Well, between the Enchanted Convenience Store Workers' strike and our mounting debt, I've had no choice but to sign over Lucky Mart #11113b to Zag, the kindly leprechaun, till this all blows over. As part of the bankruptcy settlement that Zag has arranged, I'll also need to to indenture myself to him for a little while.

Zag says about 100 years should do it, so he's sealed me inside the fire hydrant to work the counter for the length of my term. It's more roomy than you'd think! There's the security camera feed to watch, Elven muzak on the speakers, enchanted slushy machines to clean, and even the occasional customer. I just know that will a little elbow grease, we're still going to be able to turn this thing around and become WILDLY rich!

We just need to figure out how to share these shifts for the next 100 years. Who wants next year? Guys? Are you still out there? Hey! Lemme know! .... guys?

Ah, yes @McQuestion, that could help explain some of these numbers we're seeing.

Now, we all knew that we wouldn't be making a profit right off the bat. Certainly not if you count our upfront investment. But apparently fairy items like Enchanted Donuts and Tiddlysparklypop have a VERY short shelf-life, and Zag, the kindly leprechaun who is acting as our store manager, says he still needs to get used to the rhythms of this particular location before he can fine tune our supply chain logistics. And costs. And losses.

As a result, Lucky Mart #11113b is severely behind in payments, not only to our suppliers, but also to the staff Zag has employed to run the shop. In order to keep the store afloat, I have taken a second mortgage out on my family's summer home on Lake Hali. And put the summer home in Zag's name. He assured me this was inline with GAFAP (Generally Accepted Fairy Accounting Principles) and the best way to ensure the success of Lucky Mart #11113b!

But this big sale at Convenience Cornucopia can't be helping. Can we cut prices any further? How else can we gain dominance of the fairy economy?

Yes @Mastodon King! In fact we made 10 Shadecoins on that transaction!

Do you see? This is how the New Economy works! As the reach of the Good People grows, the more Shadecoins we acquire. In this case, Lucky Mart #11113b reached out and actually bit you, and in that cross connection of our two universes the Shadecoin value increased by 10. Of course that number comes before expenses, but we’re in fine hands with Zag the kindly leprechaun doing our accounting.

We should encourage all of our friends—and engage them in social media—to let everyone know to depend on Lucky Mart #11113b, the fire hydrant at 5th and Main, for all their eerie, otherworldly, and otherwise paranormal experiences! We’ll be rich! Rich beyond our wildest dreams!!

Through the aid of @Basilton Pitch’s third cousin three times removed on his mother’s side, we have successfully completed the complicated and arcane ritual application process for a fairy franchise! Hurrah! 

There was one sticking point, which was the necessary Fairy ID. However, as a benefit of @McQuestion’s continual lurking around convenience stores, he was able to put us in contact with a kindly leprechaun named Zag, who, for what I can only assume was a fair and reasonable price, has sold us a Fairy ID from the “fae market.” How exciting to be in business with the Goode and Faire People! What could possibly go wrong?

Zag has also set us up with a prime piece of fairy real estate, a fire hydrant near 5th and Main. Apparently there’s a good amount of foot traffic there. We’ve mortgaged the Irrational Student Lounge to cover the cost (which Zag is helpfully handling for us as well). 

The final piece of our entrepreneurial puzzle was who exactly will run the store? I had been imagining myself proudly working he till, assisting sprites and brownies with their purchases, but how on earth would any of us possibly fit inside a fire hydrant? In this situation we have also been provided aid by the kindly leprechaun Zag, who, for a nominal fee, has offered to manage the staffing for our little fairy shop as well. 

Congratulations, everyone! We are now the proud owners of our own fairy franchise, Lucky Mart #11113b! 

Yes! And! Precisely, @Mastodon King! Let us respond to these sigils and enter into the sacred contract with the Fine and Goode People and take up a Fairy Franchise of our own!

But, I must admit, I am not fluent enough with their symbols to communicate with the Wee Folk through their own language. Perhaps we should reach out to @Harlow or even to @Petajoule66 or @Serafina Wolfsbane for their expertise in communicating in this fashion? Undoubtedly there are students with experience in this language that can assist us in this in this application process? And do we have the requisite Fairy ID on hand?

I believe it's quite clear what's happening, if we look at it from an irrational perspective.

As recently as eight to twelve generations ago, when your great mammy mammy mammy mammy was sitting on her great grandapappy's knee (and so few of us remember their names now, do we?), the subterranean and (for the most part) invisible people lived as manifestations of nature, and inhabited the caves and rocks and streams and forests of the Earth.

Now, however, what used to be an enchanted glen or haunted wood is a strip mall, complete with a Starbucks (if you're lucky) and a Subway Sandwich Shoppe and a mobile phone center and a dry cleaner and a secondhand shop or two. The trees are plowed under and the asphalt drains its muck into their watershed.

And so what else were the Fair Folke to do but adapt? To be sure, no small number of their kind went extinct in the process (most usually the kinder, more delicate ones). But those that survived (the "fittest" as it were, the most prone to shape change and spirit transformation) learned how to inhabit their new environment. They took on the discarded shells of commerce itself! Coke machines, magazines, devices of mass transit and media, self-checkout interfaces, the act of "transaction" itself... even "shell" companies came to be named after their subtle behavior.

I propose to you that the shapes and forms of the disposable political economy of which we are inhabitants have become inhabitated by these ancient, eternal spirits! As easily as we cast off receipts, fast food drink cups. and memories of our visit to the convenience store, these sentient elemental forces take up their mantel and LIVE WITHIN THEM!

It is a coming of age for the Good People, and though the ones that have survived and started to inhabit our commerical-cultural eco-system also tend to be somewhat coarse, I feel it is a wonderful time to be alive and witness this transmigration of the Faerie into the fabricated world in which we find ourselves.

And I, @Alphonse Peru, found myself in a veritable plastic eden, full of shiny synthetic fruits and wonders, none of which could provide me true sustenance or satisfaction, and I was forced to chose among them and trade a portion of my own life energy for the pleasure!

I say! Let’s meet immediately in the Irrational Student Lounge and get to the bottom of this!