A Tale of American Ingenuity
by Oskar Rausch

This is a work of satire and fiction.

I. The Partnership

At MegaBulk Warehouse Club, members can buy a 48-pack of rotisserie chickens, a hot tub, a casket, and now, a brand new kitchen, installed by MegaBulk’s Preferred Partner, Boulderdash Surfaces & Demolition.

“We vet every partner,” says a MegaBulk representative, gesturing at a vetting process consisting of a single Post-it reading has truck?

Boulderdash’s crew arrives promptly, three to nine business weeks after the scheduled date. Removing old countertops is a delicate art, and Boulderdash approaches it like a monster truck rally. “The old laminate fights back,” explains lead installer Dwayne, who has never once used the word “pry” and considers a sledgehammer a precision instrument. When the dust settles, the new counters gleam, and the wall behind them features two holes large enough for a family of raccoons to rent.

“That’s not damage,” Dwayne says. “That’s an open-concept wall.”

The homeowner calls. And texts. And emails. With photos. With more photos. With a ruler in the photos for scale. Boulderdash’s project manager, Mickey, receives each message the way a monk receives a passing breeze: with total serenity and no response. Insiders say Mickey has achieved a level of detachment the Dalai Lama called “a bit much.”

Then, one day, everything changes. The homeowner tells the finance company the job isn’t finished.

Within four minutes, Boulderdash’s entire staff materializes, like Victorian ghosts summoned by the smell of an unpaid invoice. Mickey, who could not locate a text message from April, can now recite the homeowner’s balance to the penny, along with his blood type. The billing department sends a letter warning that unless payment arrives in ten days, they will send him to collections, sue him, and personally revoke his right to buy 48 rotisserie chickens at once.

“We take customer satisfaction very seriously,” says Boulderdash’s credit manager, “in the sense that we’ve noticed it’s legally required before we get paid.”

Five months later, the homeowner hires his own guy, who fixes the wall in an afternoon and leaves without breaking anything, a feat Boulderdash is investigating as possible witchcraft.

MegaBulk has renewed the partnership. “Members love the convenience,” the spokesperson says, already picking out a casket for the next customer.

II. The Hip

For eleven years, Mickey’s hip had been filing complaints. Mickey responded the way he responded to all complaints: with serene, unbroken silence.

Twelve physicians told him the same thing. His BMI of 57, his breakfast of three gas station taquitos, and his cardio routine of walking from the couch to the door to ignore a customer were all contributing factors. Mickey thanked each of them, then left two large holes in their waiting room drywall on his way out, purely out of habit.

Finally, he could no longer get out of his truck without a forklift. Surgery was scheduled.

His surgeon was Dr. Lyle Fenwick, a man who once loved medicine and now loved only the four minutes in the parking garage before his shift. Dr. Fenwick was tragically afflicted with sobriety, meaning he had to experience every second of his life fully, including the part where his own hospital billed him $1,900 for an inhaler that literally costs four dollars in any Vietnamese pharmacy. He’d had an asthma attack about it. They billed him for that too. He had paid his health insurance premium on the first of every month for 37 years, missed exactly one, and was now fighting the foreclosure of his house through a customer service chatbot named Skyler.

III. The Pre-Op

Mickey never actually met Dr. Fenwick before surgery. Surgeons no longer meet patients. All that unpaid talking, touching, and listening has been outsourced to physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and a rotating cast of Caribbean medical students on unpaid shadowships, who are permitted to observe but not to sit, speak, or eat.

His exam was performed by Kyle, PA-C, who asked Mickey to show him where it hurt. Mickey cupped his hand around the side of his hip in the universal C-sign, the most famous gesture in orthopedics.

Kyle nodded and typed: Pt makes C-sign. Hip.

Then Kyle’s lunch arrived, and he never came back.

Dr. Fenwick had been up until 4 a.m. composing a strongly worded letter to his mortgage servicer, which turned out to be a strongly worded letter to Skyler, which ended with Skyler asking him to rate his experience. He arrived in the OR at 7 a.m., powered entirely by spite and a vending machine Mountain Dew, and glanced at the chart.

Pt makes C-sign. Hip.

“C,” he muttered. “Countertop?”

The medical student opened her mouth, remembered she was not permitted to speak, and closed it.

The old hip came out the Boulderdash way. Witnesses describe the technique as “enthusiastic” and “audible from the cafeteria.” Dr. Fenwick then turned to install the new one, a custom slab of imported sintered stone, honed finish, with an undermount sink. It was backordered. Before he could ask about a delivery date, his phone buzzed. It was Skyler.

He stepped out to take the call. He did not step back in.

“Looks great,” he said, already in the parking garage. “Tell him to call the office if he has any issues.”

IV. Mickey v. Fenwick

Mickey woke up, looked at his incision, and felt a draft.

Where his hip joint used to be, there was now a hollow socket, a few loose staples, two holes large enough for a family of raccoons to rent, and a faint echo when he coughed.

