Wow. This blog post itself is the only thing "beyond fiction" here. As I read it, Aaronson: 1. Stole money out of the tip jar due to some sort of incomprehensi

Wow. This blog post itself is the only thing "beyond fiction" here. As I read it, Aaronson: 1. Stole money out of the tip jar due to some sort of incomprehensible error, presented as though it is a normal human foible; 2. Was confronted by employees, whereupon he continued to somehow not understand that he had just taken money out of the tip jar. He put a dollar back in and walked away. Aaronson paints the employees' protestations that "this here is for tips" (a bit of dialect that tells us more, I suspect, about Aaronson's regard for smoothie bar employees than about what those employees actually said) as somehow not sufficiently clear, under the circumstances. Those circumstances being: he just took $4 from an unmarked plastic cup sitting on a tray thinking (for some reason) this was his change, only to have the employee point towards the vicinity of the cup and say something like "that's for tips." The employee continues to shout even after he has put a "tip" in the cup and begun to walk away. 3. Chalks this all up to his being a "nerdy outsider" (as though the smoothie place employees are all "insiders" on top of the world) 4. Is eventually confronted by police officers who, through dialogue that, as Aaronson has rendered it here, again probably tells us more about his own conceptions than about what was actually said, demand that he confess. Not surprisingly, the cops are pretty gruff with him. Among other things, they think that he's some jerk that just stole $4 in tips. (Which, of course, is at least partially true!) 5. Paints this interaction as yet another instance in which he was victimized because he is some sort of outsider. 6. Is eventually released by the police after, among other things, it is revealed that the smoothie bar employees people refused his offer of $40 and did not want the police involved in the first place. This is nice human behavior, which Aaronson continues to paint as somehow absurd. Aaronson describes this as being released because the cops "have no case." Actually, it sounds like they had him dead to rights, but it was a minor misunderstanding, so everyone decided to let it go--as they should have. 7. Draws from this the major lesson that he is always the victim of some "hostile theory" or other. If that's true, this is a particularly poor example, since he did actually still the tip money, under circumstances that, even as he described them, and with all the charity that this implies, defy reason. 8. Concludes that "the airport personnel responded to my honest mistakes with a maximum of cold bureaucracy rather than commonsense discussion." At least when it comes to the tip theft, this is manifestly false. The workers did not want the police involved, attempted to correct his error themselves through ordinary human interaction (which he somehow did not understand), generously rejected his offer of $40, and he was eventually released by the cops despite having committed a (very petty) crime. 9. Insight fully observes that "my belief in the universe’s grotesque awfulness clearly played a role in the events." This is an admirable humble insight. But he would be well served by isolating the part of his psyche that came up with this thought and give it a big promotion. It's not getting enough airtime as it is. I feel like I may be too harsh here but...what am I missing? Edit: Here's one thing I missed: I don't think Aaronson is a bad person because he somehow got confused at a smoothie counter. It sounds like he just had an off day, and I sympathize. It's his inclination to paint himself as the victim here, even after extended reflection, that strikes me as the real problem.