Life in the fast lane will surely make you lose your mind

Much like your last shift, the hours seem to just melt by as you provide scan purchases, make friendly conversation, and generally provide excellent customer service... yeah, you're not going to lie to yourself like that. It's another day of drudgery at Bailey's, but you're in a much better mood than usual. You'd be in an even better better mood if anyone higher up happened to be working so you could ask for more hours, but of course the store directors that could actually approve that aren't going to bother themselves with working past four. Still though, you've had one hell of a good day so far, no need to ruin it with negative thinking.

One of the unintentional consequences of your good mood is that you are providing much better service than usual. Or at least, you're trying to. Seeing as you're the closer for tonight, you find yourself assigned to the express lane in front of the liquor aisle again. While someone may assume that the majority of customers you'd see in the fast lane on a weeknight would be nothing more than the occasional patron grabbing one last thing before heading home from work, you've been in the grocery business for too long to be so naive.

First off, once the second to last checker leaves at nine, you're on your own until closing at eleven. That means that, despite the "10 Items or Less" sign over your head, you're the only one left for two hours to check out any carts that may be carrying more merchandise than that arbitrary limit. Second, the closing "courtesy clerk" has to handle a bunch of closing duties as well, from grabbing carts in the parking lot to cleaning up all the registers. That meant that most of the evening you usually had to fly solo, checking and bagging everything yourself; and since Bailey's is a "gourmet grocery outlet", you know the customers are usually too far up their own asses to bag their own shit. Third, unlike what you assume the world was like back when the Bailey's company was founded (you'd assume sometime after Iwo Jima and before Chuck Berry), anyone who actually has less than 10 things to buy is far more likely to just use the self checkout than have to actually deal with another human being. And thirdly, and probably most annoyingly, you can't buy **** from the self check. It's state law.

And that means that, after nine PM, you not only get all the drunks and people grabbing weeknight party booze, you have to handle them yourself. Compounding that, you also get the people who apparently need to do their weekly grocery shopping after the sun goes down. At least, unlike the boozers, you can't really blame the big order shoppers; you know that some people have to work in the middle of the day, seeing as you are one of said people, and this is likely the only time they have to get the shopping done. But the fact they have to use the express lane or the self-check meant that you often found yourself bouncing back and forth between clearing "unexpected item in the bagging area" warnings and dealing with a line of half-drunk to completely sloshed douchebags.

And on top of all that, your closing manager is Karen! It's Tuesday night, and that means she's going to be spending most of the shift in the office, balancing time sheets and getting next weeks schedule ready. Which means, when push comes to shove, you've got no backup, and if you have to call for a manager at all, you just have to hope and pray that she can hear the message over the intercom, which you know from experience she can't in that godawful back office.

So yeah, a pretty average shift all things considered.

Several hours later, you're checking out a couple of nighttime shoppers, a man and a woman who are just hanging off of each other as they bumble through your interaction, who are buying candy and vodka. It's obvious from their demeanor that **** isn't necessarily their intoxicant of choice, and if it wasn't for their demeanor, then the fact they've got Bob Marley shirts and some pretty long dreadlocks (despite them both being whiter than sour cream on Wonderbread) is enough to convince you. And then there's the mistakable stench drifting around them like a fog; not that you're judging. That shit's legal in this neck of the woods. It just makes it a hassle when they're so blazed out of their minds that you had to ask them for their drivers licenses three times before they realized they were standing in line. Still though, probably one of your better transactions for the night.

As you finally reach out to hand the couple their change, though, the guy's eyes suddenly widen in surprise as he looks you properly in the face for the first time.

"Oh, dude! I know you!" he proclaims in what can only be described as the universal stoner accent.

You raise an eyebrow. "I didn't go to school with you."

"Nah, man, you're the guy from the memes!"

"I'm the guy from the what now?" you ask in legitimate confusion.

The girl brushes her hanging dreads from her face and gets a better look at you, and gets the same surprised expression. "Aw yeah, he's the government guy!"

"Hold up, what am I?"

The guy pulls out his phone, and after a google image search (which takes him the better part of two whole minutes), shows you the results. "You're all over the place, dude. I saw you on the front page of Reddit like, an hour ago!"

Sure enough, the top image is a picture of you with a small caption above it. The caption says something about a presidential candidate you couldn't care less about, but the image that accompanies it you somewhat recognize. It's you, from one of your latest videos, sitting at your computer with a look of consternation on your face. The subtitles helpfully spell out something you can vaguely remember saying during the recording, when you were playing your city building game and forgot that you set one one of the tax sliders to minimum for about half of your playtime. That resulted in a cascade of failures in your virtual city when emergency services didn't have the funding to deal with a random surge in house fires and crime, which took you a decent amount of time to find the root cause of.

Your subtitle reads, "Aw beans, I think I broke the government."

"I'm a meme?" You ask the stoners incredulously as you look up from the guy's phone.

"All over the internet, my dude," he says in total sincerity, with a measure of awe in his voice.

