First Quest: Let’s start small. Clean your neighborhood. Maybe Amy can be of use?
- Details: Clean trash together from roadways and recycle 60 lbs of aluminum cans.
- Rewards: Mechanical engineering skill plus blueprints for an advanced air purifying fan.
"A quest? Awesome! This doesn’t seem that hard," I said, excitement bubbling up inside me. Amy, ever the pragmatist, wasn't as thrilled. “You wanna fight, system?” she muttered, clearly unimpressed. I laughed, sensing the tension, and figured the system might have a few bugs to work out.
Despite the weirdness of the situation, I didn’t feel tired after the long night spent detoxifying and cleaning the bathroom. I turned to Amy, determined to get started right away. “I want to get started on this quest immediately.”
“I'm ready whenever you are,” Amy replied, though her tone suggested she’d rather ease into it. Alex, our 25 year old in five-year-old body, was already suited up with as much enthusiasm as he could muster, so we grabbed a couple of cloth bags and headed out.
An hour later, the sun was high, and we were drenched in sweat. Alex, being so young, was exhausted and couldn’t keep up. We took a break and decided to separate the recyclable cans from the rest of the trash. Luckily the shared system space showed its worth at this moment because we could store the bulk of our trash there and only leave a bit in our trash bags to fool anyone that looked our way. “Let’s just focus on cans tomorrow,” I suggested. “We can take them to the recycling center and turn them in for some cash.”
Clean the trash you find in your neighborhood. Not just the cans
“Well I guess we can’t take any shortcuts.” Just as we were about to call it a day, my phone rang. “Hello, Randy speaking.” I forgot I had applied at other jobs, and they were now calling me. Seeing as we now had a system though, I turned them down. I looked at Amy and said, “with a system I am sure there will be plenty of ways to make money in the future, we won’t need to work for others.”
“Looks like I might be getting fired on Monday. Because I don’t feel like going into work and will call in sick.” After saying this, Amy chimes in. “It is fine, after all we have a system as you said. The sooner we finish this first quest, the sooner we get rewards. Besides, with you home, you can drive Alex and me to his new school for registration.” When we moved we ended up selling one of our two cars so we could drive the U-HAUL. Thus only having one at the moment, making doing anything inconvenient.
“Let’s go home and be done with this quest for the day.” That got unanimous approval. So we headed back home. When we got home we sorted the cans and the trash.
After taking a short nap, we decided to play a game of tennis. Thanks to the bone marrow cleansing pill, our physiques were in much better shape. The game took a lot longer than it had previously, but I still won, though Amy gave me a run for my money.
By the time we finished, it was late afternoon, and we hadn’t made dinner plans. We headed to the store, where I picked up the ingredients to make a strawberry chicken salad. It turned out delicious, a perfect end to the day. After dinner, we watched The Daily Show, and for the first time all week, I got a good night’s sleep.
The next morning, Amy suggested we tackle the neighborhood cleanup again. “Let’s sort the rest of the trash out and put it in the apartment supplied bins in the parking lot, then we can head to the recycling center later.”
“Just let me finish my breakfast first. I also need gloves,” Alex said, his voice serious. He’d refused to pick up trash the previous day even though he was with us the entire time, because of germs, his inner germaphobe coming out strong.
Amy offered, “I’ve got some dishwashing gloves under the sink.”
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Alex shook his head. “No, those are too big for my five-year-old hands. Let’s go to Lowe’s and get some small gardening gloves.”
So, our trash-picking was delayed by an hour as we made a quick trip to the store. But with Alex properly equipped, we got back to work. After another hour, Alex was spent, and the midmorning sun wasn’t helping.
“Hey, system,” I called out in frustration, “how about just Amy and I do the cleanup?” Even with the bone marrow cleansing pill, Alex was still only 5.
The response was immediate, dripping with condescension. Are you unable to read, Randy? It says ‘TOGETHER.’
“I CAN READ,” I shot back, annoyed.
