I was “uh-huh, uh-huh” for a lot of this chapter’s development: I had a fair amount going on. My warehouse job had fallen apart, but one of the friends I made through it encouraged me to look for seasonal work at Liberty Tax. I got the job, which meant I was spending most of the day walking around in the costume pictured at right, briefly interrupting people at work to explain the benefits of carrying coupons for the tax service at their establishment. (We paid for referrals.)

This work was more rewarding than you might expect: I got to meet lots of interesting people who were all very nice to me, since my uniform and the chocolates I always distributed livened up the monotony of their day. But the hours I put in there, along with my still-tense roommate situation and a couple other distractions, meant that I was pretty much happy to abide by the division of labor we’d decided on. Last chapter had been mine, this one would be Phil’s. So my comments here will be somewhat more those of an outsider.