He called the surgeon’s office. And texted. And emailed, with photos, a ruler in each one for scale. The office received each message with total serenity and no response. The receptionist had reached a level of detachment that Mickey, deep down, recognized and respected.

Then, after five months, a reply arrived. Dr. Fenwick’s office was pleased to offer Mickey a complimentary redo operation, at no charge, performed by the same surgeon, in the same OR, at a time convenient for Dr. Fenwick.

Mickey considered it. He pictured the Mountain Dew. He pictured Skyler. He pictured the parking garage, and the four minutes Dr. Fenwick loved more than anything on earth, and the word “Countertop?”

He wrote back that he was deeply grateful for the generous offer and would have to decline.

So he called a lawyer instead.

Walt Kowalski Jr. had known Mickey since Sunday school, and the two had stayed close through college, where Walt majored in Business Communications and minored in Cornhole. After graduation, Walt answered an ad on the back of a Ticketmaster receipt and enrolled at the St. Barnabas Island School of Law & Parasailing, the Caribbean’s only law school, and possibly the world’s.

The campus was beautiful. Classes were held on a catamaran. Moot court took place at a swim-up bar, and the bar exam was, technically, at a bar. Over four years, Walt spent $830,000 in tuition, most of it on mandatory “Torts & Tiki” seminars and a required textbook that turned out to be a laminated drink menu.

Only after graduation, while framing his diploma (printed on a beach towel), did Walt read the fine print. His degree made him ineligible for admission to the bar in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and “any present or future U.S. territory, including those on the Moon.”

Walt was undeterred. A law license, he reasoned, was just a piece of paper, and he already had a beach towel. He read the law obsessively, mostly from Wikipedia, YouTube, and the backs of parking tickets. He gave his friends legal advice at barbecues, always prefaced with “I’m not a lawyer, but I did spend $830,000 becoming one.” And whenever a judge didn’t ask too many questions, he represented Mickey in court.

His record was mixed. He once got a speeding ticket reduced, though it was later revealed the officer simply felt sorry for him. He successfully argued that Mickey’s truck was not parked on a sidewalk because “sidewalks are a social construct.” And he won a small claims case against a vending machine, which failed to appear.

Walt’s own legal history was richer than his client list. He had been arrested eleven times for Driving Under the Influence of Stupidity, a charge Michigan created specifically for him after he drove through a car wash with the windows down “to save time.” He had two convictions for Operating While Incompetent, the first for merging onto I-94 in reverse because “the on-ramp was facing the wrong way,” the second for parallel parking inside a Taco Bell. His most recent arrest, for Reckless Negligence, came after he used Google Maps to navigate to his own court date and arrived at a lake.

Walt represented himself every time and lost every time, which he considered valuable trial experience. “Every great lawyer has a few convictions,” he told Mickey. “Mine just happen to be literal.”

Walt had also, briefly, served his country. After the bar rejections came in, he walked into an Army recruiting office in Ypsilanti and volunteered for the only position he felt his education had prepared him for: human battering ram. The recruiter explained that the Army did not have such a position. Walt explained that he had spent $830,000 learning to argue, and the Army should be grateful he was offering his head instead. To demonstrate, he ran full speed into the recruiting office door, which was a pull door.

He was not enlisted, but he was invoiced for the door. He contested the bill pro se and lost, and the door now hangs in the St. Barnabas alumni hall as the school’s most distinguished achievement. “I still consider myself a veteran,” Walt likes to say. “Of the door.”

He ran his practice from the back of a MegaBulk tire center, under a hand-painted sign reading WALT KOWALSKI JR., ATTORNEY-ADJACENT. Consultations were free. Representation cost a case of Labatt.

“We’ll sue,” Walt said. “Nobody leaves a man with a hole and walks away.”

The case went to trial in Washtenaw County. Representing Dr. Fenwick was Priscilla Vance, Esq., who had never lost a case and had never once smiled indoors.

“Mr. Mickey,” she began, “you claim my client left your hip unfinished and ignored your complaints for months. Is that correct?”

“Five months,” Mickey said. “Nobody called me back. It’s unprofessional.”

Priscilla nodded and handed the jury a binder.

“Exhibit A: 214 unanswered texts from Mr. Mickey’s own customers, each with photos and a ruler for scale. Exhibit B: Boulderdash’s standard work order, signed by Mr. Mickey, in which his company promises to, quote, perform all work in a professional manner and within industry standards.”

She let that sit.

“Mr. Mickey, in your professional opinion, what is the industry standard?”

Mickey thought about it honestly, which was a mistake. “Well. You take the old one out. Usually there’s a couple holes. Then the customer calls for a while. Then they stop calling. Then you send the bill.”

“And how long does the customer call for?”

“Five months, give or take.”

