《Saturday Night Criminals》 I Got Bored, So Broke My Final Straw I walked out from my job, on what seemed to be a normal day at work. I got in, greeted customers, organized my team''s schedules, finished the task too early by myself, got yelled at for one bug then swiftly left after fixing it. Nothing notable to be said about today, just like the last four years really. As usual, I wandered into town with a groceries list, and five minutes later was miraculously in a pub with seven people I half knew. We got to our normal table and started the daily banter. Two guys, me and someone else, sat at each end of the counter, with four lovely ladies and some completely cloaked person sitting between us. Me, the busty raven-haired girl and the petite raven-haired girl next to her, had a cooled beer bottle open in front of us. The cloaked figure went full-hog with a shot glass and some vodka and the blonde and green-haired, black-eyed girl had a mixture of other alcohols between them. The other male came in last and had just sat down. But after looking at all of us, he - Mr... Uh, whoever-he-is - stood up dramatically and suddenly exploded, "So, you know what? Fuck this!" Since this was before the sip of alcohol, this came completely out of the blue for all of us and so we all looked over to him with mixed reactions. So, after a moment of confused pause, a green-haired, black-eyed girl who was sitting next to him; who I also didn''t know the name of, asked: "What?" This was followed by many other people asking the same question, whilst the guy just watched annoyed. "You know my job! Another fucker did shit and I got blamed for the bank''s lack of fucking security! If they would get the fucking intelligence to extend more than a fucking tenner, yes, A FUCKING TENNER, to electronic security systems, this wouldn''t be a fucking problem! The AI they wasted fifty grand on is shit and those fuckers know it!" he explained, using his fist to bang on the table whenever he said any of the many expletives in his description, pissing off many of the pub''s patrons in the process. "Come on you prick, you lot all here to scream our lungs out about our shitty jobs. Let me guess: you got yelled at for doing your entire team''s code in a day again, you got yelled at for not getting any prints out of that car and you got yelled at for that goose-chase downtown. You guys, really... This is my business you know? Keep it down so early..." the bartender, who''s badge showed the name ''Lucy'' retorted, pointing at me, the green haired lady and then the blonde in order.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Sighing for nearly a minute straight, the man eventually got over himself and sat down again. "Even worse..." I mumbled, having been reminded of my own misfortune. I proceeded to down the bottle in one gulp then tapped down on the counter and replaced it with a new one. The main conversation died down, splitting into individual one on ones. Being the odd one out, I sighed and downed two more bottles in quick succession. In response for tapping again, the bartender claimed, "Woah there fella, did something that bad happen?" "The usual..." I muttered, then tapped again to no avail. "You have work tomorrow, right? You know your boss won''t let you off for a hangover," Lucycontinued. "The physical pain will kill the mental, so its fine," I countered. "Something eating you?" she asked. "Yes, you not giving me more drinks. It''s not like I''m in debt to you like Phen over there, give me more dammit!" I yelled. Instead of adding more reasons, she smiled slightly and simply replied, "No. Talk to me." "You see..." I went on, describing how crunch is fucking cancer, the game we were making was only time because of me, for which that cunt yelled at me for ''not being a team player'' and how, with this, my home life was non-existent... I finished with the line, "I''m not even the breadwinner, which she seems so fucking smug about, but I''m a hundred times more stressed out at the end of the day. Urgh! I feel like I''ve forgotten how to have fun, so just let me drown this shit in alcohol dammit!" The bartender, having noticed I was finished, laughed. From a snicker to a full-on, room encompassing laugh, which almost made her spill the beer she was handing to the green-haired girl. Calming down, she gave me a long-winded lecture, "Tell me about it. You guys are fine, but we have all kinds here. Not all respect the very few rules we do have, even little miss Karen over there had to come over here every other day, and not to drink. Yet all that bitch does is yell at me for this, saying I brought it on myself and that my hours suck. I get through it by doing crafts as a hobby, though she complains the glue stinks as much as the alcohol... Oh well." "Beer," I bitterly demand, ignoring her. She sighs deeply, telling me, "Fine. But promise me you''ll try to find a hobby, Suzie yells at me for this, you know?" Adding in one last jab, she hands me my next drink, "She worries about you. Please, if only for her. Do at least try." I throw this beer down my throat, trying to avoid my overworked brain working even more. Sixteen hours straight was my limit anyway... - After some amount of beers, somewhere in the tweens, I blacked out completely, though the events leading up to it were so hazy I couldn''t even start to describe them. Waking up in a rather familiar bed, I heard the faint sounds of my wife sleeping. Looking at the bedside clock, I saw the numbers I dreaded the most: five-past three. Two hours until I needed to leave for work... Throwing my guts up from the alcohol, I grabbed clean clothes and freshened myself up. Using my free-time to wash all the dishes, sort out the washing and sort out mine and her bags, including swapping the empty lunchboxes with the filled ones Jess made for me before sleeping. With her