Read HOPE FOR CHANGE... But Settle for a Bailout for Free Online

send an email to someone,” he said.
“Find out if she can meet us up there, or maybe go with us.”
    “What do you mean, ‘go up with us?’” asked
Lori, as she slowed and began actively checking individual street
signs. “You aren’t just cashing this thing down here?”
    “I gotta do this right,” said Larry, pulling
a bag of chips from his still-teeming bag of snack food. “I wanna
cash this up in Sacramento.”
    Lori broke hard approaching a red light,
sending them both forward into the unyielding seatbelts.
“Sacramento!” Lori yelled. “We can’t take this car to Sacramento.
It’s not even my car, Larry, if you remember. I don’t have a car.
You don’t, either. Remember?”
    Larry ate chips. “Maybe we can just do a
Bucksters or McDonalds for a signal.”
    .
    Lori slowly snaked her way down Esplanade,
until finding the high-rise matching the number she had written
down. They could hear the pounding of the ocean. She used the
plastic card the District Manager had given her to open the garage
and parked in space 128, as instructed. The card allowed them into
the elevator that carried them to the 7th floor. When Lori unlocked
the door, the sound of the ocean and smell of salt hit them both,
as the unit overlooked the beach directly below. Lori repeatedly
uttered “wow” and “amazing” as she walked through the apartment.
Larry slid the balcony door closed and closed the windows, muting
but not entirely masking the sound of the sea.
    “I need the keys and that card thing,” said
Larry. “I left my tablet and our survival supplies in the car,” he
said, clutching the bag of chips he had been munching on his way up
from the garage. When he exited the elevator in the garage, a tall
redhead entered silently. Larry got to 128, gathered up the snack
bags that had spilled from the paper sack and grabbed his tablet.
He booted up the unit and stopped first at the elevator and, a
moment later, on the first floor, trying to get a signal.
Successful in the lobby, he opened Yahoo mail and typed:
    To: [email protected]
    Subject: Can you do Sacramento?
    December, Hey, got a bunch of money coming to me. Am
gonna drive to Sac in a convertible tomorrow to get it. Do dinner
and hotel at Harris Ranch. RU available? My treat. Sky’s the limit.
— Lottery Larry
    Larry put the tablet to sleep and slipped it
into the snack sack, to an audible crunch from the bags below it.
He slid the card to call the elevator. On the 7th floor, standing
outside the door, he heard yelling from inside the unit. He
unlocked the door as quietly as he could and entered silently.
Directly front of him, Larry saw the backside of the tall redhead
he passed exiting the elevator. He and Lori were struggling and
yelling.
    “Stop it,” screamed Lori. “No!”
    “What the...,” said the redhead, as
something smacked into the back of his head.
    “You heard the lady,” said Larry, a bag of
raw, unsalted trail mix in his left hand. He chucked the bag and
hit the redhead just below the eye, causing him to grunt. Lori
broke away. Her tee-shirt was torn and she had scratches on her
face. Larry threw an oversized bag of peanut M&Ms.
    “Who the fuck are you?” yelled the redhead,
as he took a bag of Doritos square in the cheek. He turned away
from Lori to face Larry.
    “I’m her bodyguard, asshole,” said Larry, as
he drew close enough to push the redhead backwards. Lori went to
her knees and the redhead fell backward, lost his balance against
Lori and wound up on the floor, with Larry quickly scrambling to
get on top of him. As Lori held the redhead’s hands, Larry smooshed
and then tore open a bag of Cheetos and poured them into the
redhead’s face, concentrating the orange chip dust onto his eyes.
Larry used his other hand to smoosh the orange puffs into the
redhead’s face as Lori pulled both of the District Manager’s hands
above his head. Larry grabbed the largest intact cheese puff and
stuffed it into the redhead’s