Priscilla turned to the jury. “Ladies and gentlemen, my client removed the old part. He left a hole. He ignored the calls for five months. Then he sent the bill. By the plaintiff’s own sworn definition, my client performed this surgery within industry standards.” She paused. “Frankly, he didn’t even chip the seam. He exceeded them.”

The jury gasped. Walt quietly closed his legal pad, which was a Taco Bell menu.

“Furthermore,” Priscilla continued, “the plaintiff now has an open-concept pelvis, which is very desirable in today’s market.”

The jury deliberated for nine minutes, most of it spent choosing a sandwich place. Verdict: for the defense.

V. The Itemized Statement

Before Mickey could leave the courtroom, Judge Harold P. Ambrose, 81, waved him up to the bench. Judge Ambrose had presided over Washtenaw County for 46 years and had long ago stopped distinguishing between his courtroom and his back porch.

“Son,” he said, giving Mickey a hearty slap on the back that whistled straight through his hip socket, “no use crying over spilled milk. Now you pay that doctor on time, you hear? Nobody likes a man who doesn’t pay his bills.”

“But Your Honor, he didn’t finish the—”

“On time,” said the judge, and banged his gavel, which turned out to be a corn dog.

A week later, just as his scars were starting to close, the envelopes arrived. Then more envelopes. Then a man from a law office in Southfield handed him an envelope, apologized, and handed him a second envelope for the cost of delivering the first.

Each bill was meticulously itemized:

Z99.HOLE	Removal of hip, existing, with enthusiasm	$31,200.00
Z99.HOLE.2	Installation of hip, new (not performed; billed for preparedness)	$28,400.00
R29.C	Interpretation of C-sign by physician assistant, partial	$1,150.00
R29.C.1	Interpretation of C-sign, remainder, after lunch	$1,150.00
W00.SKY	Surgeon on hold with mortgage chatbot during procedure, per minute (×212)	$18,656.00
Y93.STUD	Observation by Caribbean medical student, silent	$2,900.00
Y93.STUD.SPK	Medical student almost speaking	$4,100.00
T88.SINK	Undermount sink, backordered, location unknown	$1,349.00
Z71.ECHO	Ongoing acoustic properties of hollow socket (monthly subscription)	$89.99
Z00.NOPE	Phone calls to office, unanswered (×47) (courtesy adjustment)	$0.00
Z99.LATE	Late fee for failing to pay within ten days of receiving this bill, which was mailed eleven days ago	$4,000.00
	TOTAL DUE	$92,694.99

At the bottom, in small print: Payment is due within three (3) business days of service. Balances not paid within this window will be referred to collections and accrue interest at 79%, compounded weekly. We take patient satisfaction very seriously.

Mickey checked the date of service. He had spent six weeks in the recovery ward, mostly because nobody had come to discharge him. The three-day window had closed while he was still under anesthesia.

The account was sold to Ironclad Recovery Partners, then to Liberty Debt Solutions, then to a man named Gus who operated out of a van behind a Dairy Queen in Taylor. Each new owner sent a fresh letter.

Week 1	Ironclad Recovery Partners	$165,924.03
Week 2	Ironclad Recovery Partners	$297,004.01
Week 3	Liberty Debt Solutions	$531,637.18
Week 4	Liberty Debt Solutions	$951,630.55
Week 5	Gus (van, Dairy Queen, Taylor)	$1,703,418.69
Week 6	Gus (van, Dairy Queen, Taylor)	$3,049,119.46
	FINAL AMOUNT DUE (plus $35 convenience fee if paid online)	$3,049,119.46

The last letter came from Gus himself, handwritten on a Dairy Queen napkin: Pay in 10 days or we cancel your MegaBulk membership. Also your hip. Respectfully, Gus.

Mickey sat on his couch, holding the stack. For the first time in his career, he understood what it felt like to receive a demand letter from someone who had left two holes in your life and never come back to fix them.

VI. The Hollow

That night, Mickey lay in bed, listening to the wind whistle through his hip socket, and wondered how the world could simply not care.

A man had trusted a professional. The professional had shown up distracted, done damage no competent person would do, and walked away without a word. Mickey had called. He had texted. He had sent photos with a ruler for scale. Nobody answered. Nobody even seemed to notice. And then, the moment money was owed, everyone noticed at once, and they all had his phone number.

“How can people treat each other like this?” he whispered into the dark.

The house said nothing. The two holes in his drywall said nothing. But somewhere in the back of his mind, a memory surfaced: an April afternoon, his phone buzzing on the dashboard of his truck, a homeowner’s name on the screen, a photo of a wall with a ruler held up beside it.

He had let it ring. He had taken a bite of his taquito. He had thought, I’ll get to it.

Mickey lay very still for a long time.

Then he picked up his phone, scrolled back five months, and, for the first time in his entire career, texted a customer back.

Sorry about your wall, he wrote.

The message delivered. No response came. Mickey understood. He would have to wait.

Outside, the wind passed through the hollow in his hip and played a single, perfect note, which the hospital billed him for the next morning.

FIN