This is not for Kumar, part 1

Lil is white trash. She does not live in a double-wide and make hot dog casserole, and in foreign lands she could easily pass, but she is white trash nonetheless.

Lyle is white trash. He does not buy potted meat or have a car up on blocks in his yard, but he is white trash nonetheless.

One day Lil and Lyle met, and something drew them together. Perhaps it was a disturbance in the philotic web, or maybe a magical Jungian archetype of a dirty rag as a gas cap that resonated in their minds, but whatever it was, they decided to keep in touch online and get to know each other better, with clear non-platonic overtones.

Lyle had a penchant for underdressed girls with a modest amount of tattooes and piercings and a full-on bent for drunken promiscuity. While Lil did not fit this stereotype well, she played up her sexual indiscriminateness and made up a few fetishes to impress him.

Lil needed a boy who would not judge her for all her faults and long history of poor decision-making. So Lyle pretended not to judge.

One-third deceit, one-third misinterpretation of Internet ambiguities, and one-third imagination led them to develop unrealistic perceptions of each other. Since they also had unrealistic perceptions of themselves, were fairly narcissistic, and were almost totally caught up in their own private melodramas, it took a while for the veil to come down.

Come down it did, like an avalanche of Kraft Dinner boxes falling off a Canadian supermarket shelf. Then they were angry. Then they were sad. Then they brushed on fresh new coats of self-delusion and heated up some chicken nuggets.