Lauren lounges around all day

Vanessa just waits, intermittently watching Lauren as she watches TV and plays on her phone. Vanessa doesn’t pay too much attention to her, being patient enough to wait until her sister falls asleep at night before making her next move. Instead, Vanessa starts preparing for the next phase of her plan, adding a little special something to help her sister along to her online shopping cart. That’s when she hears it. The Bluetooth speaker in the living room is playing music from Lauren’s playlist. A devious idea pops into Vanessa’s head, and she can’t help the snicker that escapes her.

Their parents were to the ones who paid for all of their family’s streaming services (music and video). Getting them was one of the few times she and Lauren both agreed with each other. But their parents hadn’t wanted anything to do with it other than paying for them as cheaply as they could because they didn’t care if their kids had to go through an ad or two after every so many songs or so long of watching something. The girls had disagreed, of course, but it didn’t matter. It was that or nothing, so the two girls gladly took it. Not wanting anything to do with setting them up, though, their parents had told the girls to figure everything out and that they’d pay for them. Lauren, lazy as she is, immediately pawned that task off on Vanessa. It had annoyed Vanessa at the time but not anymore. If anything, she’s grateful. Because it means she now has account owner privileges over all Lauren’s streaming services, which gives her a certain amount of power. With the music service, she could skip or change songs, edit her sister’s playlist without her knowing or... She scrolls through the settings until she finds exactly what she’s looking for – the ad preferences. A couple clicks later, and it is done. Now, Vanessa just has to sit back and wait, keeping an eye on Lauren. Maybe this would help nudge her along.

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Lauren is listening to her music while eating, trying to put the events out of her mind. The current song starts to come to an end, and Lauren knew what that meant. Time for another stupid ad, Lauren thinks in a huff. She couldn’t believe her parents had been so cheap about it. It isn’t even like a few extra dollars a month would hurt them at all. Lauren takes a bite as the ad starts, planning to ignore it, but she can’t.

“IS YOUR LITTLE ONE HAVING TROUBLE MAKING IT TO THE BATHROOM AT NIGHT,” comes blaring out of the speaker, and Lauren feels her heart stop, her eyes growing as wide as saucers and her face flushing red. She immediately scrambles for her phone, trying in vain to skip the ad. “WORRY NO MORE, OUR NEW NIGHTIME DISPOSABLE UNDERWEAR IS JUST THE THING FOR YOU!” Lauren lets out a groan as she continues mashing the greyed out “skip” button. She thinks she might die of embarrassment. “THEY’RE SO SOFT AND COMFORTABLE THAT YOUR KID WON’T EVEN CARE THEY’RE WEARING A DIAPER!” In a fit, Lauren just drops her phone down and covers her face, waiting for the ad to end. Lauren stays like that for a few moments after the ad ends and transitions into the next song, wondering just why she got that ad. “It was nothing,” Lauren says. “It was just an ad.” Still, she doesn’t think she’s ever had one for diapers before. Maybe she just never noticed? She does tend to tune them out.

Lauren puts the ad out of her head and gets back to her sandwich, taking a few bites. Everything is fine, until the next ad plays. “Come on!” Lauren yells.

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Vanessa rolls around on her bed. _This is too good, _she thinks. Watching her sister’s flustered reactions, Vanessa opens the playlist and clicks the “like” button on the ad. If she does it enough times, then her sister will start getting these ads even outside of her music app. No matter what Lauren does on her phone, she’ll see tons of diaper ads.