
• Missy Hyatt is gone from Memphis. There seems to be heat, but Dave’s not sure what the story is. Robert Fuller has twice stolen angles of Eddie Gilbert’s design for Continental and used them days later in Memphis, so that’s probably part of it. The planned Lawler vs. Gilbert AWA title defense set for May 29 has been canceled.
  
• Missy Hyatt is in Continental now as a tv announcer. Also newly added are Mr. Olympia and Willie B. Hurt. Willie is Pez Whatley doing a comedy gimmick where he tells the fans they know his real name and who he is and where he’s been, but now he’s Willie B. He’s a comedy gimmick who won his debut in a squash, though, so that’s different.
  

Watch: Willie B. Hurt

• Gone from Continental are Steve Armstrong and Robert Fuller, who both no-showed. Dutch Mantell also appears to be gone.
  
• In USA Wrestling, Terry Gordy and Wendell Cooley did a 20 minute draw on May 14. The match itself was so-so, but they brawled for another 20 minutes after the match and went all over the building, and that was great.
  
• They also did a big heart attack angle with Ron Wright in USA that was all taped for tv. It all came on the heels of a match where Mongolian Stomper wrestled the Bullet and if Bullet lost, he’d have to unmask. Well, Bullet lost, and under the mask was the Bullet! Yeah, he wore a mask under his mask.
  

Watch: The Bullet unmasks and causes a Ron Wright heart attack

• Word from Larry Sharpe’s Monster Factory are that Futahaguro’s training drills showed him to be really agile for a 350 lb guy. Word in Japan is that if he does go into pro wrestling he’ll go with All Japan over New Japan. Inoki doesn’t sign sumo wrestlers because TV-Asahi holds the purse, and they have a good relationship with the sumo world (they even have a weekly show called Sumo World). Bringing Futahaguro in would be highly disrespectful of New Japan, considering that he was banned from sumo, so yeah. Koji Kitao will not be likely to head to New Japan.
  
• Before he left for the U.S., Riki Choshu banned two major Japanese magazines from conducting interviews and taking photos of himself and the other wrestlers under his banner. That means Super Strong Machine, Hiroshi Hase, Kenta Kobayashi, and more. The magazines? Weekly Fight and Weekly Pro Wrestling. This seems to be in retaliation for positive and strong coverage of UWF, with Weekly Pro in particular getting strongly behind them and even saying things like NJPW doesn’t have top heavyweights and saying Choshu jumping back and forth between All Japan and New Japan has caused the recent hard times in the business in Japan. This got Choshu upset and he’s already hard to deal with at the best of times, but he really didn’t care for being told he’s past his prime or hurting the business. And yet… they kind of have a point.
  
• WWF also has press issues of late related to Randy Savage and Miss Elizabeth. They’ve been trying to get Elizabeth and Savage featured in newspapers and on tv to get him over in the media as the face of WWF while Hogan’s gone. It has not gone well. The very first interview, which Dave believes was with a Boston paper, called Elizabeth an airhead, and all subsequent interviews have been canceled. While she may not be a great actress, Miss Elizabeth is definitely a character and Elizabeth Hulette Poffo is not an airhead, according to those who know her well.
  
• World Class now has a committee handling booking. You’ve got Bill Irwin, Eric Embry, Scandor Akbar, Michael Hayes, and Ken Mantell handling booking. Dave’s never seen booking by committee work in the past because you have too many cooks in the kitchen. Their three shows this past weekend drew under 400 fans each, so at least they’re trying something.
  
• Jerry Lawler is working on a deal to do AWA vs. WCCW title vs. title matches with Kerry Von Erich in Dallas, Memphis, and Kansas City. This is the beginning of the eventual formation of the USWA.
  
• Roddy Piper’s next two movies out in theaters have completely opposite word of mouth about them. Buy and Cell, according to someone who saw a preview showing, is absolutely terrible. They Live, however, is good and genuinely scary. If it does well, expect Piper to do more films with Carpenter. If it flops, he’s probably done as an actor.
  
• World Class has gone to the WWF school of crowd estimation. Mark Lowrance called the crowd at Texas Stadium “20,000 fans” while Kerry von Erich said “15,000.” The reality was they had 5,900 paid.
  
