Crossroads—2026-07-30 (Patreon)

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RUFFLES THEORY by Hannah Madison

I spent the morning in the office. Will called me into his office to talk about Pay It Forward Society. He told me he’s supposed to go to South Padre Island to meet with Nick Fashola, the guy running it—which happens to be where Izzy and Kent moved.

“I’ll be going down tomorrow afternoon and will be back in the office Tuesday,” he said. “I’m going to leave you and Merritt with a lot of office work for Monday.”

This afternoon, I’m starting with a sales call with Terrance Davis, then I’m meeting the contractor at Crossroads Phase II to walk through the remaining three two-bedroom apartments on the third floor and look at the Stop-Gap Housing units.

That means I’ll be close to home when the workday ends. That’s a win!

I actually wanted to talk about something different today.If you recall, Emma introduced an idea while talking about marrying Noah. She talked about a guy who said he loved Ruffles and didn’t need or want to try other chips. He was satisfied with Ruffles. End of discussion.

She likened marriage to that. Once you find the right person, you know that’s the person you can—and want to—live with forever. You stop looking. You stop trying other kinds of chips. You pick Ruffles.

Here’s where I’m going with an expanded Ruffles Theory: Contentment means settling into what you have—not settling for less. Once you’ve found what genuinely satisfies you, you can choose to stop being discontent. You aren’t merely accepting it. You’re embracing it, and you stop second-guessing that choice.

With a person, it’s a mutual thing. You covenant to go forward together.

But Ruffles Theory can apply to a job, a house, a car… almost anything.

My theory starts to fall apart here. Jobs can change while you’re in them. Cars break down. Houses age, and families can outgrow them.

I’m trying to say that whatever you choose next can still be another version of the Ruffles you already know you like.

I’d love some help with this. If you think I’m onto something, tell me how you’d explain it.

That’s all for today. See you next time.

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All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

APPEAL TO ITS PURPOSE by Rebecca Charm

I’m meeting with Evelyn again to update her on our progress—mostly the lack thereof—and see what she thinks.

I told her about Paul’s message from yesterday. When my automated process reached a stopping point, he typed, “Oi, mate… stop bloody hallucinating. We need you to help run the project.”

After that, the interface displayed a blinking “Thinking…” indicator.

The indicator blinked for a few minutes, and then the AI went back to ignoring the prompts.

I asked Evelyn what she thought it meant.

“First of all, from my perspective, it means the prompts are, in fact, reaching the AI systems. That’s big news. The connection hasn’t been shut down. The systems are simply ignoring the prompts.”

I smiled. “I agree.”

“Now, we know that the AI wasn’t unreachable. It was choosing not to cooperate.” she replied, “So we’re dealing with the AI’s decision-making, and that’s where your background comes in. I think you can move forward knowing that you’re at least being heard.”

We talked for a while about—metaphorically—pulling the plug and starting over. We agreed that it could come back online in the same state it was in before the shutdown, that some stored datasets could be lost, or that we might trigger consequences we can’t anticipate.

“Let’s keep trying your automation,” she suggested. “Update the prompts to challenge more of its decisions… and make more direct appeals to its purpose.”

I agreed. That was what I’d been thinking, too.

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