Our garage opens into a narrow alley behind a liquor store prime real estate for illegal parkers. Most days, we let it go. But not this time. My fiancée Mia and I had just picked up her mom, Audra, from the station. First visit, big dinner waiting, and we were tired but excited until we found some guy’s car blocking our garage.
And not just any guy. Logan. I’d met him once at a holiday party sleazy self-proclaimed “visionary” who thought having a slick logo made him a mogul. He strolled out of the liquor store sipping a hard iced tea and refused to move. “I’ll go when I finish my drink,” he sneered. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
When I stayed calm, he pushed me and yelled, “He lunged at me!” Mia filmed the whole thing. Cops came. Logan got a warning, but not before tossing me a glossy business card. “Don’t forget my name, Paul!” I didn’t.
I used that card email, phone, résumé, website and applied for 84 jobs as him. Gas stations, call centers, fast food. Every day for a week, while my fiancée and her mom slept. His inbox? Chaos. A month later, my mom said, “Remember Logan? He’s freaking out job offers from random places. Thinks he was hacked.” I smiled. “Weird glitch.” His site went dark. Socials locked. The empire collapsed. Logan wanted power. Instead, he handed me the keys. And I used them one application at a time.