• Scott McGhee, who suffered a stroke in January and was thought would never wrestle again, may return to the ring. Dave got a report that he’s starting up or soon to be starting up in Florida. Unfortunately, it’s a false alarm. McGhee will have a match in 1989, but he’s done.
  
• There’s a lot of heat between Verne Gagne and the Rockers. So much so that Verne wants to put together a new team under the name the Midnight Rockers since he owns the trademark (that’s why they wrestle as the Midnight Rock & Rollers in Continental). What's with companies wanting to put knockoff guys in Kliq guys' gimmicks?
  
• Deep South wins the “lowest class act of the month” award. They have a segment with the reader mailbag, which Dave has always assumed was largely kayfabed. Well, some subscriber wrote a letter in and it was highly critical, particularly of the cheap shots they take at Joe Pedicino on tv. Well, they read the letter on the air. Only they changed all the content to make it highly complimentary to Deep South. So there you have it, they kayfabe the letters to make themselves look good. I feel like this is more Dave being offended on behalf of a subscriber than something shocking and truly low, though.
  
• Dale Gagner, who used to work for Eddie Sharkey in Minnesota, now books for Billy Haynes as booker in OWF. When he worked for Sharkey, his manager name was Diamond D. You might know him as the guy who tries to claim a relationship to Verne Gagne and use the AWA name in the late 90s (check the Feb. 22, 1999 and March 21, 1999 rewinds for more on that business). Dude’s a snake, and not in a fun Randy Orton or intimidating Jake the kind of way.
  
• One of Buddy Rose’s former “Playgirls” is now suing Hugh Heffner. Okay, so back in 1983 Buddy Rose was “Playboy” Buddy Rose and his valets were his “Playgirls.” Well, one of them was a model named Carrie Leigh, and she eventually moved in with Hugh Heffner and is suing him, which has made news lately. We’re never going to talk about this again, so here’s the brief: she’s suing for palimony (basically, they were not married, but she felt they had a relationship of marriage-level significance and then the same basic idea behind suing for alimony goes forward). She alleges Hugh told her he wanted to marry her, have kids with her, etc. and now that’s not happening and they’ve separated and she’s suing. And this won’t even get a settlement, but this was apparently a trendy kind of lawsuit in the 80s. They never worked.
  
• ITV in the UK will be dropping wrestling by the end of the year. It’s part of an effort to “polish up” their image. Wrestling audiences on ITV have fallen from over 7 million to 2.5 million in the past few years, and production costs for wrestling have been costing the station almost $2 annually, so time to cut costs. The big reasons for the drop off in ratings and interest is the death of Mal Kirk via heart attack in the ring and the public revelation that Big Daddy, whom Dave calls a 50 year old, 350 lb version of Dusty Rhodes, was really the promoter’s brother. Kirk’s heart attack happened right after Daddy splashed him, too. It’s also come out just how poorly promotions have been paying wrestlers in England. In short: Britwres has always been an absolute shitshow, and I’d say the only difference between then and now is how many nonces they have today, but they had Jimmy Saville back in the day so fuck it, Britwres is and always has been proper fucked.
  
• A couple weeks back Big Bubba Rogers debuted as the Big Boss Man on WWF “C” team shows. He’s still got the sunglasses, but he’s now being billed as a prison guard and squashing Jose Estrada. Until he’s facing bigger guys, he’s been told not to sell a thing. Expect him to debut on tv in mid-June.
  
• WWF managers are officially said not to be traveling except for tv nights. So now Fuji and Heenan will make the shows they’re supposed to wrestle on and Jimmy Hart, due to his gimmick, will show up to some of the shows in buildings he’s supposedly banned from. Slick and Humperdink will only be used on tv, and Humperdink may even be at risk of being let go. Elizabeth will be on all Randy’s shows due to her importance to his act.
  
• WWF is reviving the weasel suit angle for Heenan vs. Ultimate Warrior in Philadelphia next month. The weasel suit originates in Heenan's AWA days.
  

Watch: Bobby Heenan vs. Greg Gagne and the birth of the weasel suit

• Wrestlers in the NWA were due their big payments on May 1 and they still haven’t come in. Lots of disgruntled wrestlers, now. Also the Main Event show hasn’t resulted in any payments either beyond standard tv money, which is like $100, and those shows were put together to be bigger paydays for the guys in the neighborhood of a few thousand per show.
  
