A hungover morning

Sam blinked, then sat fully up in his chair. The instant he did so, his head felt like it was going to explode. He groaned as he slumped down again. He'd completely lost track of how much he'd had to drink last night, but the easy answer was "way too much."

He stayed like that for several minutes before gritting his teeth and rising to his feet. His head didn't think much of that idea either, but Sam managed to stagger to the kitchen, pour himself a glass of water, and then start the coffee machine.

"You're getting too old for this," he said to himself. "Gotta cut back at least a little."

A few minutes and a cup of coffee later, he was finally able to haul himself into the bathroom, brush his teeth, and shower off the accumulated funk of the previous day. He still didn't feel great, but it was still a vast improvement. Sam didn't have anywhere that he needed to be today, so he just threw on an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts. As he was walking back from the bathroom, he passed the computer, which was still displaying the same message.

ALL CHANGES SAVED

THANK YOU FOR USING YOUR FREE DEMO

Free demo? Oh right, whatever link he'd clicked on. Something about preferred sexual partners? Honestly, he couldn't really remember. He tried to focus, but most of the evening after he'd finished watching TV had dissolved into the ether.

Whatever. Hopefully, whatever this thing was hadn't damaged his machine. There was a "back" button, but when he clicked on it, an error message popped up.

YOUR LIMITED DEMO HAS EXPIRED. PLEASE ENJOY YOUR CHANGES.

Changes? With his luck, that probably meant "the fact that we deleted your hard drive."

He clicked "Quit," half expecting some ransomware notice to appear, but instead, the program simply displayed a "GOODBYE" text box, and then returned him to his desktop. Sam clicked through his hard drive, checked his web browser and his bookmarks, and ran a virus scan, but nothing seemed to be amiss. There didn't even seem to be a new program installed. Whatever he'd done last night, it didn't seem to have had any major effects.

Sam stood up and shook his head. Well, that was a relief. He grabbed the empty whiskey bottle and the glass, and put them both in the sink. A few other things were also out of place, and he started mechanically putting them away as well. He had just finished returning the living room to its dingy, but tidy normal state, when he heard a knock on the door.

Probably the mail, or one of those political canvassers. Sam shrugged, and then went to answer the knock.