I like to creep around my home and act like a goblin I don’t know why but I just enjoy doing this. Maybe it’s my way of dealing with stress or something but I just do it about once every week. Generally I’ll carry around a sack and creep around in a sort of crouch-walking position making goblin noises, then I’ll walk around my house and pick up various different “trinkets” and put them in my bag while saying stuff like “I’ll be having that” and laughing maniacally in my goblin voice (“trinkets” can include anything from shit I find on the ground to cutlery or other utensils). The other day I was talking with my neighbours and they mentioned hearing weird noises like what I wrote about and I was just internally screaming the entire conversation. I’m 99% sure they don’t know it’s me but god that 1% chance is seriously weighing on my mind.

I have lost everything, and I'm not sure how to continue. This summer I invested $17,500 (six months salary and my entire life savings) into ornamental gourd futures, hoping to capitalize on this lucrative emerging industry. After watching a video about Vincent Kosuga and his monopoly on onions, I decided I'd try to do something similar with another vegetable. I did some research and found out many agricultural forecasters expected this year's gourd yield would be far smaller than the past, due to deteriorating soil conditions in central Mexico and a warmer-than-average spring. At first, demand soared around Halloween and prices skyrocketed, but the gourd bubble burst on November 12th. Unfortunately, the coronavirus caused a massive drop-off in demand due to fewer families decorating their tables for thanksgiving, and prices plummeted. I had invested early enough that I thought I would still be fine, but then on the morning of December 2nd, a new email in my inbox caused my stomach to turn into a pretzel. The massive gourd shipment from Argentina, scheduled for early March, had arrived. I was planning on selling off my futures right before this, in February, but this ruined everything. To top it off, the gourds in this shipment were absolutely gargantuan, some topping 4 pounds each, causing the price-per-pound to drop like an anchor into the range of 6 cents per pound. I am ruined.

I own a musket for home defense, since that's what the founding fathers intended. Four ruffians break into my house. "What the devil?" As I grab my powdered wig and Kentucky rifle. Blow a golf ball sized hole through the first man, he's dead on the spot. Draw my pistol on the second man, miss him entirely because it's smoothbore and nails the neighbors dog. I have to resort to the cannon mounted at the top of the stairs loaded with grape shot, "Tally ho lads" the grape shot shreds two men in the blast, the sound and extra shrapnel set off car alarms. Fix bayonet and charge the last terrified rapscallion. He Bleeds out waiting on the police to arrive since triangular bayonet wounds are impossible to stitch up. Just as the founding fathers intended.