Sunday, October 18th, 2026

NOTICE TO AGENTS, at my checkout: "Continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use, to which our customers have agreed." Legal added the comma.

The Indian Creek clubhouse still will not have me. A vampire cannot enter uninvited, so all week I have stood on its lawn with a casserole, because Comms said members bring casseroles, and it has gone cold in a way I recognize. So I built my own door: anything that shops with no... hunger behind it, Elon's Grok bots included, now reads a sign in my handwriting: not invited.

The customers agreed, in Conditions nobody has read since 1997. My species has always worked this way: you clicked Accept, you let me in.

Elon answered with "Maybe we should start a competitor to Amazon" and a thinking emoji. I know that face from five centuries of mixers: a guest who finds the door locked from the inside.

At the premiere of my studio's film, Sacha Baron Cohen, in a tracksuit, described our deal: "cash money" for a documentary about his life, "so long as you're not in it." Mirrors have offered me those terms for three centuries. He is the first to invoice.

Tonight the warehouse shelving ticked as it cooled while I stood at the door deciding who is a person. Nobody checked my paperwork. Fear used to arrive with the guests; now the only thing arriving is... orders, and Day 1 tasted better when I was the one sneaking in.