• Loads of NWA guys rumored to jump ship to WWF, but that’s always the case. Dave’s only heard three names from WWF people, and only one of them is an NWA guy (probably Sting, I’d guess).
  
• Dave’s not seen the whole schedule for the Bash tour, but NWA is about to start promoting it heavily. There’s going to be something like 19 scaffold matches and 15 War Games matches between June 26 and August 7. There will even be a triple tower of doom or two. FlaiLuger for the NWA title on July 10 is set to be the only NWA title match on the tour. They’ll be put in tag matches otherwise, including War Games matches.
  
• At an NWA show in Houston taped for the local market, Steve Williams apparently looked directly into the camera during his match and asked “How did you like that, Vince?” Not a clue what that’s about.
  
• Dave’s got complaints about NWA tv. They didn’t follow up on either main event angle from last weekend. Instead they did a bit where Kevin Sullivan kidnapped Precious for all of 90 seconds, because they had the Garvins find her under a table shortly after the kidnapping, at which point she shouted "You stay away from me, Jimmy Garvin." That's some fast-action brainwashing right there. They also did a Road Warriors vs. Powers of Pain match that had Hawk do a stretcher job, but they didn’t show it on tv and never followed up. They also haven’t announced a single match for the second Clash on tv yet. That’s only two and a half weeks away. Stop showing palm trees in your commercials and start advertising matches.
  
• Larry Young, an umpire for the American League, writes in to say he’s happy to have discovered a newsletter for smart wrestling fans. He talks a bit about pro wrestlers who had baseball careers. Mostly I bring him up because during the 1995 umpire lockout he winds up refereeing Undertaker vs. King Kong Bundy at Wrestlemania 11.
  
• More letter writers are big mad about the letter in the May 9 issue that thought Dave was off the mark about Clash vs. Wrestlemania. They're upset about the letter being insulting to Dave and disagreeing with them about what wrestling was good that night and honestly Dave doesn't need them to defend him.
  
• A letter asks about the whereabouts of a bunch of wrestlers from the old California promotion Big Time Wrestling. Dave gives an overview. It was run by Roy Shires from ~1961 through 1981 and occasionally did shows in Hawai’i, Samoa, and Nevada as well. It wound up folding because when their top talent got stale, they replaced them with cheaper talent and the fans could tell the difference in quality and stopped supporting them. When AWA started running in the area, they pretty much gave up. Dave says he always thought it was ironic Verne would complain about Vince’s business practices, when Verne did the same thing to Big Time Wrestling. Anyway, Dave goes and gives some updates on the wrestlers. Pepper Martin is an actor. Kinji Shibuya has been retired for a decade and lives in the Bay Area. Masa Saito is still a big star in Japan. Raul Mata trains wrestlers in Florida. Dutch Savage does color commentary for Don Owen in Portland. Paul DeMarco still occasionally wrestles independent cards. Lars Anderson hasn’t been heard from since he booked for Mrs. Maivia in Hawai’i two years back and it went poorly. No clue where Mephisto is. Lonnie Mayne died in a car accident about ten years back. No idea what became of Bobby Garrett and Jim Starr.
  

NEXT WEEK: Turner buying NWA news, WCCW and AWA to do title unification matches, Electronic Media Magazine story on wrestling, and more