Once your shift has mercifully ended, the first thing you do when you get out to your car is check your phone. Luckily, there's nothing to be worried about, though you've got a text from Morgan about your plans tomorrow which you're going to have to deal with. As you start up your car, you also pull up your YouTube account, and just as you were hoping, the video in question this new meme was taken from has skyrocketed in views.

You like to think you put a decent amount of effort into your videos. You use royalty free music and sound effects, but you don't go overboard with the editing. Your goal is to show the world you, in your natural state of being; sitting at a computer playing a game while making snarky jokes. You never really expected to get anything out of your videos. For you, it's just a creative exercise, like sketching or writing erotica. You do it for yourself.

But this changes things. Your average view count is around 200 on each video. But the meme video has over a hundred thousand. You subscriber count has jumped from single digits to over five thousand subscribers.

Holy shit, what the fuck? You take a moment to collect yourself, and in that moment, have a startling realization.

The App.

Could the Affection Multiplier have done this? You quickly open it and navigate to your profile, only to have a new popup appear, one that resembled the tutorial from the first day you had it.

Congratulations on getting your first person to 100 Affection! This is your first Milestone, so here's a little gift for you; three free random Perks!

PERK GAINED: Living in the Limelight - Ever wanted to be a movie star? Now people find you irresistibly compelling. Anyone who enjoys a performative work made by or starring you also gains a boost to their Affection and Love scores. This boost can only apply once per week, and can only apply from the same creative work once.

PERK GAINED: Love Is All That You Need - As long as someone has a love score with you over 50, you no longer need to sleep or eat, though you may do so without any repercussions if you desire. You do still need to breathe, though, so don't drown or anything.

PERK GAINED: One and One and One Is Three - For most of society, having multiple partners is either barely tolerated or actively frowned upon. But not for you! As far as anyone is concerned regarding you and your lovers, polyamorous relationships aren't only the norm, they're expected. But be careful, as this only protects you from negative associations with committed, consensual relationships; if you cheat, you're on your own!

In addition, you've unlocked the next tier of perks for yourself and anyone with 100 Affection. Do note that they can get pretty pricey! And as always, enjoy yourself... and others!

JESUS CHRIST THIS FUCKING APP. On one hand, it's certainly improved your life significantly, but it'd sure be nice to have some warning before it decided to fuck with you like this! Not needing to sleep seems super useful, but that last one bothers you. This app has already helped you land, in your mind, the perfect girlfriend. Why the hell does it seem to be pushing you to find another one?

Fuck it. You're going Fool on this. Roll with it, and see what happens; thus the cards have spoken, after all.

Of course, once you close the text box, you can see that you're currently sitting at 2400 gems. That's a lot of fucking gems. And... well, you can't say you're not curious to see what you can buy now, right?

Friends in High Places (400 gems) - You know how to speak to people in positions of power. Your affection gains with anyone who holds a leadership or authoritative position over you are increased by 50%, and they tend to look upon your actions and person favorably.

Closer to the Heart (700 gems) - Everybody makes mistakes, but yours don't mean as much to those who care deeply for you. Loves scores never drop below a minimum value of 50, regardless of your actions. This doesn't necessarily mean lovers forget that you've wronged them, just that they'll always carry a torch for you.

I'll Be There For You (2000 gems) - You're so dependable, it's like you've got a sixth sense for being in the right place at the right time. Or rather, it simply seems that way, because you can teleport. You can now telepathically sense whenever someone with a Love score over fifty needs your assistance, and can appear at their location or nearby instantaneously. Note that you'll always appear outside of anyone's line of sight, but it'll be up to you to explain yourself.

What the fuck? Is that where the app is at now? Apparently, the next tier of perks includes FUCKING SUPERPOWERS. Holy shit, that's both amazing and terrifying. I mean, being able to go indefinitely without sleep or food is kind of a superpower in it's own right, but it's not the same as goddamn teleportation.

And while you may very well consider investing in the ultimate Nightcrawler cosplay, you've only got a little over two thousand gems to spend...

So maybe you should check out Morgan's purchase page first?

Making Dracula Look Tan (250 gems) - Oh, this one's a real goth then, huh? Once this perk is bought, they become permanently immune to the melanin-producing effects of sunlight exposure, keeping their skin at its current state of paleness. This is not reversible, so purchase wisely!

Shoulder to Cry On (150 gems) - This person would make an incredible therapist. Whenever a friend or lover comes to them with genuine emotional need, their natural nurturing aura will enable others to feel safe enough to share their deepest secrets. In addition, all affection gains in their presence, themselves not included, are doubled.

Great Stonking Tits Lv. 2 (500 gems) - They've already got a rack that can entice people to go to war, so you may be asking, what can improve that? Well, maybe it'd be nice to have none of the downsides of a bust that can double as an emergency flotation device. From now on, they won't suffer any back pain, and they can make their breasts appear smaller by hiding them in clothing up to half their required size.

Okay, that's all your options. So what's it gonna be? Are you going to keep things somewhat more inconspicuous, or are you gonna buy yourself superpowers? Or maybe just buy something for Morgan?