Act 3, Scene 6: “Suburban Surcharge”

In the city, TRL gave to the homeless. Small change every so often. It was hush money for his subconscious guilt. The price of living in a city. A street-dispensed city tax. In SB, TRL gets hit up not by smelly men with a menacing look in their eyes, but by fresh scrubbed youths looking for hand outs. And these end up costing TRL much more than money for the homeless. Yesterday it was Ben the Boy Scout hitting TRL up for $17, the cheapest selection on his sheet of flowers for Mother’s Day.

“Where is the money going?” asks TRL.

“Well, the profit, I mean the donation, is going to the Boy Scouts,” Ben responds, popping a small blue retainer out of his mouth, sniffling in the slight rain, apologizing sweetly for inexplicably popping out the retainer and sticking it back into his mouth. His electric scooter was parked out front, getting wet in the drizzle.

A few weeks before that it was the high school band selling M&Ms and other candy, which come to think of it, TRL realizes has never been delivered. (Is it uncool to rat out the high school band to the Better Business Bureau?) And before that, it was the smiley ten year-old girl with her even younger brother – with mom waiting on the sidewalk – selling more candy for some school group. The thing is, TRL has to buy. First, because these people know where he lives. And because he can see the name of his neighbors clearly on the sign-up sheet: he would look like a real heel to the neighbors should he not act like a good neighbor.

So he shells out for this hidden suburban tax.

But where, wonders TRL, as he pulls out a crumble of dollars, is the high school cheerleading squad’s car wash he has seen so much about in teen fantasy movies? Now that’s a tax he wouldn’t mind paying.