Didn’t say anything to Kevin, but Louise has been acting up as well. Keeps asking me if I’m happy. Happy is a loaded word, I told her.
But are you? she wants to know again and again. Are you? Are you? Are you?
January 25:
Whoa. Huge PR catastrophe for the company. Apparently they were testing a bunch of TheraPs™ on prison inmates but theirs had been programmed a bit differently. Thanks to someone who was “born again,” the TheraPs™ were coded to try to turn the inmates Christian. There was lots of talk of the one true God and all that. Slightly more than half the country was incensed, the other slightly less half thought it was terrific. On CNN they showed people throwing their TheraPs™ into the garbage, letting their children kick and throw them around while the TheraPs™ were still asking in a calm voice, “Anything else you want to talk about?” One badly beaten TheraP™ was thrown out of a car, croaking over and over into the highway weeds “You seem angry today. You seem angry today.”
I tried calling Darren to ask him about the situation. Kevin doesn’t know the nitty-gritty details of how the TheraPs™ are coded. But couldn’t reach Darren. His extension was no longer in service. Finally reached someone in customer service (after a two-hour wait!) and was told Darren no longer works there. Apparently, many workers quit in disgust, especially progressive ones. I’ll miss Darren so much.
What the fuck? How can this even happen?
January 31:
An even worse thing happened. A hacker calling himself Robinhood69 started blackmailing people by threatening to post their TheraP™ sessions online. George Clooney, Oprah, the Rock, and everyone from this season’s Dancing with the Stars were just some of the people targeted by Robinhood69.
First of all, impressed that all these people were using TheraPs™ just like me!
The company is scrambling to fix the situation. They’re taking everything offline and have promised to destroy all tracesof sessions of the people threatened. But is this really possible? Isn’t there always something, some shadow left?
Kevin is looking so tired. Hardly see him anymore. Feels like weeks since I’ve seen him in daylight. Leaves early in the morning and returns late at night, sometimes after the kids have already gone to bed. Sometimes, for just a few seconds, I wonder if life was better before the TheraPs™. Kevin and I used to talk more, spend more time together. Now all we talk about is schedules. Sometimes, must admit, I worry. But Maren and Wes seem good. Although they do feel bad for Kevin and are worried we might have to give up our new house and pool, their brand-new iPhones, and paying for their college.
Maren is much changed by her friendship with Billy. She’s at the hospital with him most days doing homework together. She’s also making lots of videos for Billy, who is sick of staring at hospital walls all day. And her videos are pretty good! They’re all filmed outside, and are not about much—birds flying, landing on wires, trees swaying in the wind, the sound of airplanes in the sky, the white line of smoke they make as they go up and up and up.
February 14:
Just when things looked really bad, the company released the new TheraPs™. They’re smaller, about the size of a Maltese or Chihuahua, and come in three colors, brown, pink, or white. The price point is much better. It even comes with a small carrying case. Named ComfortTheraPs™, they’re meant to help people with generalized anxiety. Now those suffering can always have a companion with them. They’re better than real, living comfort animals because they can go anywhere with no extra cost. For an extra, expensive fee, they can be completely offline, meaning they can’t be hacked. But turns out most people don’t care. The cheaper version is selling like hotcakes.
Maybe it’s because of George Clooney? Not only did he refuse to be blackmailed by Robinhood69, he called him out. Renamed him Robbinghood69. Robinhood69 retaliated by posting Clooney’s sessions online. Snoozefest. It turns out that other people’s therapy sessions are completely boring, even celebrities. Clooney turns out to be just another regular human being worried about getting older, complaining about Amal (she’s a slob!), how exhausting children are, and how he would change none of it. George, we get you! Made him even more popular.
Completely forgot that it’s Valentine’s Day. Haven’t really noticed it since Maren and Wes stopped bringing me school-made cards and macaroni necklaces. But Kevin came home early with a dozen red roses (with a good smell! meaning not from the grocery store!), and a big triangle of Toblerone.
Things are okay for now. For how long, who knows? But there’s no need to worry because I’ve got my TheraP150™.
Feel so proud. Everywhere I go I see people whispering to their ComfortTheraPs™.
Affordable, always available, life-changing.
Not Usual for Korean
When my mother called, she was using her pleasant telephone voice and speaking English. I knew bad news would follow. Behind her, I could hear my father yelling in Korean—a collection of hard, sharp syllables.
“Your brother Jin,” my mother said, “he get kicked out of school?” The way she said it made it seem like a question.
“He did? Why?”
“Ya. I don’t know why. Why don’t you call him? Then you call me back, okay?” And then she hung up.
These were the calls I dreaded. Where I was called upon to be the intermediary between Jin and my parents. It was really between my father and Jin. There wasn’t a wall between them so much as a gunmetal door whose locks had rusted from lack of use. The only feeling they ever claimed to share was disappointment.
Lately, things had grown worse. Jin was in some kind of trouble every other week, most of it having to do with gambling.My parents had begun receiving strange calls at night, voices demanding money. Every time my mother called, she’d ask
