Third Class Superhero Read Online Free PDF Page A

yesterday?" she asks.
    We go weeks, years, putting off whatever it was we had started doing when we first started out doing whatever we had intended to do. When we first started out together. Young and stupid. Somewhere, our lifetime to-do list is sitting in a drawer. What is it we were going to do? We had plans, I think.
    We work. We sleep.
    I wake up in the middle of the night.
    My wife is staring at me.
    "What now?" she says.

    We plan a vacation.
    We want to see the Other. The travel agent sends us literature, glossies, video brochures.

    We choose a package deal with Authentic Experiences™.
    According to the brochure, there are five kinds of Experience: Urban, Rural, Semirural, Ethnic, and Ethnic with Danger. Standard Endangerment is Mild or Implied, but those in the know understand they may inquire discreetly about Actual Hazard—e.g.,
I've heard there might be something more?
whispered into the ear of a client services representative (along with a slip of paper, folded and pressed into the palm, on which has been written a four- or even low five-figure sum)—for which damage waiver/general release forms will have to be signed and notarized and the seriousness of the individual assessed and validated using his or her response to the questionnaire essay
What Is Wrong In The World Today?
in fifty words or less. From the brochure, we have Eric, 27, investment banker:

What Is Wrong In The World Today
is that people are dying. Poor people. In other countries. People are dying every day, dying of death, and also disease and starvation and malnutrition. People are dying and my generation just does not care. Including me. But I want to care. I really want to. I want to care so bad.
    We book a Deluxe Package. We get our shots, passports, sunscreen.
    The puddle jumper lands deep in the jungle. We discover an electronic ticker flowing down the middle of the Amazon. A river of ferocious velocity. Billions of shares traded globally every second.
    A man with a briefcase drops down from a tree. We've taken a vacation to get away from Car Commercial and ended up in Life Insurance/Asset Management. It's ten times worse. The big time, big budget—it's Super Bowl Worthy.

    "My clients want an asset allocation strategy that takes the emotion out of their investment decisions," says the asset manager.
    My wife picks up a fallen tree branch, as if to crush his skull.
    "Your hopes and dreams," he says, raising an arm in defense. "A unique product tailored to fit the needs of each individual customer."
    "A lot of things remain unsaid between us," I say.
    "You need a management consultant," he says. "There are the obvious financial/metaphysical issues to think about, of course. And you want the whole thing to be dignified and tax-efficient."
    "What whole thing?" asks my wife. She turns to me.
    "What does he mean by 'whole thing'?"
    We check into the hotel.
    We do buffets. Midnight and breakfast. Lunch is sandwiches and iced teas on the Veranda of Opportunity. The hotel bar is open twenty-four hours a day.
    The concierge informs us:
An informed client should carefully consider all relevant factors, including, but not limited to: the general political and socioeconomic climate, both domestically and abroad, historically low/high unemployment levels, gross inequality in the criminal justice system, buoyant consumer confidence, lack of self-confidence, frenzied retail spending, sneaky retail borrowing,
questionable consumer credit, evil interest rates, cutesy consumer angst, generalized anxiety disorder, pseudoreligious financial services advertising mumbo jumbo, and market volatility.
    I call down to the spa to book us husband-and-wife massages.
    "You have great hands," I tell the masseuse.
    The masseuse says:
I dream of the invisible hand. I want to outsource my manufacturing. I want to protect my family from unforeseen risks. I want to incorporate a transaction vehicle to effect a tax-free 368(a) reverse triangular merger. I