Post Apathy Operations: Fargo

Tonight's Episode

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A little backstory on this. PAO is a spinoff from the Chronicles of the Last Gas Station. That’s another series I did years ago and these are two of the characters.

Mint and Jasmine have been on the road for a day. They aren’t in a rush. They couldn’t be, after the blowout going away party they had last night. The truck pulled in to Fargo at about 7 PM. Mint did most of the driving and Jasmine slept.

They are sitting in one of the several fabulous diners of Fargo. “You’re not going to be able to sleep tonight, and I’m going to be exhausted.” Mint tells Jasmine.

“I can drive all night though, and you can sleep.” She says.

“I don’t want to sleep in the truck, and I want to keep our schedules aligned.” He responds.

“You’re such a pansy, I slept in the truck all day, and I’m the older one.” Jasmine says to him.

“If I drank like you did last night, I could have slept on the hood of the damn truck.” He says.

The food they ordered arrives. A cheeseburger and fish and chips. “I’m glad we have a cooler full of some fresh stuff.” Mint says.

“I’m starting to wish I had some peanut butter.” Jasmine says. “I just want some peanut butter and jam, and a black coffee.”

“Whatever, we can bag that up, it’s to too late.” Mint says.

“Can we swing south to Wyoming. As long as we’re going out that way, I’d like to see as much as we can.” Mint asks.

“We can do what we want.” Jasmine replies. “As far as I know, my dad’s place is going to be there when I get there. Let’s just have fun and do whatever we want. I’m really not in a hurry to get there and deal with all that.”

“Are you OK? Is it getting hard to deal with?” He asks her.

“It’s not easy, but I also don’t have to be in a hurry, and he left me enough money that we don’t have to rush for the sake of budget, so let’s just enjoy it.” She says. “Let’s see how it feels to not worry.”

As they’re eating, and revising their plan for the trip, they hear some seemingly teen girls, or perhaps emotionally undeveloped young adult women talking in the next booth, right behind Mint. They can hear them insulting and making prejudiced comments about two working men at a table toward the middle of the section. Words like “misogynist” and “patriarchy” are being thrown around like a vocabulary lesson in high school.

“Excuse me, you kids!” Jasmine leans out of her booth and addresses the three kids behind Mint. They lean out of their booths and turn around to see her.

Jasmine asks them “Hey, what do your dads do for a living?”

“My Dad just invests in things and has funds and all that. Yeah, he’s too smart to work.” Says one.

Another says. “My dad’s one of the guys who runs the local Bank.” Says another.

“I can’t figure out what mine does. He’s super corporate, he has all kinds of ID’s and weird mileage cards. And he’s super cryptic when he talks about work.” Says the third.

“OK” Jasmine says. “Now I understand why you have to talk s**t about those two honest working guys having their lunch, but your b******t white rich dads who don’t earn their money get a pass on all your misogyny and patriarchy horseshit. Makes total sense. OK, that will do, thank you.”

One of the brats starts to think she’s going into a diatribe to defend her father who is one of the good ones or something.

Jasmine stands up. She walks over to their booth. She glares at the dumb girl at least 10 years her Junior. “That. will. do. I said.” The mouthy girl cowers. Jasmine goes back to the table with Mint.

“Jas, seriously, are you OK?” Mint asks her.

“I think for someone who just lost her dad, I’m doing great. In fact, this might be the best I’ve felt in a long time.”

675 Words

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