See, somethings that happen to Sasha are not really his fault. Every now and then, he gets abused.

One day, Sasha received an email about this webcompany named Cyber Rebate. Their gimmick was charging redicules prices and then offering rebates that made the products free. So you would pay $1000 for a DVD player and then receive $950 worth of rebates. Granted, most things they sell are pieces of junk, but using the site seemed simple enough to Sasha, who, in the course of two weeks, ordered around $500 in merchandise.

Sasha received 200 blank CDS for $100, a Barbeque grill big enough for 1 hamburger for $100, a Refrigirator that holds maybe a six pack of beer and is powered only by the car-lighter adapter included for $200, and a blender that really resembeled a fork attached to the bottom of a cup with a little handle on the bottom to turn the fork, for $100. Sasha printed out his rebates filled them out and left them on his desk - May 15 2001. The next morning, Sasha woke up, did his Sasha thing, and checked his email. There was a frantic email from his good friend Alex. "Urgent nfo bout cr.com!!!" read the subject. The email read like a depressing French Resistance film, perhaps The Sorrow and the Pitty. Sasha cried, sasha shouted, sasha cursed his dumb luck. Inevidably Sasha had been informed that Cyber Rebate had filled for bankruptcy that morning and would no longer be honoring rebates.

Sasha was stuck with a fork in a cup, a cooler big enough for 4 beers, 200 cdrs - and no cd burner - and a grill that made a lot of smoke, and cooked 1 burger. He was out quite a lot of money, but as he informed me, "Avi, just think of all the fun times we can have using my car powered fridge? I mean we can be driving and having a cold nice beer." My response, of course, was "you idiot. You don’t even own a car…not to mention the idea of drinking and driving." Now this story is not yet over, as Cyber Rebate is still filling for bankruptcy and Sasha may, just may, get his rebates honored, that is to say, if he had not used them to light his grill. "At least it is a good 'Sweeter than the Rest' for you," said Sasha as we spoke about this piece. I warned, "Look Sasha, I mean, I doubt I will ever run out of stories about you, and I can always start fictionalizing things, so please, don't go out there, into the real word, and act any more like yourself than you already do…I mean some people are diabetic you know."