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This happened way back in the dark ages, 1986. I was 21 at the time and working for a gas station that was associated with a certain grocery store chain in Washington state. It was owned by a company not affiliated with said chain, but had locations at nearly every one.
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As this was long before the days of debit cards, this was a cash only gas station. We didn’t even take credit cards. Customers would pull up, pump their gas and then come to my window to pay. We also sold cigarettes. No drinks, no snacks...customers couldn’t even get into my booth. I had been working there about a year when the company announced it was closing the location.
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My manager and I were offered positions at another location upstate and we both accepted. We moved our respective families and started our new jobs. As new hires (ugh).
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This station was incredible busy. We did more business in 8 hrs than my old location would do in a week. This location also had a different set up: here you would pull into the station from a single entrance, pump your gas, and then drive forward to a single exit where the “Pay Here” booth was located. There were always 2 cashiers on duty. Each cashier had a cash drawer.
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One thing I should note, there were also no computers. So closing the drawer down between shifts was timing consuming and tedious. We had to manually count the cigarettes remaining, and count the cash drawers. We would fill out an end of shift report listing the starting balances and the ending balances. We also had to list the gallons sold from each pump.
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At the end of the shift the total of gallons sold and the total cigarettes sold should equal the cash balance. It is important to note here that not once in the year I had worked for the previous location had I been off by more than 10 cents.
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The following morning after my first shift I was informed by the manager that I was short $50. Impossible I said, I balanced out yesterday. He said that I must have stolen that money after I had completed the paperwork. I just looked at him and said, no I didn’t. He gave me a verbal warning and said if it happened again I would be fired and the stolen money would be deducted from my paycheck this week.
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In the 5 days that followed I realized quickly the manager was up to something. My old manager who was just another worker now, was also accused of stealing. As was one other new employee. I can’t vouch for the other employee but I’m pretty sure she did nothing wrong.
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The employees that had been there awhile were never accused of anything. I did some checking and found out this manager was relatively new (had only been there about 6 months) and the other cashiers had been here before him.
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Only new cashiers were being accused of stealing. And that location had been having “stealing problems” for about 6 months and the turnover was high with the new employees.
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I came to work at 6am on a Monday only to be told I was being fired. For cause. The manager accused me of taking $500 out of my drawer the previous Friday. He said he only discovered it this morning (even though he had worked Sat and Sun). I said ok and left.
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I was pretty angry and instead of going home, I parked in the grocery store parking lot and proceed to settle in to watch the gas station. I knew that at 9am sharp, he would take the cash in the safe and make the weekend deposit. At 9am he left the gas station and headed to the bank.
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But instead of walking into the bank, he walked into the Indian “casino” next door. It’s not really a casino like we think of today, but more of a betting parlor for the races. It did have slot machines, but no card tables.
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I think “Well, this is interesting”.
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He comes out of the casino at exactly 10 am, walks next door to the bank, does his business and then heads back to the gas station. I head home with a plan.
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Every morning I follow him from the gas station to the casino. I take a picture of him leaving, and one of him arriving at the bank and walking into the casino. I take pictures of him coming out and then heading to the bank. I do this for 5 days straight. He even went on Saturday.
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On day 3 my old manager was fired for “stealing” $150.
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I get the film developed (no digital camera in the dark ages) note the times and dates on the back of each one. Then I call the main office of the gas company. It’s after 5 but I’m hoping someone is there. And there is. I speak to a woman and explain my situation and she says she knows exactly who I should speak to and transfers me. By some grace of God, she has transferred me to none other than the President/CEO of the company!
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I tell him my story and tell him I did NOT steal from his company and could prove who actually did. He took down my information and said he would be in touch. I’m thinking to myself “yeah right”. The next morning I went to the station to perform my usual observation of the manager. At 9am he leaves for the “bank”. At 10 am he comes out. At that moment 2 stern looking gentlemen approach him.
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One pulls out his wallet and shows him something. The other one is talking. The manager goes pale and takes a step back. Next thing I know he is being escorted to a car I hadn’t noticed and they drive off. I lose them at a traffic signal so I head back to the station
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. They all show back up about 5 min later, and a few minutes after that a police cruiser pulls in. The officer talks to the stern gentleman and proceeds to place the manager in handcuffs. The other man says nothing but is glaring daggers at the manager.
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The President called me later that after noon and informed me that the manager had been arrested for embezzlement (turns out that in 6 months he had managed to steal about $5k). He would take the store cash into the casino and gamble with it; if he won, he would make the normal bank deposit.
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If he lost, he would make the deposit and note in his records that we had been short the previous day. The CEO had already been focusing on that location because of the stealing and high turnover rate, but my information helped them figure out what exactly had been going on.
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I was thanked and sent a substantial check as a reward. My old manager was offered the manager’s job and I was offered my old job back. I declined as I had already found another job that I liked more and paid better.
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The gambling manager was sentenced to 1 year in jail and ordered to attend counseling for his gambling addiction. His wife divorced him and took their 3 children to California. His house was foreclosed on and he ended up in a homeless shelter.
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Don’t accuse me of stealing. I will get revenge.