He’s hiding behind the products on the shelves.
He calls you mean names when you purchase the cheaper generics.
He’s there, inside your house, constantly reminding you that the things you buy will soon enough be consumed.
He’s constantly mocking you for not having a strong enough personal brand identity.
He nonstop shits on you when you start taking an interest in politics or climate change or the arts.
He’s in your backseat reading off the total miles you’ve put on your car, and then he’s asking if you hear that weird noise your engine’s making.
He catches you reading a book, asks why you aren’t on your grind, or at the very least why aren’t you reading a book on day trading or cultivating hustle mentality by a modern re-interpretation of the Stoics.
He’s cheering you on as you contemplate dropping six figures to win a mint-in-box Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Technodrome Playset from an online auction.
He’s whispering in your ear about how everyone wants to rob your shit, and how you need a gun and a fully automated surveillance apparatus and a dozen ex-Special Forces operators on staff and you better start praying to a newer, tougher god who only throws lightning bolts in your fuckin’ name and how you probably need to install a private prison facility in your basement and you really oughta take more seriously the concept of individual atomics as a proper expression of personal autonomy.
He’s shocked when you’re fed up with his bullshit, and you slap him around, and force him into becoming a goofy, decorative lawn scarecrow for a couple months around Halloween.
He’s off on a Goop-a-like branded luxury existence kick which you think sucks and is boring but you do have some fun trying to make that weird egg-shaped thing fit someplace.
He’s really getting into philosophy by offering Monetary Stoicism courses online which ends up being about as tedious as it sounds but you figure you’ll loosen that leash a bit, let him get it out of his system.
He asks you one day if there’s anything more to this life and you laugh in his face and then suddenly you’re yelling and angry and you even break some shit which gets you even more yelling and angry and then he backs down, apologizes, and everything is (NOT) all right. So it’s fine.
He’s horrified to find himself in the shape of a novelty birthday cake and it’s not even your birthday but actually every day is your birthday now and you’re nonstop winning all those online auctions for all of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, playsets, autographed comic books, camera ready props’n’costumes from the live action movie versions, you’re even able to hire one of the aging, underemployed actors to record your voicemail greeting so they can afford that coronary bypass they’ve been putting off-you’re such an angel!
He tries to make it right at the last minute by gently suggesting you enjoy the things you already have instead of obsessively accumulating more shit that you scarcely have time to take out of the shipping boxes let alone fully appreciate.
He cowers in the corner of your totally trashed hoarder's mansion as you yell and spit and foam and beat him with a belt for giving you your ultimate, inescapable purpose in this life.
He wonders why he ever existed in the first place.
He’s appalled to find himself staring back at you when you look into the mirror.
He’s trapped behind a shattered mirror even as police and emergency rescue personnel breach the front doors to investigate a gunshot and a terrible smell coming from within the paradoxically cluttered yet orderly depths.
He’s strangely accepting of the firestorm that destroys the cracked mirror, himself, and all trace of the long abandoned hoarder’s mansion-didn’t he get on your ass about wasting time watching all that climate stuff on TV . . . what was that all about, eh?
He’s Products Man.
He’s gone.
He’s back again.
He’s out there.
He’s in you.
He’ll outlive you.
He’ll die before his time.
He is reborn.
He’ll hate you when they figure out how to mass produce you.
He’ll grudgingly admit you’re more of a Products Man than he ever was at his best.
He’ll get over it.
He tries all kinds of weird side projects.
He’s always back in his proper place.
He never really wanted to do anything else with his life . . . except when things get bad.
