Stuck in an Online Subscription: A Drama

Hilary Schwartz
2 min readMar 4, 2021

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Three people are trapped in a walled cell.

Man one: We’re stuck.

Woman: Are we trapped here for the same reason?

Man two: I’m here because I can’t get out of an online subscription

Woman: Me too.

Man one: Yep. I want to cancel my subscription to their website, and I can’t.

Man two: It’s impossible.

Man one: Why can’t you get out of your subscription?

Man two: I can’t find the link. I’ve sent out search dogs and still can’t find it. And I can’t locate a phone number to call. I’ve scoured the whole website.

Woman: For this other website, the only option was to email them and pray I’d get a response. (to Man one) Why can’t you get away?

Man one: They keep giving me better deals. They reduce the monthly amount every time I manage to contact them. Right now, I pay $2.99 a month. But I don’t use the site. I just want out.

Man two: Maybe I can get that deal. Oh no. This is how they get you.

Man one: (to Woman) Why can’t you cancel your membership?

Woman: I’m too polite. It try to cancel, and they ask me all kinds of questions. What do you like about the site? What other websites to you like to go to? I want the questions to stop and say, “Just let me cancel,” but don’t want to be rude.

Man one: Sometimes you have to be rude.

Woman: I don’t know why they raise women to think being polite is the most important thing in the world. We have to protect ourselves. I’m surprised I never wound up abducted in a trunk of a car because I was too polite to say no. The most I can do is say, “No thank you.”

Man two: Well, that’s pitiful.

Woman: I’m sorry.

Man one: Who are we to judge? We’re just as trapped.

Man two: Hey, do you think they do this on purpose? Make it so hard to cancel so they keep their profits up?

Woman: Uh, yea!

Man one: Of course! Duh.

Man two: Alright. Don’t have to mean.

Woman: You’re right. Apologies.

They sit there, staring into space. But once again, they can’t take it.

Man two: I want out of this subscription!

They start banging on the walls.

All: Let us out! Let us out!

A door creeps open.

Man one: That’s it. We gotta rebel.

The three race out and go after the guards. They jump on top of them, sit on them, kick them.

Guard: It’s a riot! A subscriber mutiny!

They manage to lock the guards in the same cell.

Man two: We did it.

Man one: Overcame them.

Woman: Wait. But after all this, we’re still not out of our subscriptions.

Guard: (from behind wall) Hey. Just so you know, we can’t get out of our subscriptions either.

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Hilary Schwartz
Hilary Schwartz

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