Anyway, I remember feeling shocked and kind of disembodied and terrified to have a reason, finally, to personally purchase something from the Luxury Goods Store Which Is Also An Interactive Playplace. I remember that I was acting very strangely during the entire process, speaking oddly to the salesperson, kind of terrified to be spending that much money… but I couldn’t get myself to lighten up. Part of my brain was saying “this place is bullshit and I use it to clown on the staff,” and part of my brain was saying ”I want the luxury good!! and I am going to purchase it now.” Much dissonance. I got the iPod and I loved it, though.

A lovely read! And those paragraphs! I am not good™ at deciding when to break a paragraph in pursuit of that balance between the dense and the “ventilated prose” (Robin Sloan), but Laura’s perfectly proportioned story here feels archetypal of good healthy paras. A new benchmark for me, cheers to Craig for mentioning it.