The “I Do” Joker: Or Why You Should Never Marry a Washing Machine
Part 1: The Final Boss in the Letterbox
The story of our collective annihilation began on a Tuesday at 11:42 a.m. Tuesday is a terrible day for life-changing disasters. On Mondays, you almost expect them. But on Tuesdays, you’re lulled into a false sense of security, because you think you’ve already got the hang of the week.
Lukas, my flatmate, was standing in our kitchen – which basically consisted of two hob plates, a mountain of empty mate bottles and a very ambitious mould culture in the fridge – staring at a piece of paper as if it were an ancient cursed scroll.
“Finn,” he said, his voice about two octaves higher than usual. “We’re dead. Not metaphorically ‘I lost my phone at the club’ dead, but ‘we’re going to have to sell our organs on the black market’ dead.”
I shoved a spoonful of cereal into my mouth – it tasted suspiciously like cardboard – and stepped up beside him. It was the utility bill. The figure at the bottom was printed in bold, black and downright malicious. It looked like a phone number, area code included.
“How do you even spend two thousand euros on heating?” I asked, horrified. “We wore jumpers all winter! I slept under three blankets and used the sound of my own teeth chattering as a sleep aid!”
“It’s the back payment,” Lukas whimpered. “And the electricity prices. And probably the fact that our washing machine sounds like it’s trying to open a portal to another dimension when it goes into spin cycle.”
At that moment, Mia walked into the kitchen. Mia is the third horseman of our shared flat apocalypse. She studies law, which theoretically makes her the most sensible one of us. In practice, it just means she can explain, using paragraphs and sub-clauses, exactly why we’re completely screwed.
“I’ve seen it,” she said curtly, dropping her bag onto the sticky kitchen table. “I checked my account. If I scrape together everything I have, I can buy us a pack of chewing gum and a bus ticket into anonymity. But the utility company will find us anywhere.”
We stared at each other. Three students in a city where a filled bread roll now costs about the same as a small car. We had no savings. We had no rich parents (mine send me socks and ‘helpful advice’ for Christmas). All we had was our audacity.
“We need an event,” Lukas said suddenly. His eyes had that dangerous glint they always got right before he dragged us into a disaster. “Something where people bring presents. Money. Lots of money.”
“A birthday?” I suggested. “Mine’s not for another six months.” “Too small,” said Lukas. “A funeral?” Mia asked dryly. “We could pretend Finn died. He looks like that in the mornings anyway.”
Lukas shook his head. “No. We need the holy grail of cash-generating events. We need a wedding.”
I laughed. “Lukas, none of us is even remotely in a relationship. You got rejected by a dating app AI last week because your profile was too boring. Mia ghosts even her food delivery bot. And me… I have an emotional bond with my gaming PC, but the registry office is weirdly strict about that.”
Lukas grinned. It was a grin straight from hell. “Who says the wedding has to be real? We invite everyone. Aunts, uncles, distant cousins you only ever see when there’s free food. We say it’s a spontaneous, unconventional ‘urban lifestyle wedding’ in a warehouse. We create an Amazon wish list full of stuff we can immediately sell on eBay. And at the end, we take the envelopes of cash and disappear to Portugal for a ‘sabbatical’.”
“That’s fraud,” said Mia. “That’s ‘creative fundraising’,” Lukas corrected her. “So who’s supposed to marry whom?” I asked.
Lukas looked from Mia to me. Then back to Mia. “You two,” he said simply. “You’re the perfect couple. You argue constantly about the washing-up, you get on each other’s nerves, and you already share a Netflix account. That’s more than most marriages can show after ten years.”
Mia and I stared at each other. My brain started racing. Two thousand euros in debt. An empty bank account. The threat of being thrown out. “I want a white dress,” Mia said after a long silence. “And if you hesitate during the vows, I’ll sue you for emotional damages.”
And that’s how, somewhere between a bowl of cardboard cereal and an astronomical electricity bill, the biggest scam of our generation was born.