Autopsy · Subject M. ·
The delivery guy
No date held. $98.34 of Jamaican food, 45 minutes waiting in 2 mall parking lots, and the first member of her family I have met.
This report covers Friday, August 7. No date took place. The cost was $98.34. The duration recorded above is not time spent together; it is time spent waiting in 2 parking lots at the same mall.
Summary of charges
- Dates held: 0
- Time waiting: 45 minutes
- Travel, round trip: 90 minutes
- Out-of-pocket costs: $98.34
- Amount contributed by M.: $0.00
- Members of her family met: 1, by that person’s own decision
- Follow-up: none
Cumulative: $2,570.94 across 112 days, including $39.99 spent on August 3 on a year of a couples app, which is recorded on the closing form. Of the total, $1,228.94 has bought no date at all, which is 47.8 percent.
The schedule
On August 1 M. sent me a screenshot of her August work schedule. I read it as an account of how little room there was, which is what it was.
I also read it closely enough to see that she was working on the evening of August 7, and that the next open square was August 15.
On the morning of the 7th I asked her what time dinner could be delivered for her and her children. She was not expecting anything.
She replied:
“18:00”
A document establishing that there is no room in a month is also a document listing exactly when a person will be hungry and at work. I want it on the record that I received the first version and used the second.
The order
I found a Jamaican restaurant near her, drove to it after work, and collected meals for her and her children.
I asked where to send the food. She sent her address. At that point she understood a courier to be bringing it.
I then told her that I was the courier, that I would hand the meals over, and that I would be going straight home afterward.
The wait
She replied that she was at a mall nearby with her daughter.
She named a place to meet. I drove there, parked, and told her I had arrived. I waited about 30 minutes.
She then told me she was at a different part of the mall. I got back in the car, drove around to that side, and waited another 15 minutes.
Total: 45 minutes, across 2 parking lots, holding food that had been ordered for 18:00 at the request of the person who set that time.
I am recording that without adornment. The evening was mine to arrange and I arranged it as a surprise, which is a format that transfers all of the scheduling risk to the person springing it.
Her daughter
M. had told her daughter to wait in the car, on the grounds that the 2 of us had never met.
Her daughter declined and came with her.
That is the first member of M.’s family I have met in 112 days. It happened in a parking lot, over takeout containers, and it happened because a child overruled the instruction she had been given.
This file has recorded $846.10 for a resort weekend for M. and her children that I did not attend, $70.00 left on a gaming card for those same children in May, and a stretch of mid-term planning in July that included preparations for them. The introduction, when it came, was not arranged by either adult.
We walked back to her car. I handed over the food, hugged her, and drove home. The hug is mine, which makes 18 of the 19 initiations recorded in this arc.
The message
Later that night she wrote:
“We are full. That was a good choice. And the delivery guy was a good surprise too .”
There are 3 clauses in it. The first reports the outcome. The second assesses the selection. The third assesses the surprise and gives me a job title.
There is no thank you in it. I have read it a number of times to determine whether there is one somewhere in the structure, and the reading itself is the finding: 112 days in, I am parsing a 19-word message for a term that is either present in substance or absent in fact, and I cannot settle which.
She named me the delivery guy. Across this file my recorded contributions are logistics, payment, transport, reservations, and the correction of orders that arrive wrong. It is not an inaccurate title. It is the one the record supports.
Findings
Expenditures in this arc that bought no date: 4. The birthday cards on July 4 at $84.51, the resort on July 15 at $846.10 plus $160.00, a year of Paired on August 3 at $39.99, and this at $98.34. Together $1,228.94, or 47.8 percent of everything spent in 112 days.
Surprises attempted: 1. Waiting time generated by it: 45 minutes.
Travel: 90 minutes, mine, which takes the road column to 1,085 minutes against her 340.
Physical initiation: 1, mine.
Requests by M. preceding this: 0. It was not asked for.
Contributed by M.: $0.00, across 11 dates, 112 days and $2,570.94.
Costs
- Jamaican restaurant, meals for M. and her children: $98.34
- Total: $98.34
There is no cost per hour on this form. The denominator is the wait.
Running position: $2,570.94 out of pocket, 1,800 minutes in person, 1,085 minutes of road, 420 minutes of manufacture, $0.00 contributed by the other party.
Status
The follow-up field reads none. Nothing was scheduled in the parking lot.
The account is open. It records 13 disclaimers, 3 rationalizations, 14 outstanding policies, 1 introduction I did not arrange, and 1 job title.
Reciprocity scorecard
| Line item | Narrator | Subject | Test | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical initiation | 1 | 0 | both | observed |
| Paid | $98.34 | $0.00 | both | receipt |
| Travel | 1 hr 30 min | 0 min | within 40% | clock |
| Recorded, not counted | ||||
| Duration | 45 min | clock | ||
| Phone checks | 0 | observed | ||
| Cost | $98.34 | receipt | ||
| Requested of the other party | $0.00 | |||
| Follow-up | none | |||
| Reciprocity Index | 0 of 3 | |||
| Columns measured | 3 of 3 | |||
| Columns chosen by | the narrator | |||
The index counts the rows above Recorded, not counted — one credit each, except the proposal and the venue, which answer one question between them and take a single credit for the pair. Columns measured counts those same rows against a different question, not a narrower one: whether an instrument or a person produced the figure. A basis marked † is a figure nobody measured.