Typical Day
Bingo Jambamalam, who lost a bet at the age of eighteen and had to legally change his name from something...more normal, wakes up as the setting summer sun shines onto his face through the window. He rubs his eyes and looks around his very own bedroom in his very own studio apartment outside Philadelphia. Bingo is twenty-two, and he's a pretty happy-go-lucky guy.
He worked a late shift last night and he has another one coming up tonight. That's okay. There's still time to relax for a while before midnight rolls around. Bingo works about a thirty-hour week on the expressway, earning enough to keep rent paid, food on the table, and all his limbs attached.
Lately, Bingo has been giving serious consideration to taking an online class or two from South Philly Community College. Even a fraction of an education, he feels, would give him the edge he needs to get a slightly better job when the inevitable robot invasion renders him redundant at his current gig.
The fast-approaching supreme domination of the robot working class is something with which Bingo has made peace. It keeps him humble, and it's better than living in denial. Bingo is too much of a sci-fi geek to defy his automated soon-to-be overlords.
After getting through a couple chapters of I, Robot, Bingo rolls out of bed, brushes his teeth, showers, deodorizes, dresses, and begins whipping up a breakfast-for-dinner that would make Jimmy Dean himself salivate.
Wolfing down what he calls a pancake burrito (you don't want to know), Bingo leaves the syrupy, greasy dish mountain he just created for later. Who has time for that when there are prime hours of toll-taking to gear up for?
Bingo plops down on the couch and flips on the tube to find the latest installment of Detective Cops, a gritty drama about—you guessed it—crime-busting cops with at least one major character flaw apiece.
Bingo's favorite character is the emotionally unavailable lead, Wolf Brickhouser, who's just seen too much horror to let anybody in. Bingo idolizes guys like Wolf, and fancies himself a little bit of a midnight tiger in his own right.
Once 12:00AM rolls around, Bingo bikes the half mile to his toll spot, goes into the building beside the highway, and says a quick "hello" to Marvin, the thirty-something coworker he's relieving. Then he takes the tunnel out to the third booth from the building, his part-time home.
Traffic is slow, so Bingo cracks open his book. A car pulls up about every page and a half, and Bingo performs each transaction in a friendly and happy manner, giving each driver a gloved thumbs-up as they pull off. Bingo has a break halfway through his shift, which he uses to enjoy a nice drink of water and a bag of potato chips.
Bingo keeps a watchful eye for potential trouble, but there's nothing out of the ordinary tonight. It's a pretty uneventful five hours, highlights including a couple people who were a little surly with Bingo when he insisted on them paying in American currency. That's okay—Bingo knows the type. Driving through at that hour, they must be in the middle of a long journey and very tired.
Bingo loves the cross-section of humanity he gets to interact with at this job. He also spends a little time browsing the SPCC course catalog.
And just like that, the sun's coming up, and Bingo's shift is done. Relatively painless, except for in his lungs, which are a little sore on the smoggy bike ride home. Bingo scarfs down a quick bowl of cereal before typing a "good morning" text to Irena, his lady-friend, brushing his teeth, and then conking out. "Life," Bingo thinks to himself, "is pretty grand."