I was standing eye to eye with the other cleric in the store, she, as her name tag did me believe, looked like a boy but smelled like a girl. It was confusing. Fatty had been busy with the woman who had been standing in front of me, so I got boy-girl. Her short-cropped hair, nose piercing, and weird purple looking pupils made me wish for fatty. Boy-girl had no bust to speak of and looked just as bored as her colleague. I was doubting my decisions.

"What do you want old fellow?" Rude. Oh well, I will play nice until I got what I came for. "I would like to buy a Digitize helmet." The boy-girl looked at me, expecting something. What she was expecting I had no clue.

As I did nothing she sighed, extending her arm and opening her hand in front of me. "Your Digitization profile, old man." I stared at her with a blank face. I had no clue what she was talking about. As I did nothing her bored face showed a hint of annoyance and this time I was sure I saw her nose piercing change from blue to red. "Please tell me you have one, old man? That shit takes like thirty minutes to make. I have a life you know?" she said, irritation clear in her voice.

"Well excuse me for being a customer, you genderless freak." Ah, I should not have said that. Should have played nice. Jup, her nose piercing just changed to black. No clue what that means, but it isn't in the puppy scheme of colors.

"Listen here you old bag of shit, I have a right to be any goddamn gender I want, and look like I want. No dinosaur is going to tell me what I should be. We are closed. You can come back tomorrow. Now get back in your wheelchair before you want to burn me at the stakes. Jeez." Damn. That was cruel. But she or it, was a fine curser. I had to give it some credits on that one. But I had to defend us, seniors. "Listen here you piece garbage, I don't care if your muff has tentacles or wants to grow mushrooms…," It was as far as I got before Fatty interfered.

"Jack! Go home! I will see you tomorrow. I will handle the last customers." The fatty said in a rather firm way. As 'Jack' was about to retort he slammed his hand down on the counter yelling "Now!"

It surprised me. I did not expect fatty to have such huge balls. Good for him. I should have known in the way he handled hoodie, but I thought he was just bored. I stared at his round face a little, his cheeks had gotten a tinge red and his blonde hair ruffed up. He turned towards me and bowed his head.

"I'm sorry sir, Jack has had a rough couple of days. Could you wait a few moments? I will finish my business with the other customers and then come and assist you with your Digitization profile." I smiled at him and told him that that would be fine.

Ten minutes later and fatty closed the door after the woman who had just bought herself a newer version of the digitize helmet. They did the calibration of the Digi-profile, as fatty had called it, in the store so no one could complain about the tech not working. Now he was closing the glass sliders. Closing off my escape route if Jack had decided to stay back and kick my old butt. Not that I could outrun it. So my faith was sealed either way. Fatty had gotten me a chair to sit on as my legs were hurting, and I was in the progress of sipping a nice cup of cappuccino.

Fatty walked back, grabbed a chair and sat in front of me. Grabbing his Multibook of the counter he tapped its glass see-through surface. Once done with whatever he needed to do on the new piece of tech I had only seen twice in my life he turned and said "What is your name, sir?"

I finished my cappuccino and put the cup on the counter responding with "Walton Myatt." He typed something into the Multibook and looked up again "So mister Myatt. First, I like to apologize again for Jack. He or she, I honestly do not know, has quite a temper. If you decide to file a complaint, it might get fired. Saying this as a colleague, I would like you to give it another chance. But then again if it had treated me like that I would have filed a complaint too. It is up to you."

I didn't respond. In all honesty, I didn't give a shit. I had treated people a lot worse. This complaint culture was something I liked to go away at some point in my life but for reasons unknown it didn't. people were hard-wired to fuck others over. I would not file a complaint but Fatty could tell 'Jack' and that was unnecessary. Let it sweat a little. Of course, I had done everything in my power to mess up the goblin that was my daughter-in-law just two hours ago. But principles were less important than life goals.

My non-response didn't bother fatty as he continued "All right, on towards the rest. I'm Stew by the way. If you feel the need to say my name or want to know what I'm called."

Great, now I couldn't just call him fatty in my inner monologue anymore. Stew. Who the fuck called their kid Stew? Like some random name generator chose it.

Stew continued "So first, what are your intended uses?" He looked at me and I looked back. What was this? This is like asking someone what his favorite porn category was. Damn you, Stew! "Porn and maybe play some T.E.A.M. I heard it was the bomdiggity. The game I mean. I have no clue how porn looks in the digital world. There is porn, right? Stew? Please be straight with me Stew. Is there Porn in the digital world?" Stew turned red as I dragged the word porn out every time I said it. Two can tango.

Stew coughed before he said "Well mister Myatt, there is porn. About the same amounts as on the old internet. At least, that's what the older customers say. T.E.A.M. is also an excellent game. It has one of the highest entertainment ratings in the digital world. I play it too. B-league. Nothing to brag about, but decent enough. But back to business. Have you ever had an account made? I'm sure you haven't but it is one of the questions on the list." I nodded my head, then thought about what he had asked at the end and said "Uh, no. Never. It's all new."

Stew smiled a little, and I said "Is that funny?" he wiped the smile off his face "No sir, it's just that we haven't had a new person for two months. I think the last one that wasn't a child was two years ago. But that is fine, never too old to learn, right?"

I mumbled "Right," and then I asked "What is T.E.A.M. about? I only know of it from my 7-year-old grandson. So I'm not familiar with it." Stew stared at me, again surprised by my lack of common knowledge. "It's a football manager, sir. The most popular one." Ah, old friend. I will see you soon.