Oh, well, to answer your question—no, it can’t be just you and Amy.
Great. We were stuck with the original plan. After another exhausting round of trash collection, we headed home and sorted the cans from the rest of the garbage, tossing the non-recyclables into the complex’s bins.
At the recycling center, we faced a short line and waited our turn. The place was cluttered with piles of crushed and bundled cans, all flattened into square shapes. When it was finally our turn, I emptied our haul onto the scale.
“You’ve got 1 lb of cans,” the attendant said. “That’s worth 25 cents.”
“Holy crap,” I muttered under my breath. “That’s about 4 cents an hour each! No wonder homeless people can’t make a living this way.”
Alex, with his ever-sharp mind, piped up. “Why don’t we buy two bicycles and two trailers? I can ride in one, and the trash can go in the other!” Of course most of the trash would be in the system space, but we had to make it look like we were storing it somewhere.
Amy and I exchanged a look. “That’s actually a pretty good idea,” she said. “There’s a bike shop a few miles down the road.” Off we went.
We didn’t go for the cheapest bikes; instead, we invested in quality, spending about $2,000. We had gotten loans and grants while getting our bachelors degrees and still had some leftover. “We’re running out of money,” I said, a little worried. “I really hope we finish this quest soon and find a way to make money.”
Back home in the evening, we set out on our new bikes, determined to finish our quest. “Wow, we picked up five times more trash in two hours than we did in the last two days!” I marveled. Alex, riding in the trailer, sorted the trash as we went, saving us time when we got home.
The next morning, I called into work. “I can’t come in today—I’ve got COVID.”
“What?” came the startled response.
“Uh, I mean I’ve got a cold.” “That was close,” I mumbled, quickly hanging up before they could ask any more questions.
By 9:00 AM, I was driving Amy, Alex, Maria, and Jose to their new school for registration. “I am so excited for school!” Jose was bouncing up and down on the seat. Alex rolled his eyes. I guess seeing Jose acting like the 5-year old he was, it would be hard for Alex to be friends with him.
When we arrived at school, there was a line. At the back of the line a chubby korean kid was listening to his mother, “I am so glad school is starting. The other day at target I heard this lady up in arms about the school asking for kleenex. Man this school can have whatever they want, binders, backpacks, pencils, whatever. As long as you are out of my hair.” “You realize I am your child right? With me out of the house there won’t be any peace at home, dad works nights. Dad is such a pervert, you will spend all your time in bed.”
I was shocked listening in on their conversation. But at this time the chubby kid turns around and spots Alex and Jose. “Hello, my name is Kim Ji-Min, what’s yours? I am so glad another Korean is going to this school. Everybody else I see are white kids or hispanics.” He speaks in a rapid fire manner, I can barely keep up. He looks again at Jose and says, “nothing against hispanics. I just feel more comfortable around other Koreans. It makes me feel like I fit in, without having to explain to some neanderthal where Korea is.” This kid just keeps talking real fast.
“Honey, I forgot something in the car.” I didn’t wish to remain in line anymore and went outside to look at the trees. One hour later, they came back out.
When I got home I asked about the registration. “Alex and Jose are in the same class with an average teacher.” Amy had made sure to do her homework on the school earlier that morning, so she knew the school and teachers' performance. “With Alex’s knowledge it doesn’t really matter what class he is in honestly, he just needs to get through school so he can get a certificate. Maybe we can make a TV show called Young Alex.”
The rest of the week was a mix of trash collection and work. We made another trip to the recycling center on Saturday, hauling in 30 lbs of aluminum, which earned us a whopping $7.50. Recycling was definitely not a lucrative gig, but at least we were making progress on our quest.
As we sat down that evening to tally our efforts, Alex looked at the pile of cash we’d earned from the cans, not thrilled. “At this rate, we’ll finish the 60 lbs in another week!”
“Let’s keep going,” I said, feeling a renewed sense of purpose. “We’re almost there.”