still sleeping, I left her a kiss and an apology note, then silently to do another bland day at my horrible and underpaying job. Remembering what the bartender said well, since, to be honest, it was the only thing I even remembered from yesterday. I Got Bored, And Now Im Confused I leave work, again. I got yelled at for half of the day, again. I was pissed and tasked with shopping for the lazy cow I call my wife, again. And so, it didn''t take long for me to head to the pub. Well, it shouldn''t have. But, I received a weird series of texts, which stopped me in my tracks. ''Yo.'' ''Remember what we were talking about yesterday? Probably not knowing you.'' ''Anyway. We''re meeting up at Steph''s, don''t betray what you said and join us.'' I double took, then third and forth... ''What the heck is this about?'' Remembering how I ''agreed to pay off Phen''s tab'' last time I forgot about an agreement, I was a mixture of scared and sceptical. Actually... scratch that. I was ninety-nine percent confused, and about point-five percent scared and point-five percent sceptical. I''ve completely forgotten, or didn''t ever know who ''Meg'' was, yet this ''Meg'' is the person who my phone said sent these texts. Thinking back, I only remembered talking to the six faces I was drinking next to, and the bartender. Then I remembered: the guy''s name probably started with a J; plus meg was probably a gal''s name anyway, both the raven-hairs were my wife''s friends; and so were else-where on my contacts, and the employee was my sister''s friend, she wasn''t a direct contact, but I think I remember that she was actually called Lucy. I admit I''m a tad bit hazy on the first and last one. Regardless, I ended up dismissing them all in my head. The head-ache from writing five-hundred lines of code was the main thing limiting me this time. Anyway, after delving on the subject for a while, I assumed the identity was between the green-haired girl or the cloaked figure. Though, this didn''t really help with sorting out anything as I also didn''t know who the hell ''Steph'' was either.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. I texted them back with two questions, ''WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU, WHO THE FUCK IS STEPH, AND WHERE THE FUCK DOES SHE LIVE? IF YOU KNOW I WON''T FUCKING REMEMBER, WHY THE FUCK DIDN''T YOU TELL ME ANY OF THOSE THINGS YOU FUCKING MORON?!'' Seriously, count the question marks, only two questions were asked. I know, I could''ve been less rude, but, let''s just say there''s a reason I don''t get drunk with people I know and keep it at that... ''Forgot caps lock, or are you actually yelling?'' they asked back, wanting to lighten the conversation. ''BOTH, ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTIONS NOW!'' I answered. ''Fine...'' They texted, then gave me the address and both names. Apparently, I was wrong; ''Steph'' was the cloaked person and ''Meg'' was the blonde. Oh well, this is why I need beer anyhow, hence I asked, ''Beer there?'' The reply of ''Plenty'' made me want to go regardless... but first. - After actually going shopping this time, I walked back home and saw my wife doing one of her sessions. She smiled, waving as saying, "Hey honey. Long time no see, not passed out and carried here at least..." I shrugged, replying, "Crunch is just the worst... Give it a month and I can do something less intense. Anyway, sorry to interrupt, just delivering and heading out again." "Its just mary''s weekly, so don''t worry about it. It''s nice to see you sober. That won''t last, will it?" "Yeah, a bunch of colleagues asked me out. I think they just pity me at this point..." I lied as well as I could, yet a hint in her eye told me she saw through it. She still pretended to believe it and headed back to her ''office'' with fresh towels in hand. - I dumped the stuff in the gym and left, driving out to the location ''meg'' specified. After twisting roads, a maze of unlabeled no-through streets and many, many shitty, borderline-offroad roads, I somehow made it in one piece to a bland, normal-sized two-story house, with four cars already smooshed into its front lawn, which only really had one ''parking space''. Poor lawn. I parked on the street where no yellow-lines were, got out and walked to the house. The petite raven-haired girl was standing outside, smoke trailing off her cigarette into the darkening sky above the house. Noticing it was me, she waved and, perfectly slaloming through the poorly parked cars in her way, and reached the door before me. Even though she left the door open for me, I still knocked before entering, following the girl into a room to the corner, which five of the seven were standing, and some weird blonde who genuinely looked 16 due to her stature, make-up and fiddling mannerisms, was taking the sixth place. "There you are," the busty raven-haired girl said, waving to me like her sister (I think) did. I entered the crowd, and noticed a table between them with multiple pens, a dictaphone and a piece of paper with words so long they couldn''t be English, right? "Ignore the legalese and sign it," a weird high-pitched voice said. It took a while to realize it was from the new, smaller blonde. "Geez, there''s a reason I wear a cloak you know..." I take a deep breath, space myself from the others by standing in the door way, and say, "Okay. So, you know that I DON''T REMEMBER FUCK ALL ABOUT YESTERDAY, and probably how many profanities and capital letters were in my text to Meg, AND YOU''RE STILL GIVING ME THIS CRAP WITHOUT ANY FUCKING EXPLANATION?" "I wrote this affidavit in one day, and you think I have the patience or time to give a shit. Just think about how wrong you are, and when you truly realize how-so this is, I''ll give you a beer as a prize." "Really, you don''t remember how we were planning to do a heist for fun?"