Infinitive Splitter

On the cutting edge, as always:

AOL LLC said today it will offer e-mail and other online services for free to all broadband customers and it will end its efforts to recruit new dial-up subscribers, as part of a major strategy shift to build its business around online advertising.

The Dulles company said it expects to cut $1 billion through the end of next year, mostly by scaling back marketing efforts related to its dial-up Internet service. The company plans to instead recruit more visitors to sign up as members on its Web site, aol.com, by luring Internet users who left AOL within the past two years to get their old e-mail addresses back.

“Now we offer AOL services for free, there is no reason for anyone to leave AOL,” said Jeff Bewkes, president and chief operating officer of AOL parent company Time Warner Inc.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where email is free and AOL is totally obsolete.

Remind me: how well did giving away instant messenger access — your one useful service — help you hold on to those millions of paying customers?

Send the answer to my Gmail address.

A play in one act.

I am sitting in my car, which is behind another one at a red light. We are both waiting for a left-turn arrow at a busy intersection. I am alone in the car, except for an envelope on the seat next to me. It holds more than $3,000, some of it in cash. I am determined to take it where it needs to go.

I am idly looking around the intersection, waiting for the light to change, when my car launches an unannounced boycott of my control and begins inching uphill toward the blue Volkswagen in front of me.

Or does it?? No! The Volkswagen is sliding back toward me!

ME: Ah, shit! Stop!

HONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNK.

It’s a duet, since the fellow in the car next to me has noticed the drifting as well. No use. BAM.

The light changes, and nobody moves for a moment. A man emerges in the back seat of the Volkswagen to survey the damage. I look at him through the glass and try to ask him for his honest opinion. I point through the windshield.

ME: Well? Uh…..?

I point at a nearby parking lot. He gives me a poker face. The Volkswagen drives away.

A chase! (?)

No. They pull into a nearby parking lot, but not the nearest one. We park. I steel myself for possible violence. There are three of them and only one of me (and my important cargo). The driver, a woman in her fifties, is the first to speak.

WOMAN: What happened? Did I roll back into you?

ME: Uh, yeah. That’s why we were honking.

WOMAN: Oh.

I survey the damage. There used to be more paint around the license plate, but that’s the only difference.

ME: Well, it looks all right.

WOMAN: (I don’t remember exactly what she said here, but it was something like) Oh.

They go shopping. I get back on the road to deliver the rent.

THE END.