The Meme Life

Chapter 5

The next few days go by, each similar to the previous. It's winter break, so there's another week and a half of no school. Violet comes and goes, but mostly stays. She only really goes home when she needs to grab clothes or her own memes to sell, shower, or grab money. Other than that, she's with me all the time. I'm starting to not mind it.

Today is a pretty relaxing day so far. Nobody has hit me up for memes, Violet is here, and the snow is making a beautiful blanket outside while I have a real blanket inside. I'm sitting under the covers on my bed with Violet. The two of us are both distracted by Stumblr memes.

I know, I know. Why do I keep letting Violet stay with me after she tried stealing my precious memes? It really does seem stupid, but I'm being cautious. My parents love her. She cleans up after herself and she's polite (other than meme stealing). It feels comfortable, like she was meant to be a part of this family. Even though I've only known her for a week, I feel like I've known her for a lifetime. It's weird.

I'm jolted out of of thoughts when the phone rings. It's Carl.

"Hey," I answer.

"Cena," he says. "Do you have any more copies of that meme? The one I bought a bunch of a few days ago? Trump?"

"Um, let me check." I pull the blankets off and the cold hits like a bus. On my desk, I have about four copies left. "Yeah, I do."

"How many?"

"Four."

"Do you think you can print more?"

"How many more?"

"396," Carl says. My eyes widen.

"Did you just say 396?" That can't be right. 396? Plus the four I already have? At $5 per meme, that's $2000 total.

"Yeah, I need 400 by tonight."

"Uh, sure thing," I say warily. "May I ask why you need so many?"

"You'll see tomorrow. Anyways, I'll be by to grab them at around five tonight. Sound good?" Five? I look at my clock and see that it's only ten in the morning.

"Sure. See you then." I hang up the call. Violet is looking at me expectantly. "Carl just asked me for 400 copies of a meme. And they need to be ready by tonight."

Her eyebrows went up and a smirk made its way to her mouth. "Let's get started," she said.

+ + +

Five hours and a trip to Staples later, all of the memes had printed out. Violet and I were on the carpet of my room cutting out memes. I borrowed my dad's paper-cutter to make things move along faster. I gave my small one to Violet, but it took her longer since it couldn't cut as many papers at once. I made sure that both of us were wearing gloves.

After an hour of cutting, it came time to package the memes. At our surprise trip to Staples, I bought ink, paper, and a couples boxes to package these all in.

"What do you think he's gonna do with all of these?" Vi asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe he's giving them out as party favors?"

"$2000 for party favors?" Violet scoffed. "Yeah right."

"Well what do you suppose he's doing with them?" I retorted.

"Maybe he's gonna turn around and sell them," suggested Vi.

"Maybe," I mumbled. We finished packing all of them and sealed the boxes with tape. 4:42 PM. Just in time. "Help me move these downstairs?" I asked. Violet nodded. I picked up one box and Violet got the other. As soon as we made it down the last step, my phone rang. I put the box down and answered it. "Hello?"