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Episode transcript:

Linda had a pizza shop and a boyfriend who was an idiot. Neither one was helping her get out of bed.

She could hear Brian getting ready, and the metabolism reader mounted on her ceiling said she was 45 minutes past opitmal morning nutrion intake time.

Linda didn’t know how it knew that — some device Brian had installed in their mattress huffed their farts while they slept, or something, to craft the perfect “sleeping and waking experience.”

Linda was pretty sure it was bunk, but Brian said he had different readings from her, and he felt great.

“I found your watch,” Brian said, placing it on top of the dresser.

Linda thought she had wedged it good into the couch cushions. She’d have to do better next time.

She pulled the covers over hear head. Watches were too oppressive to think about, so she flomped her beloved old laptop onto the bed, put on a podcast and pretended she could sleep more.

The ceiling display subtly got brighter and brighter.

The watch started chirping at around 10 am, and then more urgently at 10:30. When you’re annoyed, it’s annoying.

Linda dragged herself out of bed, causing the ceiling to retreat to a more ambient light temperature. She slammed the watch in her sock drawer, but that only muffled the sound

She was going to have to go to work.

At the pizza place, Linda kept a normal key under a small statue of a frog by the door. She hated frogs, but it was a gift from Brian.

“You’re always losing stuff,” he said at the time, proud of himself for having fixed a problem.

Linda pushed the manual release button on the electronic entry pad — “Analog entry detected” it announced to no one — and it retracted to reveal the normal keyhole.

Inside, the kitchen wasn’t great. She hadn’t felt like cleaning last night, and she didn’t feel like cleaning now. Linda left the closed sign on the front door and laid down on the floor behind the counter.

Because she used the key lock, none of the normal systems powered on. A small voice asked at initial entry if she’d like to begin startup, but after lying motionless for a while, the whole aparatus decided that there wasn’t a person inside after all.

Sunlight streamed in through the front windows. Another gorgeous one. The tourists were happy and the people who made money off the tourists were happy. They’d probably have rain on a random Monday coming soon to keep the farmers happy. There’d be a campaign on socials to decide the best one.

You weren’t supposed to rally for your choice — your voice was your voice and everyone had an equal one after all — but the powers that be looked the other way, because it all seemed to be working OK enough.

Linda remembered that she used to like making those memes, but she could never get the timing right to be part of the conversation. One day, she was so off and got ratioed to hell, and it sucked all of the joy out of Photoshopping sunglasses onto a cloud or whatever absurdist imagery she was going for that day.

A couple of tourists pulled at the front door. Linda could hear them deliberating about whether the place was quiet, closed, or closed for good, and more discussion of running a small business in a tourist town. Everyone was an expert in everything.

“Who doesn’t like pizza,” said one of them. “This place must be pretty bad to fail.”

Linda disagreed. She made great pizza.